Multispecies Planetary Commitments and Research

María Elena García is a Peruvian woman of Quechua ancestry, and Professor in the Comparative History of Ideas at the University of Washington in Seattle. Her most recent book, Gastropolitics and the Specter of Race: Stories of Capital, Culture, and Coloniality in Peru (UC Press, 2021), offers a critical exploration of Peru’s so-called gastronomic revolution, focusing on the intersections of race, species, and capital. In 2022, Gastropolitics and the Specter of Race won the Flora Tristán Prize for Best Book from the Peru Section of the Latin American Studies Association. Her next project, Landscapes of Death: Political Violence Beyond the Human in the Peruvian Andes, considers the impact of political violence on more-than-human life (animals, lands, rivers, glaciers) in Peru during the recent war between the state and the Shining Path (1980-2000). 

Eliza Naranjo Morse is a multi-disciplinary artist and cultural advocate from Kha’p’o Owingeh (Santa Clara Pueblo) in Northern New Mexico. Her work spans art, institutional engagement, and land-based practices, with a focus on connecting people to the beyond human world. Naranjo Morse collaborates with major institutions, including the National Museum of Women in the Arts, National Museum of the American Indian, and the Museum of Contemporary Native American Art. Her most recent work can be accessed here. She also contributes to efforts like Kindle Project’s Stars and Seeds, supporting women and environmental justice in New Mexico. An educator at Kha'P’o Community School, she integrates land-based art education into her curriculum, fostering creative connections between students and their environment. A graduate of Skidmore College, and an ongoing student of her extended family, she continues to blend her artistic, educational, and land efforts to consider the possibility that exists within our cultural institutions and strives to create work that reflects on humans' place in the natural world.  

June L. Lorenzo, Laguna Pueblo and Navajo (Diné), attorney and consultant, lives and works in her home community of Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico.  She has practiced law in tribal, state and federal courts, and has served as judge for 6 native nations in New Mexico. She has served as attorney for Navajo Nation and Laguna Pueblo, the US Senate and US House of Representative committees; the US Department of Justice (voting rights litigation), and land claims litigation.  She has worked in human rights advocacy for Indigenous Peoples before the United Nations and the Organization of American States for over 20 years, including negotiation on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the recently adopted WIPO Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge. She has participated in UN reviews of the United States’ compliance with the ICERD and the ICCPR treaties, negotiations on instruments to protect Indigenous Peoples’ traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions before the World intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and negotiations on a binding instrument on transnational corporations and human rights. As a member of a community affected by uranium mining, she works with community organizations to do education and advocacy on uranium mining legacy issues and protection of sacred areas. She holds a JD from Cornell Law School and a PhD in Justice Studies from Arizona State University. 

Forest Isbell is an Associate Professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior and a Fellow at the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota. He has served as the director of the MnDRIVE Environment program (2022-2023), the associate director of Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve (2015-2022), and on the editorial boards of top ecological journals, including Ecology Letters. His research considers how human activities are changing biodiversity, and how changes in biodiversity cause changes in ecosystem functioning, stability, and services. Many of his studies focus on plant diversity in grasslands and forests. He has also reintroduced bison to an oak savannah. His research has been published in top scientific journals and he is recognized as a Clarivate highly cited researcher. He is actively involved in science-policy efforts, including contributing to expert information documents for the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, multiple assessments by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, and the First National Nature Assessment of the U.S.

Belinda H.Y. Chiu is founder of Hummingbird research coaching consulting LLC and serves as visiting/program faculty with the Tuck School of Business and Dartmouth College, where she previously served as Senior Associate Director of Admissions. A Certified Teacher with the Google-born Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, she coaches executive and senior leaders in the public and private sectors, including environmental justice organizations and scientific research institutions. Her leadership and coordination roles  focus on mindful emotional intelligence in higher education institutions and include MIT, Rutgers, and UBC, among others. She has served as International Liaison with the U.S. State Department on a project with 46 selected delegates from around the world on women in STEM and is a board member for eiFOCUS to cultivate female leaders through sports. She is the author of several books, including The eEMBA Coach Playbook: preparing future-ready leaders (2025), The Mindful College Applicant (2019) and We are One: Yoga Meditations for Children (2014). A Certified Forest Therapy Guide, her research focuses on mycelial networks, organizational psychology, and applied contemplative practices in leadership. Belinda holds a bachelor’s from Dartmouth College, a master’s from the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, and a doctorate from Columbia University.