Airini

University of Saskatchewan, Canada

Airini has been the Provost and Vice-President Academic at the University of Saskatchewan (USask) since 2021 and holds a professorial appointment in the College of Education. Her research has concerned areas of equity in higher education, Indigenous advancement, and converting research and policy into improved education outcomes.

Amy Ickowitz

Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF)

Amy is a senior scientist at CIFOR-ICRAF. She is a development and natural resource economist by training with a PhD in economics from the University of California, Riverside. Most of her recent research is multidisciplinary with a focus on issues of poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition, and the links between all of these and the natural environment. Her current research focuses on the impacts of landscape change on food security and nutrition.

Anne Brunel

FAO Indigenous Peoples Unit, Global-Hub Coordinator

Anne joined the FAO Indigenous Peoples Unit in 2017, coordinating the development of field and research activities with Indigenous Peoples' communities to profile their food and knowledge systems across the world. She co-coordinated the organization of the first in FAO history High-Level Expert Seminar on Indigenous Peoples' food systems in 2018 that led to the creation of the Global-Hub on Indigenous Peoples' Food Systems. Anne coordinates the Global-Hub on Indigenous Peoples' Food Systems since its official endorsement by FAO Members at COAG27 in 2020. Anne holds a master of engineering in agronomy and ecological sciences from AgroParisTech, and master of research in political sciences of the European Union from Institute of Political Sciences of Grenoble.

Bah Phrang Roy

Indigenous Partnership for Agrobiodiversity and Food Sovereignty (TIP), Italy

Bah Phrang Roy is the Coordinator of the Rome-based Indigenous Partnership for Agrobiodiversity and Food Sovereignty.  He belongs to the Khasi peoples, and is interested in ecology and biocultural diversity. Phrang is also the Founder of the North East Slow Food and Agrobiodiversity Society (NESFAS) in Meghalaya, northeast India. 

Barbara Burlingame

Massey University, New Zealand

Barbara Burlingame's research expertise includes food composition, nutrient requirements, dietary assessment, biodiversity for food and nutrition, Indigenous Peoples’ food systems, sustainable diets, and provision of scientific/policy advice on food security and nutrition. Since 2016, she has been a Professor at Massey University and is currently a visiting scientist at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health. 

Bhaskar Vira

University of Cambridge, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Bhaskar Vira's research focuses on the political economy of environment and development, in particular, with the often-hidden costs of environmental and developmental processes, and the distributional consequences of public policy choices. Bhaskar is the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education and Environmental Sustainability, University of Cambridge, a Professor of Political Economy at the Department of Geography, University of Cambridge.

Carol Zavaleta

IPON-Pandemics and Covid-19 Observatories, through Universidad Cayetano Heredia, Peru

Carol Zavaleta-Cortijo an Indigenous academic and scientist dedicated to researching the effects of climate change on health and food systems. Her recent research shows how Indigenous communities have protected their health and food security in the face of COVID-19 and climatic events, and the role of food biodiversity in their adaptation to climate change. Carol is currently Co-Chair of Indigenous Peoples Observatory Network (IPON).  

Chad Tudenggongbu

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Indigenous Peoples Platform

Chad Tudenggongbu supports climate change adaptation work at the UNFCCC secretariat, including activities under the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform, Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage associated with the adverse impacts of climate change, and the Nairobi work programme on impacts, vulnerability and adaptation to climate change. Prior to joining the UNFCCC secretariat, Chad served as a Senior Climate Change and Energy Project Manager for the British Embassy in China; Renewable Energy and Resource Efficiency Officer for ICLEIUSA; and Senior Renewable Energy Campaigner for the Center for Biological Diversity in Massachusetts, USA. 

