Associate Professor
UBC Okanagan

Jeannette Armstrong, Ph.D., fluent Okanagan/Nsyilxcən speaker and knowledge keeper of the Syilx Okanagan people, is an Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Knowledge at UBC Okanagan. She collaborates with Salish-speaking groups to re-establish Indigenous languages, historical relationships and food resource ceremonies through gatherings, trading, and protections of water and land practices. She is a recipient of the Eco Trust USA Buffett Award in Indigenous Leadership and serves on Canada’s Aboriginal Traditional Knowledge Subcommittee of COSEWIC.

Founder and Director
ShadeTree Multicultural Foundation

Orland Bishop, founder and Director of ShadeTree Multicultural Foundation in Los Angeles, an intentional community of mentors, elders, teachers, artists, healers and advocates for the healthy development of children and youth, has pioneered innovative approaches to urban truces and mentoring at-risk youth that draw from his extensive study of medicine, naturopathy, psychology, and African Indigenous cosmologies.

Co-Founder
Beyond Boudaries

Gigi Coyle is a community activist, council facilitator, rite-of-passage guide, and a mentor to a number of individuals, communities and organizations. She is currently working with several organizations, including: Youth Passageways, ShadeTree Multicultural Foundation, the Ojai Foundation, Weaving Earth, and Beyond Boundaries. Her work, which has included co-founding such initiatives as: Walking Water; A Practice of Council; and “The Box, Remembering the Gift,” has always been focused on healing ways through ceremony, inter-generational projects of prayer, action, and service.

Co-Director
The Ojai Foundation

Brendan Clarke, a father, educator, writer and guide whose work focuses on healthy human relationships with self, community and the cosmos, especially at the intersection of social and ecological justice, resilience and response, currently serves as Co-Director of The Ojai Foundation with his wife, Shay.

Justine Epstein is a community organizer, rites of passage guide and council carrier in the lineage of Beyond Boundaries. Her work focuses on healing from inherited systems of colonization, white supremacy, cis-hetero patriarchy and global capitalism through community, practices, prayer, storytelling and relationship with the more than human world, with a particular focus on anti-racism and wealth redistribution.

San Francisco Unified School District’s Indian Education Program

Paloma Flores, of California Indian Pit River Nation and P'urhépecha de Mexico ancestry, an activist and voice for her people, coordinates the San Francisco Unified School District’s Indian Education Program, co-directs the Bioneers Native Youth Leadership Program, and is a board member for the American Indian Cultural District San Francisco. She is also an artist, a Peace and Dignity Journeys intercontinental prayer runner, and a dancer. 

Founder and Artistic Director
Truthworker Theatre Company

Samara Gaev, founder and Artistic Director of Truthworker Theatre Company, is a Brooklyn-based activist, educator, facilitator, theater director, and performer with 20 years' experience using performance as a tool for cross-cultural healing and social change. Her work, which has taken her to Zimbabwe, Senegal, Hawaii, Brazil, Peru, Cuba, Germany, Scotland, and throughout the U.S., examines and challenges constructions of power, privilege, the prison industrial complex, and other systems of oppression.

Co-Founder
Weaving Earth Center for Relational Education

Dave Hage, co-founder of the Weaving Earth Center for Relational Education and a member of the teaching team for the Weaving Earth Immersion program (and a white, cis-man of northern European descent from Southern Pomo territory, also known as Sonoma County) is a wilderness guide and nature connection mentor.

Activist, Singer/Songwriter

Tokata (Future) Iron Eyes, a young (17) activist (and singer/songwriter) from the Standing Rock Sioux tribe deeply engaged in Indigenous rights and environmental struggles ranging from the fight against the Dakota Access pipeline to the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women to Climate Change, has spoken around the world and was recently featured on the Marvel Hero Project on Disney+, a series shining light on young people changing the world. In 2019, she hosted Greta Thunberg across Indian Country.

Pat McCabe (Weyakpa Najin Win/Woman Stands Shining), of Diné (Navajo) ancestry but also adopted into Lakota spiritual traditions, is a rural New Mexico-based mother, grandmother, activist, artist, writer, ceremonial leader, and international speaker. A voice for global peace, her multi-faceted work includes exploring issues of sustainability and balance and the reconciliation between the masculine and feminine.

Founder and President
Global Center for Indigenous Leadership and Lifeways

Ilarion (Kuuyux) Merculieff, raised in a traditional Unangan (Aleut) way, recognized as a carrier of ancient knowledge into modern times, has co-founded, chaired or directed a number of leading Alaska Indigenous and environmental groups, including the Alaska Indigenous Council on Marine Mammals; the Alaska chapter of the Nature Conservancy; the International Bering Sea Forum; the Alaska Forum on the Environment, and the Alaska Oceans Network. He has presented at numerous scientific conferences and chaired the Indigenous knowledge sessions at the Global Summit of Indigenous Peoples on Climate Change. He is the author of: Wisdom Keeper: One Man’s Journey to Honor the Untold Story of the Unangan People, and co-authored Stop Talking: Indigenous Ways of Teaching and Learning, and Perspectives on Indigenous Issues: Essays on Science, Spirituality, Partnerships, and the Power of Words. He co-founded a council of Elders called 'the Wisdom Weavers of the world', and he currently leads GCILL - the Global Center for Indigenous Leadership and Lifeways.

