Tina Alexis is Dakelh (Carrier) and a member of the Ulkatcho First Nation. She is the granddaughter of Peter & Minnie Alexis of Tiyakoh/River Road (Blackwater) and the daughter of Cecilia Alexis and George Chantyman.

Tina is currently a doctoral student in the Department of Indigenous Studies at the University of Saskatchewan. She completed her Master of Education at the University of Saskatchewan in 2019 and obtained her Bachelor of Arts in Indigenous Studies at the University of British Columbia in 2017. Like many First Nations, the Dakelh people are experiencing socio-cultural disturbances and intergenerational disruption of traditional knowledge transmission. Tshe primary research question, ‘how can the reclamation of traditional Dakelh teachings help restore community well-being?’ will be addressed by reconstructing pre-contact Dakelh worldviews, knowledge systems, cultural values, teachings, and knowledge transmission.

By helping to restore these teachings, this study will assist community efforts to regain their healthy, vibrant, stabilized, and self-determining selves. This study will take on a mixed methods qualitive research approach drawing on; Storywork, Conversational Method and, Indigenous Oral history. The seven key principles in Storywork promise deeper insights into story meanings (Archibald 2008, 140). The conversational method allows for storytelling, yarning, talk story, re-storying and re-membering (Kovach 2010, 124), and Indigenous oral history provides “insights into the cultural values and laws” (Wheeler 2010, 47). Reclaiming Dakelh cultural knowledge, in the aftermath of colonial genocide, will help re-create community balance and autonomy.

Renzo Aroni is a Quechua self-taught musician-scholar, activist, podcaster, and historian of modern Latin America, primarily twentieth and twenty-first-century Peru. He is a Mellon Postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the Columbia Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities, and the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race (CSER). Aroni’s research interests include social movements and revolutions; human rights and memory studies; Indigenous oral history and tradition; Andean knowledge, culture, and music; Quechua language revitalization processes; Indigenous migrations, refugees, and internally displaced persons.

He received his Ph.D. in History with dual emphases in Human Rights and Native American Studies from the University of California, Davis (2020) and his M.A. in Anthropology, focusing on Ethnomusicology from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Aroni is completing his manuscript, Indigenous Peasants at War: Resistance and Massacre in Peru’s Shining Path. His writings have appeared in journals, such as Latin American Perspectives and NACLA Report on the Americas, in the Peruvian media, and as book chapters in Spanish and English.

Mohammad Musa Aziz is a cultural expert with a focus on Afghanistan, South Asia, and the Middle East. With a background in Public Policy, Conflict Studies, Cultural Relations, Migration, and Psychosocial Studies, Musa has extensive experience working with refugees, newcomers, internally displaced people, and minorities. Musa is an expert on cultural sensitivities and societal structures in the region and utilises peace journalism for conflict transformation in conflict and post-conflict settings. Musa's current project is focused on Oral History in Afghanistan.

Autumn Brown earned her Ph.D. in Social Foundations of Education from Oklahoma State University where she is a research professional in the Edmon Low Library with the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program. Her dissertation was an educational biography of teacher activist Clara Luper (1923-2011) and Luper’s work with Oklahoma City’s NAACP Youth Council leading our nation’s first sit-in movement–preceding Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Woolworth sit-ins. Dr. Brown uses oral history methodology to collect and preserve stories about Oklahoma City’s Civil Rights Movement, (re)presenting Oklahoma City as a radically activist state.