Christopher Golden

Harvard University, United States of America

Dr. Christopher Golden is an Associate Professor of Planetary Health and Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. As an ecologist and epidemiologist, his research investigates the human health impacts of global environmental change, with a focus on food systems. He is the Director of the Program in Nutrition and Planetary Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is a core member of the CBD-WHO task force on biodiversity and health and the co-lead of the Nutrition chapter for the Blue Foods Assessment. His research has been published in Nature, Science, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. His current research focuses on: 1) the role of climate-smart fisheries management to improve human nutrition, and 2) creating systems of climate-smart public health through climate and environmental monitoring and disease surveillance. More recently, Chris led the development of the Aquatic Food Composition Database which provides nutrient composition data for more than 3,000 species of aquatic life.

Danny Hunter

Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) 

As a researcher and practitioner Danny Hunter is passionate about improving the provision of local, nutritious foods in school meals and strengthening school food environments to deliver healthier diets and inclusive farmer- and community-led development and biodiversity management. He is particularly interested in the role of integrated school nutrition approaches based on biodiversity-rich school gardens, linking local agroecological food production to school meals and school-based food systems education. Danny is currently Principal Scientist with the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT. More recently he is a lead author of the White Paper, School Meals and Food Systems: Rethinking the Consequences for Climate, Environment, Biodiversity, and Food Sovereignty (2023). Danny has a PhD in Agriculture from the University of Sydney.

Edmond Dounias

Institut de Recherce pour le Développment - French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD) , France

Edmond Dounias has expertise and biocultural interactions between forest dwellers and tropical forests in a context of drastic change, with a particular interest in working with formerly nomadic hunter-gatherers in Africa and South-East Asia, anthropology of food, including quantitative food consumption surveys, biomedical monitoring and nutritional ecology, the resilience of micro-level socio-ecological systems, the environmental vulnerability and local adaptive strategies of forest dwellers in response to external drivers of change, including climate change.   

Francisco Rosado May

Universidad Intercultural Maya de Quintana Roo, Mexico

Francisco Rosado-May is the Founding President of the Universidad Intercultural Maya de Quintana Roo, where an intercultural educational model was successfully developed for Yucatec Maya students and applied to several scientific areas. His research explores the epistemological foundations upon which intercultural awareness and knowledge are constructed. This understanding allows for the creation of an institutional structure that provides not only a safe space in which scientific methods can respect, and coexist with Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge, but in addition it encourages synergy between these types of knowledge. 

Gam Shimray

Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP)

Mr. Gam Shimray started working on Indigenous Peoples’ issues in 1993 and became the Convener of the Naga Peoples Movement for Human Rights (NPMHR), an Indigenous movement based in Northeast India, in 1998. From 2000 – 2004 he was one of the expert members for Technical and Policy Core Group (TPCG) of the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP), Ministry of Environment and Forest of India. Gam was also holding the position of the National Coordinator of the All India Coordinating Forum of the Adivasi/Indigenous Peoples in India from 1999 - 2005. At the regional and global level, he worked with various Indigenous Peoples' organizations at various capacities before he was elected as the Secretary General of the Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP) for the period of 2017 – 2020, in September 2016. His educational qualification includes a Postgraduate Diplomate in development studies that included an essay on differential diagnosis for ending poverty in India.

Harriet Kuhnlein

McGill University, through its Centre for Indigenous Peoples’ Nutrition and Environment (CINE), Canada

Dr. Kuhnlein is Emerita Professor of McGill University in Canada and Founding Director of the Centre for Indigenous Peoples’ Nutrition and Environment (CINE).  She received her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and holds an Honorary Doctor of Laws from The University of Western Ontario. She is a Fellow of the American Society of Nutrition, an Honorary Member of the Canadian Nutrition Society, and a Fellow and Living Legend of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences (IUNS). Her research over more than 45 years highlights participatory research with many cultures of Indigenous Peoples on nutritional and cultural benefits and contaminant risks of traditional food use.  Her published quantitative and qualitative evidence demonstrates that biodiversity inherent in traditional food resources of Indigenous Peoples fosters food security and multiple dimensions of good health that should be documented, protected and promoted.

