COMMUNITY ADVISORY BOARD

Steven Burton is a member of the Ramapough Lenape Nation and the Oneida Nation. Mr. Burton is a Native Veteran of the United States Air Force, serving the United States of America for 5 years from 1978-1982. 

Mr. Burton is currently Commission Co-chair of the New Jersey Commission on American Indian Affairs, which is part of the New Jersey Department of State. Mr. Burton has served as a Ramapough Lenape Representative since 2014. The Commission serves as a liaison among the tribes and the State and Federal governments. It is empowered to develop programs and projects to further understanding of New Jersey's American Indian history and culture. 

Mr. Burton is dedicated to ensuring that the American Indian Tribal members and communities within the State of New Jersey have full opportunities for their own cultural, educational, social, economic, physical, mental health, and welfare development. Previously, he served as the Deer Clan Chief for the Ramapough Lenape Nation from 2011-2012. 

Mr. Burton is a family man, married to Cheryl Burton and a proud father of two daughters and one son. 

Christine Haunani Akane Nakagawa (Kanaka Maoli) is a descendant of the indigenous people of the Hawaiian Islands as well as Japanese and Filipino immigrants to the illegally annexed and occupied Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. She holds a bachelor of science degree in Legal Studies from St. John’s University, where she founded the first student organization for Native American and Pacific Islanders at its Queens campus. Through St. John’s Indigenous, she was responsible for hosting several cultural workshops as well as servicing the population of indigenous students and faculty who were historically marginalized and misrepresented by the institution. She resides in the neighborhood of Jamaica, Queens, on the ancestral land of the Matinecock peoples. Christine is committed to servicing the needs of low income individuals and families of color, specifically for those of the Pasifika diaspora in the Northeast and in solidarity with Black, Indigenous, Latina/o/x, Asian, and queer community struggles worldwide. Christine’s favorite word is sovereignty and how it applies to land, housing, healthcare, education, and everything in between. Aʻohe hana nui ka aluʻia - no task is too big when done together - is her favorite ʻōlelo noʻeau (Hawaiian proverb).

Abigail Pérez Aguilera,  researches and writes about contemporary indigenous movements, ecofeminism, forced displacement, gender violence, global politics, environmental humanities and non-human agency in international politics. Her work appears in UNESCO Bulletin IESALC Reports on Higher Education, Perspectives on Global Development and Technology and “Ecocriticism and Indigenous Studies: Conversations from Earth to Cosmos” (ed. Joni Adamson and Salma Monani; Routledge, 2017).  She is a Key Researcher at the Humanities for the Environment, Latin American Observatory. She is the co-founder of the Indigenous Ecocriticism Special Interest Group in the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment.  She is currently working on a manuscript on The Non-Human in Global Politics: Indigenous Knowledge Systems and the Construction of Expertise. She currently teaches in Global Studies at The New School, where is is also an affiliated faculty at the Tishman Environment and Design Center, and its Indigeneity and Sustainability project (https://www.tishmancenter.org/indigeneity).

Kaylena Bray (Haudenosaunee/Seneca) is a member of the Seneca Nation of

Indians. She holds a B.A from Brown University, and MSc from the University of Oxford in Environmental Change and Management. Kaylena’s research and work are focused on raising public awareness about the vital links between food systems, Indigenous knowledge, and biocultural health. She has collaboratively brought multimedia exhibitions to international United Nations forums, the National Museum of the American Indian, and community venues. Her work spans social entrepreneurship programming at Ashoka, and she worked for several years strengthening urban California Native food systems with The Cultural Conservancy before co-founding a social enterprise, Musa Agaves. Currently, she is on the executive committee of Alianza Milpa, an Indigenous-led fund supporting seed diversity in Native and Indigenous communities across Turtle Island. She is pursuing a Doctor of Public Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and sits on multiple committees to support Indigenous participation and knowledge in underrepresented spaces.

Leonardo E. Figueroa Helland is an Associate Professor of Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management at The New School. He leads the Indigeneity and Sustainability project of the Tishman Environment and Design Center (https://www.tishmancenter.org/indigeneity). Centering Indigenous and decolonizing perspectives, his work addresses social, environmental and global crises with a view to nurture justice, whole health, the regeneration of the commons and the defense of Mother Earth. His research underlines the key role of Indigenous resurgence, the revitalization of Indigenous knowledges and the restoration of Indigenous lands and governance in addressing planetary challenges across multiple interconnected fields. This includes addressing challenges in fields such as social/environmental/climate justice, biocultural diversity, food systems, health, nutrition, migration, governance, social ecologies, reproductive justice and economics. Building and extending beyond his doctoral work on Indigenous Philosophy and World Politics, some of his latest writings appear in the Journal of World Systems Research, the journal Perspectives on Global Development and Technology, and the volume on Social Movements and World-System Transformation. He is currently working on a manuscript tentatively titled Anthropocene Collapse / Indigenous Resurgence: Decolonizing Pathways beyond Planetary Crises

Seth Hoy is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. He holds a B.A. in English from Boston College and has dedicated his career to advancing civil and human rights. Seth is currently the Director of Communications at Legal Services NYC, the nation’s largest provider of free civil legal services, which works to uplift and empower low-income communities across the city by preventing evictions and preserving housing; demanding access to high-quality education, health care, and economic security; ensuring safety and stability for survivors of domestic violence and immigrants; and fighting for the dignity and respect of all New Yorkers, including LGBTQ communities, New Yorkers with disabilities, and people of color. Previously, Seth served as Director of Public Information at the NYC Commission on Human Rights which fights discrimination citywide. Seth is also a member of Legal Services NYC’s Indigenous Affinity Group which seeks to eliminate the invisibility of Indigenous people, give voice to indigenous perspectives within the organization, and increase outreach and awareness of Legal Services' programs among urban Indigenous communities in New York City.

Chief Reggie Ceaser is a Medicine Man and Chief of the Matinecock Tribe of Long Island. He has taught Asian healing arts for thirty years at the Swedish Institute and was on the NY State Board of Education. Chief Reggie is a practitioner and instructor in many forms of massage therapy, including Tui-na, Thai massage, Shiatsu. Thai Herbal medicine, auricular and foot massage. He has had a private practice for over forty-five years in Queens. Chief Reggie is also a cultural consultant and brings education to the community surrounding Indigenous groups of Queens and Long Island.