team
INDIGENOUS LED's origin story emerges from hundreds of Blackfoot community voices and the wisdom of our Elders who counseled that our work is to heal divides. In keeping with the Anishinaabe prophecy of the Seventh Fire and the Mi’kmaw understanding of Two-Eyed Seeing, we come together as a team of both Native and non-Native people dedicated to bridging worlds in order to facilitate the ecological and cultural healing urgently needed.
We are advised by a council of Knowledge Keepers, steered by a commitment to Indigenous leadership, and grounded by a deep love for our more-than-human relatives and their homelands. We continue to contemplate what it means to be a team that walks in many worlds, and we welcome conversation with people of all backgrounds who are curious about our approach.
The hearts and minds below are not the only ones that lift our work – our familial network of partnership is core to our collective power and the to natural world that we are devoted to protect, heal, and celebrate.
Meet the Team
Ervin Carlson
Co-Founder & Strategic Advisor
Blackfeet Nation
Ervin is the Co-Founder and a Strategic Advisor to INDIGENOUS LED. Ervin currently serves as the Director of the Blackfeet Nation’s Buffalo Program and President of the InterTribal Buffalo Council (ITBC). The Blackfeet herd is managed to a conservation and cultural vision. Ervin has worked for decades to bring into reality a vision of bison ranging freely once again across Blackfoot Traditional Territory. ITBC was formed in 1990 to coordinate and assist tribes in returning buffalo to Indian country and has grown to represent 79 Tribal Nations. Ervin holds intimate knowledge of bison restoration from an Indigenous perspective, is an active cattle rancher, and has previously served on the Blackfeet Tribal Council.
Cristina Mormorunni
Co-Founder & Executive Director
Metis/Sardo
Cristina is the Co-Founder of INDIGENOUS LED and currently serves as its Director, with responsibility for strategic leadership & creative direction. She has 30 years of applied experience from the Arctic to the Antarctic leading campaigns & designing biocultural conservation strategies for non-profits, foundations & individual donors. She also serves as the Founder & Principle of the TERRAMAR collective, which provides strategic advice to foundations and non-profits interested in Indigenous-led conservation and the protection of biocultural diversity. She is vaguely obsessed with restoring Buffalo and her dog, Oberon.
Stephanie Barron, MSC.
Consulting scientific advisor
Chiricahua Apache, Xicana, German
Stephanie (she/her) is the Consulting Scientific Advisor for INDIGENOUS LED. She has worked in the fields of botany, forestry, fisheries, wildlife, and environmental education. She graduated with a Masters of Environmental Science degree and Natural Resource Conflict Resolution certificate from the University of Montana. Stephanie's research foci include: traditional ecological knowledge, human-carnivore conflict prevention, community-based conservation, and decolonial curricula development. Engaging communities in shifting perspectives of keystone relatives is what she is most passionate about. In the photo above, Stephanie stands within the deserts of the Ute and Southern Paiute people.
Sara Little bear
Youth Programs Lead
Blackfoot
Sara (she/her) is the Youth Programs Coordinator for INDIGENOUS LED. Sara’s professional experience has provided her the opportunity to work with youth across the Blackfoot Confederacy for the past 5+ years in overseeing youth employment programs in various public sector service environments. Sara's educational background lies within Agricultural and Marketing Studies. Sara’s Blackfoot cultural principles and morals have also been a significant influence to the driving force of her work. For INDIGENOUS LED Sara will design, implement, and coordinate youth programs with Team Iinnii for indigenous youth to advance ecological and cultural literacy, to connect with the more than human world, and inspire and empower youth voices and action.
charlie carpenter
braided science fellow
Cherokee/Soulaan
Charlie (he/him) is the Braided Science Program Fellow. He is an Afro-Indigenous and Latino conservationist passionate about bringing diversity into conservation spaces. With a graduate degree in Conservation Medicine and a background in conservation work with African wildlife and chemical immobilization, Charlie’s current focus is on Indigenous-led conservation efforts across Turtle Island. His work centers on creating effective, ethical, and sustainable conservation strategies by braiding Traditional Ecological Knowledge with Western Science. Outside of work, Charlie enjoys spending time wit his fur babies that include two dogs, two cats, and a bunny.