Autumn has published book chapters on Black women and sexuality, racial dimensions of life writing, and the history of all-Black schools in Oklahoma City, and journal articles on the policing of the Black woman body and the 2018 Oklahoma City teacher walkout. Autumn served as IMLS Research Scholar on the Eddie Faye Gates Tulsa Race Massacre Collection at Gilcrease Museum from 2021-2022. She was also the 2022-2023 Duane H. King Postdoctoral Fellow at the Helmerich Center for American Research at Gilcrease Museum/University of Tulsa. Dr. Brown is also part of the inaugural cohort of John Robert Lewis Fellows and Scholars with the Faith & Politics Institute in Washington, D.C. Autumn runs her own research consulting business named Winona Jewel Research Consulting, LLC, serves on the Board of Directors for BLAC, inc. (Black Liberated Arts Center), and manages the Clara Luper Freedom Archive in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Jad Orphée Chami (he/him) is an artist-researcher specializing in oral history performance, as well as a composer for film, theatre, and dance. He is based between Montréal and Paris, with roots in Beirut. At the age of 21, he was nominated for the Iris Prize for Best Original Score for the film Antigone, which was Canada's selection for the 92nd Academy Awards. In 2020, he was awarded the MEC scholarship to pursue his master's degree at the Graduate School of Research ArTeC in Paris, from which he graduated in 2022. Recently, he received a grant from the Québec Art Council to support the production of his upcoming album.

After gaining initial experience in composing music for testimony-based theatre with the Lebanese production Umbilical Cord in 2015, Orphée further delved into the realm of oral history in 2018 during his BFA program at Concordia University. This exposure came about through his involvement in the research-creation project titled Community by its very presence, which explored oral history performance in the context of restorative justice. The project was directed by Dr. Luis Carlos Sotelo Castro, who held Canada's research chair in Oral History Performance and received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Orphée's research-creation master's thesis, Rhapsody for the disappeared: The rhapsody as a space of liaison between music and oral history in the context of the disappeared of Lebanon, supervised by the French playwright David Lescot, was awarded the highest honors.

Following his thesis defense, he presented his work at the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris in the form of an autoethnographic performance incorporating composed and improvised music, new media, movement and verbatim theatre. As an affiliate of the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling in Montréal, he has shared his research-creation through talks, performances, and workshops at events such as the Oral History Association Annual Conference. Currently, Orphée's primary focus revolves around exploring lamentation as a rhapsodic performance of grief within the context of Euripides' Greek tragedy The Trojan Women, drawing parallels to the post-civil war situation in Lebanon. With this pursuit in mind, he aspires to continue weaving testimonies, notably within an eventual doctoral degree.

Huili Chen is a multidisciplinary technologist/researcher/scientist/designer, currently pursuing a Ph.D at MIT Media Lab. She works at the intersection of social robotics, human-centered AI, and interactive storytelling. She conducts research that advances the state-of-the-art in socially intelligent robots that interact with humans, as well as research that investigates the social, cognitive and emotional impact of robots on humans in various interaction contexts.

With the pursuit of intellectual unity, she is interested in taking cross-disciplinary approaches to seek answers to fundamental questions on human experience and extending the boundaries of human capacity. Her creative interests range from multimedia art installations (e.g., NostalgiaBot) to VR for reducing prejudice (e.g., TransFormation), from poetry of science (e.g., To Be Understood) to photography work (e.g., solo traveling in East Africa). Her interest in oral history stems from a belief in the transformative power of narrative. In the AI revolution, where machines are increasingly encroaching on domains once unique to humans, it is crucial to rethink and understand what it means to be human and what values underpin human identity. 

As both a field and a method, oral history has the transformative potential to provide new perspectives and lenses to help reshape the dialogue surrounding the relationship between humans and AI. She hopes to learn more about the oral history with a call for a new narrative of intelligence and human identity in the midst of the AI revolution.

Nat DiFrank M.Ed (they/he) is a queer and trans centered sexuality and gender educator, fat liberationist, consultant, and historian. He is a transmasculine butch who utilizes education as a form of radical community healing. With over 7 years of teaching and care work experience, Nat creates affirming spaces that foster growth, introspection, and vulnerability. He is the manager of the Trans Oral History Project at the University of Pennsylvania in collaboration with the William Way LGBT Community Center. The Trans Oral History Project focuses on making publicly accessible the stories of trans and nonbinary people with connections to Philadelphia, PA. Nat’s work is by and for trans and gender non-conforming individuals and centers the power of trans community care.