Hayu Dyah Patria

Mantasa, Indonesia

Hayu Dyah Patria studied Food and Nutrition Technology and has been involved in research on edible wild plants since 2005. She established Mantasa in 2009, a non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of edible wild plants in the community. She believes in the power of women’s knowledge and has been documenting it, especially in relation to their relationship with nature and plants. 

Herb Nakimayak

Arramat Project

Herb Nakimayak was elected as the Vice-President (International) for ICC Canada at the 14th General Assembly held in Kuujjuaq, Canada in July 2022.  He is committed to continuing traditional ways of life through stories of Elders and hunters and trappers including carrying out “On the Land” programs for Elders and Youth. 

Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim

United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII)

As an Indigenous woman from Mbororo pastoralist community of Chad, Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, has been an advocate for the rights of Indigenous Peoples and the protection of the environment for over 15 years. In 2024 she was appointed as chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII). She is also leading a community-based organisation in Chad, AFPAT, which is active in most international Sustainable Development Goal areas, including climate change and biodiversity, health, and education. She led several projects that improved Indigenous Peoples’ access to basic needs, while promoting their unique contribution to the protection of the environment. Hindou has also participated for over a decade in high-level international policy discussions advocating for environmental protection for Indigenous Peoples through the Biodiversity, Climate Change and Desertification Conventions. She co-chaired the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC). Hindou is an expert on adaptation of Indigenous Peoples to and mitigation of climate change, traditional knowledge on the adaptation of pastoralists in Africa, and Indigenous Women’s empowerment.

Inka Saara Arttijeff

Sámi Parliament, Finland

Inka Saara Arttijeff's work engages with Indigenous Peoples' rights and Sami politics. She has been a member of the boards of directors of various Sami organizations and currently works as an advisor to the President of the Sami Parliament of Finland and is the official head of international relations of the Sami Parliament.

James Ford

IPON-Pandemics and Covid-19 Observatories, through Universidad Cayetano Heredia, Peru

James Ford is a Professor and Priestley Chair in Climate Adaptation at the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures. His research focuses on climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability, and he works closely with Indigenous communities in the Arctic and globally with a major focus on health and well-being, food security, wildfires, and resource management. His work in the Arctic is funded through an ERC Advanced Grant which is weaving together science and Indigenous Knowledge to create an ethnoclimatology of climate risk. He also Co-Chairs the NFRF funded Indigenous Peoples Observatory Network (IPON) which is working with Indigenous communities across the Global South and North to understand the climate-food-health nexus. At a global to regional scale, he is active in research tracking climate adaptation progress, including using big data and machine learning.

Jennifer Hays

Hunter-Gatherers Research and Education Network (Hg-Edu) 

Jennifer Hays holds a PhD in Anthropology from the State University of New York at Albany (2007) and she is currently an associate professor in Anthropology at the University of Tromsø (UiT) Arctic University of Norway. Her main area of research focus is the role of education (including both formal and traditional education) for Indigenous communities – especially hunter-gatherers. Her research connects the concept of education with realistic livelihood opportunities, environmental issues, land rights and other aspects of Indigenous Peoples' rights. She also focuses on the role of international programs to promote Indigenous Peoples' rights (in particular that of the International Labour Organization, ILO) and how these affect national processes in Namibia, and to local Indigenous Peoples' rights cases. Hays is a founding member of the Research and Advocacy Group on Hunter Gatherer Education.

Juliana Sanchez

Gaia amazonas, Colombia

Juliana Sanchez-Castellanos' areas of work and research are related to the strengthening of Amazonian Indigenous Peoples' traditional knowledge systems, including Amazonian Indigenous food systems, gender categories and relations in the Colombian Amazon, and political participation and the notion of the political in relation to Indigenous Women's agency in the construction of the Colombian state. For the last seven years, she has led the Situated Gender Approach in the Gaia Amazonas Foundation. Juliana also works with the North Amazon Alliance (ANA), which comprises nine Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), working across five countries in the region North of the Amazon River, each boasting decades of experience in the preservation of the biological, cultural, and environmental aspects of the Amazon, working in close partnership with Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities. The Alliance’s members  share a common dedication to advancing and scaling up effective strategies that have already proven their impact for the safeguard of ecosystem and sociocultural connectivity.

