FOR URBAN NATIVES BY URBAN NATIVES

Sutton King, MPH, Nāēqtaw-Pianakiw (comes first woman), is the co-founder, president and co-director of UIC.  Afro-Indigenous, descendent of the Menominee and Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, she is a graduate of NYU School of Global Public Health. Living on unceded territory of the Siwanoy (The Bronx) for over a decade, she is  an internationally recognized Indigenous rights activist, public health advocate, researcher and social entrepreneur she is dedicated to developing and scaling innovative solutions to improve Indigenous health equity across sectors. For the last decade she has implemented culturally appropriate and equitable methodologies within healthcare, technology and philanthropy. Her commitment to scaling innovative solutions that support mental health, women’s rights, drug policy reform, bioculture conservation and access and benefit sharing for Indigenous peoples is achieving change and gaining national recognition along the way. Her publications in research have explored the intersectionality of kinship and Indigenous evaluation perspectives, as well as the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on communities of color, particularly American Indian/Alaska Native populations.

As a founder, advisor and speaker, Sutton’s work has been widely recognized by national publications and documentaries including the New York Times, ABC, Business Insider, Forbes, Science News, AM New York and more. In 2020 she was nominated as a David Prize finalist for her work to create a better, brighter New York City. In 2020, Sutton was named a New York visionary and nominated as a David Prize finalist. She is a MIT Indigenous Solve fellow and a 3x NYU Fellow participating in the NYU ignite alpha and beta fellowships. In 2021, she was named an NYU Female Founder and “one of the 100 most influential people in psychedelics” by Psychedelic Invest and PsychedStudio. In 2022, Business Insider recognized her as one of the 16 most influential women shaping Psychedelics. In 2023  HyphaeLeaks included Sutton among the '50 Disruptors in Sacred Medicine Who Actually Do Shit.' In 2024, she further solidified her presence in the psychedelic community, being featured in HyphaeLeaks' '100 Grassroots Psychedelic Community Leaders You Need to Know in 2024.'

Early in her career, in partnership with Kognito, the DOJ and Indian Country Child Trauma Center, she led the development of the first culturally tailored trauma-informed simulation training law enforcement professionals how to engage with tribal youth. She implemented this programming as well as suicide prevention technology in eighty different tribes across the country. Following that, she joined the New York Indian Council, the Urban Indian Health Program of NYC as the Director of health and wellness. Currently, she is the Co-Founder of ShockTalk, a culturally tailored telemental health platform that facilitates culturally appropriate patient-provider relationships for Indigenous communities. Through her consulting business, Sutton King LLC, she advises organizations ranging from startup companies to philanthropies on culturally tailored strategies, stakeholder models, access and benefit sharing through social impact investment and giving.

In her role as an advocate, she sits on the Sovereign Bodies Institute  Survivors’ Leadership Council, made up of Indigenous survivors of trafficking and survival sex work from across North America. This council was put together to advocate for victims and survivors, provide peer support to movement leaders who are survivors, and create a platform for survivor voices, so that the world can learn directly from survivors. 

Sutton@urbanindigenouscollective.org

Ariel Richer is a Co-founder and Co-director at Urban Indigenous Collective. She is Afro-Indigenous and white; descendant of the Carib Indians, the Indigenous people of Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela. Ariel is an Assistant Professor at the University of Utah, College of Social Work. Ariel earned both a Master’s Degree and a PhD in Social Work at Columbia University School of Social Work, and has been a Licensed Master Social Worker for 8 years. Her research focus is on intimate partner violence and increasing access to relevant services for Black and Indigenous women who experience structural stigma related to drug use, involvement in the criminal-legal system, sexuality, and racism. Her work is grounded in principles of community-based participatory research, as she works collaboratively with Black and Indigenous communities.

Previously, she worked as an Impact Evaluator at the Administration for Native Americans where she worked directly with community-based organizations developing logic models, evaluation plans, data collection tools, and processes. She is fiercely committed to addressing gender-based issues at large, especially gender-based violence, and has over nine years of experience within domestic violence organizations, sexual assault resource centers, and economic enhancement programs serving survivors of trafficking and domestic violence.

Ariel@urbanindigenouscollective.org