Vanessa Dorion is an artist from Ottawa, focusing on her passion and love of theatre. In 2022, she trained as a Stage Manager, working on local productions in her city and University. An example of this was when she worked as Assistant Stage Manager during the Youth Infringement Festival bilingual show A demain and was later awarded best of the festival. She is working on her production company Lagarfljot Production and plans to produce her own show by next year. She has a background in Sound engineering and sound design. In 2021, she worked on a podcast piece with Fixt Point Media, Empathy Squad, and her piece focused on the Artist community in Ottawa affected by the Pandemic and their biggest current struggles.

Vanessa is currently working on her undergrad in History and Theory of Architecture. She hopes to continue her specialty. She became fascinated with the phenomenon of liminal space and explored empty spaces that caused a unique spatial experience. She enjoys creative writing, sewing, and illustration projects in her free time.

Kamalu du Preez (she/they) is an Oʻahu-based Kanaka ʻŌiwi cultural practitioner and museum professional. She focused on both Cultural Anthropology and Art History while at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and continued her academic work at the Center for Pacific Islands Studies.

She has worked at the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum for over two decades in the Ethnology Department and has represented the museum in traveling exhibitions, museum field-related discussion panels, and through cultural protocols in international and domestic settings. Since 2021, Kamalu has taken on the role of Cultural Resource Specialist, combining her experience and knowledge in collections care, community-building, and deep commitment to cultural practices. As Cultural Resource Specialist, Kamalu is also directly supporting efforts at Bishop Museum to bridge public programming, cultural collections, and cultural knowledge bearers in the community. Her focus in cultural practice stems from multiple sources, with strong foundations in hula and kapa. Under Kumu Hula John Keola Lake, Kamalu gained extensive training in dance, chant, and cultural protocols, successfully completing ʻuniki rites as ʻōlapa. Kamalu has spent most of her time in kapa making under the guidance of Moana Kalikookalani McPherson Eisele of Oʻahu.

Kamaluʻs practical and conceptual basis for kapa making represent engagements with ancestral practices, processes, and purposes to ensure that future generations always have connections to kapa. This experience has also been brought to bear in the museum world on multiple occasions. In 2018, she was responsible for protocol in dressing an image of the akua Kū with a contemporary malo in preparation for the opening of Oceania at the Royal Academy of Arts in London; in 2019, she prepared and completed a malo for an image of the akua Kū and assisted in protocols needed to appropriately display the image at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem.

Anjulie Ganti, MPH, MSW is a social justice educator in public health and social work and is the recipient of the 2023 University of Washington Distinguished Teaching Award, one of the highest honors offered to the faculty. Her teaching and practice is anti-racist and justice focused.

She teaches students how to link theory to practice, deconstruct their biases, embrace their vulnerabilities, and to engage with the people they have committed to serve. Her scholarly work includes infusing anti-racist and decolonizing teaching pedagogies in the classroom and recently has expanded to working with museums to use oral history to document stories of resistance and resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her oral history work was featured in Community Spread: How We Faced a Pandemic at the Wing Luke Museum in Seattle, WA and in Pandemic Perspectives at the WA State History Museum in Tacoma, WA.

Anjulie continues to collect oral histories from numerous diverse communities in WA State with the goal of co-curating exhibits steeped in these stories at various heritage museums around the state. Anjulie is an Associate Teaching Professor, at the University of Washington School of Public Health and Associate Director of Experiential Learning overseeing service-learning capstones, internships and honors programs. She also taught and directed professional development programs for the University of Washington School of Social Work for over a decade. Her practice background is in reproductive justice, youth empowerment and arts and culture. 

Anjulie holds an MPH (Columbia University, 2007) and an MSW (University of Washington, 2005). She lives in Seattle with her partner and two teenage kiddos.

