Research
Places and people
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Klamath River Basin of Northern California and Southern Oregon: Karuk, Yurok, Hoopa, and Klamath Tribes
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Southwest and Southcentral Alaska: Yupik and Dena’ina Athabascan Peoples
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Central British Columbia: Tŝideldel First Nations
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Eastern Kenya: Tharaka People
Applied, community based participatory approach
Using the CBPR approach, community identified social and ecological priorities become my research priorities through long-term relationships, focus groups, and one-on-one engagement prior to project development. My infrastructure of CBPR include: 1) University IRB and community and approval to guarantee intellectual property is properly handled and protected and data sovereignty is ensured, 2) Community leadership or co-leadership on projects with subawards to communities, 3) Integration of a diversity of knowledges and discussion of this process throughout the project, 4) Collaborative decision making, 5) Sustained community oversight over all project objectives, and 6) Community co-authorship.
Sustainable and resilient food and seed systems
This research area focuses on sustainable and resilient local/regional food and seed systems in the context of underserved and vulnerable populations. Throughout my research career I have worked with many different components of food and seed systems including home gardens, commercial agriculture operations, food assistance programs, formal and informal seed systems, and market and subsistence food economies. This research theme will continue these endeavors working specifically with vulnerable and underserved populations, including Indigenous communities, immigrants, refugees, migrant workers, and small-holder farmers, to investigate how food and seed systems can better serve the most vulnerable and food insecure populations to support resilience and wellbeing of individuals, households, and communities.
Climate change and traditional foods access, health, and management
My most recent research with the Karuk Tribe in California and coastal communities in Alaska focuses on vulnerabilities and resilience of cultural agroecosystems in the face of climate change and mismanagement. I will continue this research objective throughout my career. Future research interests include: exploring contemporary, community based response and adaptions, identifying the needs of cultural use plant species in their response to climate change, and supporting the integration of Indigenous management practices into landscape revitalization and restoration plans. This work aims to support restoration efforts and advocacy for co-management or sole management of land and resources.
Environmental components of food security and nutrition
Ecological systems are closely tied to food security, sovereignty, and holistic wellbeing of Indigenous Peoples and smallholder food producers around the world. While environmental components are underrecognized in how extremely high rates of food insecurity in Indigenous communities manifest, it is well known that ecological wellbeing and biological conservation are closely tied to Indigenous wellbeing. This research area works with Native American tribes throughout the United States and Canada and state and federal agencies to include ecological wellbeing in how food security is defined and measured with, for, and by Indigenous populations, and ultimately the solutions and programs that are identified to address food security and wellbeing with Indigenous communities.
Migrating place based social-ecological systems
One of the implications of climate change is not only shifting distributions of species but also the migration of people. In Alaska, Indigenous people are moving from village, to hub towns, to urban spaces, a trend only expected to amplify alongside climate change. For place-based cultures, moving out of place presents questions about the continuity of culture, knowledge, and practice connected to culturally significant plant species in which Indigenous people have been tied to since time immemorial. It also presents policy and sovereignty questions around gathering out of place. This research theme seeks to understand the implications of human migration on culturally significant species and related knowledge, culture, practice, and policy.