Co-Founder and Executive Director
The Humane Prison Hospice Project

Ladybird Morgan, who has worked as a registered nurse, clinical social worker, healer and educator for 20+ years, is co-founder and Executive Director of The Humane Prison Hospice Project whose mission is to implement end-of-life care in prisons by training prisoners to be caregivers. Ladybird has worked with many organizations including The Zen Hospice Project and Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and co-facilitates circles at Commonweal and UCSF/MERI Center's Last Acts of Kindness Program. Aside from her work for Humane (speaking on panels, presenting at various end of life events, general advocacy), Ladybird has also been going into San Quentin prison working with the prisoner-formed Brothers Keepers group on their crisis intervention and peer support programs.

Shlomo Pesach is a community organizer, queer mentor and Jewish ritualist devoted to cultivating flourishing fugitive queer futures.

Director
Difficult Dialogues Initiative

Libby Roderick, Director of the Difficult Dialogues Initiative and co-founder of the Difficult Dialogues National Resource Center, is the co-author/editor of many books and articles and works with universities across the U.S. and in South Africa to increase their capacity to effectively conduct difficult dialogues and apply Indigenous ways of teaching and learning. Libby is also an internationally recognized singer/songwriter whose six recordings have received extensive airplay on Earth and, in 2003, NASA played her song "Dig Down Deep" on the planet Mars as encouragement to the robot "Spirit."

Author

Luis J. Rodriguez has spent 40 years doing poetry readings, talks, and leading healing circles as well as creative writing classes in prisons, juvenile lockups, and jails. He has written 16 books in all genres, including the bestselling memoir: Always Running, La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. His latest book is: From Our Land to Our Land: Essays, Journeys and Imaginings from a Native Xicanx Writer. From 2014-2016 Luis served as Los Angeles’ Poet Laureate.

Senior Fellow
Center for Whole Communities

Kristin Rothballer, a social change leader focused on the intersection of personal, social and ecological healing and transformation, consults on strategy, programs, equity and organizational development for nonprofits, foundations, social and land-based enterprises. Her current projects include serving as a Senior Fellow for Center for Whole Communities and pursuing a Masters in Social Transformation at Pacific School of Religion (at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA). Kristin's previous roles and projects included: co-founding and directing Green for All, working to build an inclusive green economy; helping design FIREROCK, a musical to engage people around climate change; guiding wilderness-based retreats for Ecology of Awakening; helping manage the Bell Valley Retreat and Tunitas Creek Ranch retreat centers; and working as Director of Programs at Bioneers. Kristin has also stewarded the Tyler Rigg Foundation for 20+ years.

Marlowe Sam, Ph.D., a Wenatchi/Lakes descendant from the Colville Confederated Tribes of Washington State, is a longtime Indigenous Rights activist and a scholar/researcher in Indigenous Studies with a special focus on Indigenous Water Rights in Canada.

Author

Anita Sanchez, Ph.D., of Aztec and Latina ancestry, has drawn from Indigenous wisdom and modern science to guide thousands of leaders in corporations and nonprofits in creating diverse and inclusive workplaces and communities. She is the author of six books, including the international bestselling: Success University for Women in Business, and the International Latino Book Award winner: The Four Sacred Gifts: Indigenous Wisdom for Modern Times.

Co-Founder and Facilitator
Weaving Earth Center for Relational Education

Will Scott is a co-founder and facilitator at the Weaving Earth Center for Relational Education, which works to create systems change through education at the confluences of social and environmental justice.

Co-Director
Ojai Foundation

Sharon Shay Sloan, Co-Director of the Ojai Foundation, is a rites-of-passage guide and council trainer who has worked with a number of organizations over the years, including: Beyond Boundaries, Wilderness Reflections, School of Lost Borders, Global Passageways, and Youth Passageways. She also worked in international conservation for a decade, including as founding Director for the Indigenous & Community Lands & Seas program for The WILD Foundation and with the World Wilderness Congress.

China Soriano, an Indigenous/Chicana youth raised in California's Ojai Valley, currently a Chicana/o Studies major at California State University Channel Islands in Ventura County (where she is a part of the Empowered Womxn of Color Peer Mentorship Program), is an activist dedicated to combating the injustices of the criminal justice system, to community service including volunteering in support of children from Indigenous migrant families, and to preserving cultural traditions such as Danza Mexica.

Director of Training and Technical Assistance
National Compadres Network

Jerry Tello of Mexican, Texan and Coahuiltecan ancestry, raised in South Central Los Angeles, has worked for 40+ years as a leading expert in transformational healing for men and boys of color; racial justice; peaceful community mobilization; and providing domestic violence awareness, healing, and support services to war veterans and their spouses. Director of Training and Technical Assistance for the National Compadres Network and an award-winning author of many publications (including, most recently: Recovering Your Sacredness), he also leads a weekly podcast, Healing Generations.