Meredith Gavrin has been an educator for over thirty years. She studied American History and American Studies as an undergraduate at Princeton University and received her M.Ed. from Harvard University. After teaching for several years in a “start-up” public middle and high school in New York City, she moved to New Haven, and in 2003, she and her husband co-founded New Haven Academy, a public “interdistrict magnet” high school in the New Haven Public Schools system.

In Connecticut, interdistrict magnet schools are part of the state’s effort to draw students and families across district and neighborhood lines to redress de facto racial and economic segregation. The school’s magnet theme is civic engagement and social justice, and the school is one of the founding members of the Partner Schools Network of the organization Facing History and Ourselves, an international education organization that “uses lessons of history to challenge teachers and their students to stand up to bigotry and hate.” Although Meredith works primarily as an administrator, she also continues to teach Civics to 12th grade students.

In addition, she is on the Advisory Group for the Partner Schools Network of Facing History and Ourselves, served on the board of the Fund for Women and Girls of the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, and was a member of the Educator Task Force of Educating for American Democracy. Outside of work, Meredith keeps busy with her three kids and one dog.

Matt Jones is a lecturer and oral historian with the Eastern Michigan University Archives. Since founding the EMU Oral History Program in 2018, Jones, in collaboration with University Archivist Alexis Braun Marks, have grown the program by fostering unique relationships across academic disciplines. In 2020, the EMU Oral History Program outfitted and introduced the EMU Aerie, a mobile oral history recording booth designed to eliminate barriers to campus access. The Aerie is now in regular use by Jones’ Oral History Techniques students. Infuriatingly by-the-seat-of-the-pants in his learning style, Jones is looking to gaining a little more structure and discipline in his own oral history work.

Marie Larose earned her Ph. D in French and Francophone Studies from Brown University. Her research focuses on 20th and 21st century Francophone literature specifically from France, the Caribbean and Mauritius. Her work applies theories from gender, postcolonial, Black, disability, psychoanalytic, popular culture, and literary critical studies to explore the intricate links between violence and genealogy in the works of female writers, including Marie NDiaye, Kettly Mars, Marie Vieux-Chauvet, Ken Bugul, Marie-Célie Agnant, and Ananda Devi. She is also working on a digital archive of French Creole folktales throughout the Caribbean.

Tina Law (she/her) is a sociologist who studies race and ethnicity, inequality, and social change in U.S. cities.

Her research is centered on understanding the social and political experiences of racially minoritized residents in cities, and she uses computational, quantitative, and historical methods to examine how they are impacted by urban transformations and their strategies for fostering political empowerment and self-determination. In particular, she is interested in examining the stories that residents choose to tell about their cities and how storytelling can be an ordinary yet underappreciated mechanism for maintaining or challenging racial inequality within a city, primarily by shaping local understandings of racial inequality as well as who can act to address racial inequality and what types of actions they can take.

She received her Ph.D. in sociology from Northwestern University in 2022. She is currently a Postdoctoral Scholar with the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality at the CUNY Graduate Center and will be joining UC Davis as an Assistant Professor of Sociology in July 2024.

Candace Maldonado is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and a minor in Women’s Studies from California State University, Dominguez Hills.

Candace is currently employed as a Grant Specialist at the Los Angeles Centers for Alcohol and Drug Abuse (L.A. CADA), where she functions as a grant writer, manages grants, and does program development at the corporate level for this non-profit organization. With a workforce of over 500 employees, the organization serves diverse populations in Los Angeles County, including the unhoused, LGBTQIA+ community, pregnant and parenting women, and the formerly incarcerated or justice-involved population. Her work involves securing federal, state, and local grants to support the organization’s important initiatives in substance use disorder treatment, mental health care services, behavioral health care services, and supportive housing services. In addition to her role at the Los Angeles Centers for Alcohol and Drug Abuse, Candace serves as a Mental Health Worker Advisory Board Member at Cerritos College, a community college in Los Angeles County, providing valuable insights and support to enhance the Mental Health Worker Program.