Gavin Noyes
Arts, Advocacy & Healing Program Coordinator
Gavin (he/him) is the Arts, Advocacy, and Healing Program Coordinator with INDIGENOUS LED. Gavin has been celebrating lands, water, and wildlife on U.S. public lands while running nonprofits and programs at Save Our Canyons, Round River Conservation Studies, Utah Diné Bikéyah, and the Conservation Lands Foundation since 1999. With INDIGENOUS LED, Gavin supports community organizers who weave arts, local foods, language, culture, and spiritual practices into campaign strategies to strengthen community relationships and the engagement of all beings across Native American ancestral lands. Gavin was raised in Salt Lake City, Utah, lands of Ute, Goshute, Paiute, and Shoshone People. He holds degrees in natural resources, Japanese language and culture, and public policy.
Kelsey Pazera
Operations & EvEnts CoordinatoR
Kelsey (she/her) most recently served as the Program Manager for WCS Rockies, holding core responsibilities for supporting the work through her administrative, operational, and logistical skills. Kelsey also regularly contributes to event planning and gatherings. In her new role with Indigenous Led, she will provide core programmatic and administrative support for Team Iinnii. Kelsey has a depth of experience working in the Rocky Mountains and has focused much of her energy and talents over the course of the last decade to the protection and promotion of bio-cultural diversity in the Rockies through social science and land-based projects.
Olivé
Manager, Storytelling & Communications
Tongan
Olivé (oh-lee-vay) is the Manager, Storytelling & Communications for INDIGENOUS LED. As a Tongan woman with immigrant roots tied to Japan, she continually works to amplify underexplored narratives from those living multi-hyphenated experiences to subvert expectations. Olivé utilizes her work as a filmmaker and scholar to passionately advocate for educational equity in providing opportunity and facilitating growth for future generations. In her current position, she helps to actualize weaving Indigenous led conservation methodologies, like rematriation, into digital storytelling platforms to inspire and empower change. In her free time, Olivé can be found doing solo karaoke in her car or cuddling with her baby Shih-Tzu named Ewok.
Chantal Raguin
Consulting GOVERNANCE LIASON
Chantal (she/her) is interested in the intersections of story, law, and policy. After two years of collaboration with INDIGENOUS LED on media and design, Chantal became interested in the ways that narratives shape and steer systems of governance. She now studies law at the University of Colorado Boulder, drawing on her legal coursework and experience as a creative producer to contribute to INDIGENOUS LED’s advocacy and justice strategies. Chantal loves cooking, hiking, and learning. When she’s not reading or writing, she can often be found outside.
Lailani Upham
Consulting Strategist
Blackfoot/Aaniiih/Dakota
Lailani is an adventurer, filmmaker, photojournalist, writer, and teacher. Lailani works to capture stories that inspire people of all walks of life to consider their relationship with the natural world from an Indigenous lens, while advocating to preserve traditional indigenous practices. She’s worked as a journalist for over 20 years and has taught indigenous story-based video, writing, and podcast, courses at tribal colleges. Lailani is the founder of Iron Shield Creative, a consultancy fostering Indigenous storytelling in all aspects of work, including guided cultural hikes. Lailani adds to the INDIGENOUS LED team to produce a podcasts and blogs that spread in-depth understanding of our work.
Marleen Villanueva
Consulting Strategist
Pame Chichimeca
Marleen (she/her) supports INDIGENOUS LED as a Narrative Strategy Consultant for Buffalo restoration. Marleen is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Social Justice Education Department at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, and a former Elementary school teacher. By bringing together Indigenous Studies, Environmental Education, and Social Justice Education, her work adds to discussions around water protection with a specific focus on the waters of Central Texas, Yana Wana. She has worked in various roles at cultural and social justice organizations including the Center for Story-Based Strategy and the Indigenous Cultures Institute.
Brent was an exceptional wildlife biologist and landscape ecologist with a laugh that could make a stone statue smile. Brent produced landmark work applying GIS & spatial analytics to conservation science, and he continued to do so through his very last days in this realm. Brent was beautifully devoted to Buffalo, working lands, and the people that cared for them. He was humble, thoughtful, and wildly funny, and he tended to his collection of carnivorous plants with a passion that awed our entire team. We are committed to carrying forward the many gifts that Brent gave to our movement, and we dedicate our work this year to him. Brent, we love and miss you more than words can express.