With a strong passion for social justice and a commitment to making a positive impact in the field of social services, Candace is focused on looking at criminal justice reform and alternatives to incarceration through her professional and academic work. 

Rose Masters is a National Park Ranger in the Division of Interpretation at Manzanar National Historic Site, where she first began working in 2002.  She has led the site's expansive oral history program for the past eight years, and works in annual partnership with the Manzanar Committee on the intensive, educational Katari program.  Rose holds a Master's in Eastern Classics from St. John's College in Santa Fe, NM.

Tonia Cansler Merideth is the oral historian for the Williamsburg Bray School. As Oral Historian, Tonia will connect with the descendant community, restoration specialists, exhibit designers and members of the Bray School Board and Advisory Council to capture and preserve the legacy of the Bray School. Tonia was introduced to oral history work as an intern at the African American Library at the Gregory School in Houston, TX. 

She also gained experience working with the descendant communities at historic sites in Houston's Fourth Ward, including Olivewood Cemetery and the Rutherford B. H. Yates museum. In 2019, these sites were recognized by UNESCO and placed on their Slave Route Project. Tonia earned her master's degree in history from Sam Houston State University, where she also served as president of the Sigma Phi chapter of Phi Alpha Theta National History Honor Society. Tonia's interest in the Bray School dates back to 2013, when she learned about the school on her first trip to Williamsburg.

She credits the discovery of the school with inspiring her to leave her career in education administration to pursue a master's degree in history. Recently, she learned through genealogical research that she is a member of the Bray School descendant community.

Marina Perez (she/they) is an interdisciplinary scholar, community educator, and cultural worker with roots in the Southern Sierra Madre Occidental of West Mexico.

For the past decade, Marina has worked with Los Angeles-based arts organizations specializing in community and cultural art-making practices. She is a co-founder of Indigenous Honeys, a zine collective dedicated to highlighting the work of Indigenous peoples. She earned an MA in American Indian Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2022 and is now a Ph.D. student in Art History at the University of New Mexico. Her scholarship addresses emerging themes in contemporary Native arts, archives, and oral histories. 

Natasha Popowich serves as a lecturer in the African American Studies department at California State University, Fullerton, where she teaches Ethnic Studies and Hip Hop Culture. Natasha earned her BA in English with a double minor in Gender Studies and Pre-Law from the University of the Pacific and her MA in American Studies from California State University, Fullerton, where she is also pursuing a second MA in History.

Her academic areas of interest are race and ethnicity, public memory and dark tourism, and popular culture as a form of pedagogy. She has previously presented research at the National Conference of Undergraduate Research, the Pacific Undergraduate Research & Creativity Conference, the American Studies Student Association Symposium, the Looking Back, Talking Back, Moving Forward conference presented by the Southeastern American Studies Association, and the Western Association of Women Historians Conference. Natasha is a passionate advocate for the study of oral history and its usage in exploring African Americans’ rich cultural and historical contributions. She recently completed an oral history project centered around Black Lives Matter and Covid-19.

Vivita Ramadhar is a rising senior at NYU, studying English and Political Science. As a child of Guyanese immigrants, she was always immersed in a culture of oral history, tracing the calypsonian cadence of gyaffin’, the stories and traumas running through bottom houses and canefields alike. In Caribbean culture, everything is colored in the belaboring legacy of colonialism.

For oral history, it, in itself, is a linguistic rebellion—how African, Asian, and Amerindian languages cast the Guyanese-Creole “basilect.” This speaks to their core preservationists: the women whose stories are spoken in caution and dreams, lying at the intersection of racism, sexism, and imperialism. Being the product of a matriarchy, Vivita always considered subaltern women the strongest and most passionate; accordingly, she has devoted most of her work to recounting the stories of her foremothers. In the same way, Guyana calls to her as her motherland, and she can do nothing but stake her life to hers.

For Vivita, orality is a dual upheaval, restructuring history while preserving the resonance of long-silenced voices. Whereas the conventional archive prides itself on the maintenance of primary objects, oral history is transcendent, lacking temporality, as the political continues to permeate the personal.

Johara Suleiman is a Somali European American, Muslim woman in her 3rd year of the University of Minnesota's School of Social Work PhD program. Her research focuses on the child welfare system as a site of racialization, and the impacts this has on Muslim, Black, African immigrants. She is deeply interested in intersectional, relational, and globalized ways of understanding race and racialization, and the points at which immigration and child welfare meet. 

Miriam Elizabeth Villanueva is a Latin American historian with a specialization in Latin American dictatorships during the Cold War, with a particular focus on the Panamanian military regime's cultural policy to nationalize the Panama Canal during the height of the US-USSR conflict. Her approach to research incorporates interdisciplinary methods, cultural theory, and oral histories conducted over five years. Through her work, she aims to shed light on the experiences of Panamanian intellectuals and artists.

One of Miriam's notable contributions is her authorship of the book chapter titled "Third Worldism and the Panama Canal: Liberating the Isthmus, 1971-1978" in the edited collection Latin America and the Global Cold War, which showcases the latest scholarship in the field of inter-American history. Miriam is actively involved in presenting her research and conducting workshops related to Latin American Studies and promoting Latine inclusion. Her presentations at esteemed conferences such as the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations and the Latin American Studies Association have generated significant interest in Central American Cold War history. In the realm of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ), Miriam has engaged with various independent schools and participated in the National Association of Independent Schools People of Color Conference.

Her efforts have focused on collaborating with institutions to support, promote, and retain Latine students and faculty members. Miriam emphasizes the importance of creating safe and brave spaces for Latine academics and nurturing an inclusive educational environment. Miriam also works as an educator at Phillips Academy, a boarding school located in Andover, Massachusetts. In her role,she has developed a holistic approach to working with students both inside and outside the classroom, shaping their overall educational experience. She has had the opportunity to design courses aligned with her expertise and has served on advisory boards for curriculum design projects and art re-installation projects at the Boston Athenaeum.

Miriam has also contributed to committees on re-evaluating book purchases for inclusive stacks at the Oliver Wendell Holmes library and participated in a curriculum review for Andover's Archive and Special Collections department. While Miriam practices her scholarship and teaches in Massachusetts, she strongly identifies as a fronteriza (borderlander) from the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Her formative years were spent living along the river, where she found joy and learning experiences despite the challengesposed by the militarization of the border. Miriam's approach as a historian and storyteller is deeply rooted in the teachings she received from her elders and community in the Rio Grande Valley.

Dr. Nadejda I. Webb is an ACLS Emerging Voices postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins in Black Data and Black DH. Her research explores imaginaries in the quotidian, belonging, and representation. Before completing her joint-Ph.D. in English and Comparative Media Analyses and Practice at Vanderbilt, Nadejda earned a B.A. in English Literature at the City University of New York (CUNY) Hunter College.

Orilonise C.D. Yarborough (pronouns: she/they | pronunciation: oh-ree-low-knee-shay) is a Black queer public historian, writer, curator and creative.

They recently received their Masters in Public History at North Carolina Central University, where their thesis work focused on the development of an oral history collection about the history and spread of D.C. Black Pride. Her research interests include Black LGBTQ histories, Black women's resistance movements, and African American spiritual traditions and practices. A lover of history since childhood, Orilonise's start in the field came through her curatorial work with Black in Space, a collective of Black creatives based in D.C. who held the first virtual Black Pride festival in 2020. Orilonise has worked with institutions such as the Hirshhorn Museum, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture at Duke University, and the Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice.

As a creative and curator, she seeks to use historical research in creative and refreshing ways, engaging in historical interpretation with the communities she calls home. In the spirit of Zora Neale Hurston, she sees the practice of historical research as "poking and prying with a purpose", allowing curiosity, creativity and connection to community to guide her curatorial exploration.