Julie Brimblecombe

Monash University, Australia

Julie is an Associate Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Dietetics and Food, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences at Monash University. She is a dietitian with extensive experience working as a public health nutritionist and researcher in remote Indigenous Australia and the Pacific Islands. Her research is focused on providing evidence to address inequities in food supply and food access for remote Indigenous communities. Julie holds an honourary appointment with Menzies School of Health Research where she worked for 17 years prior to her appointment with Monash University. Julie's research interest includes Indigenous food systems, real-world systems approaches to improving population level nutrition, addressing social inequities in food access, modifying food environments to support healthier food choices, capacity building for evidence informed decision-making and capacity building in research conduct.

Kathrin Wessendorf

International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), Denmark

Kathrin Wessendorf is IWGIA’s Executive Director. She has been working for the organisation since 2000 in different positions, including as Arctic Programme Coordinator, Communications Coordinator, Editor of The Indigenous World, Senior Advisor on Climate Change and most recently as Head of Programmes at IWGIA. Kathrin has an MA in Social Anthropology from Basel University, Switzerland, and wrote her thesis on Indigenous Peoples’ governance systems in the Arctic (particularly Nunavut, Canada).

Khalissa Ikhlef

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

Khalissa Ikhlef specializes in biodiversity policy, focusing on integrating Indigenous Peoples' knowledge into global biodiversity frameworks and the Convention on Biological Diversity. She is programme specialist at UNESCO's Local and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (LINKS) initiative. For more than two decades, she has been the focal point of UNESCO's programme on small islands developing states (SIDS) and coordinated several projects focused on the education about climate change and its impacts on coastal ecosystems and development. She holds a D.E.A. in Civilisation américaine et littérature post-coloniale (études afro-américaines), La sorbonne Nouvelle.

Krystyna Swiderska

International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)

Krystyna Swiderska is the principal researcher and team leader (biocultural heritage) of the IIED's Natural Resources research group. She leads IIED’s work on traditional knowledge and biocultural heritage. Her work focuses on protecting the interlinked biodiversity and cultural heritage - or biocultural heritage - and related rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities – including by supporting the establishment of self-governed biocultural territories, enhancing community voices in policymaking, and supporting community to community learning exchanges and networks, and understanding the role of Indigenous and traditional food systems, agrobiodiversity and agroecology in food and nutrition security, biodiversity conservation and climate resilience, and promoting more supportive policies and institutions.

Lola Garcia Alix

International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), Denmark

Lola Garcia Alix is the team coordinator of IWGIA’s programme on global governance. With a special focus on international human rights instruments for the promotion and the protection of Indigenous Peoples rights, Lola follows the work of the UN Human Rights mechanisms and procedures relevant to Indigenous Peoples, including the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the UN Special Rapporteur and the UN Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 

Longvah Thingnganing

International Network of Food Data Systems (INFOODS)

Longvah is presently associated with the Centre for Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems in Northeast India. He retired as a Director-grade Scientist from the ICMR-National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad, India. His research interests include food composition, Indigenous Peoples’ food systems, micronutrient deficiencies, non-communicable diseases, and biofortification. He authored the book “Indian Food Composition Tables” (IFCT 2017). Additionally, he serves as the Global Vice Coordinator for INFOODS. Among other honors, he received the prestigious Prof. Nevin Scrimshaw Award in 2017, the highest accolade in food composition and nutrition, instituted by FAO/INFOODS.

Maedeh Salimi

Centre for Sustainable Development and Environment (CENESTA), Iran (Islamic Republic of)  

Maedeh Salimi is a board member of the Centre for Sustainable Development and Environment (CENESTA) and is the program manager for agroecology and food/seed sovereignty. She is a PhD candidate in agroecology with an academic background in environmental economics and agricultural heritage systems. With over two decades of field experience, Maedeh has worked closely with Indigenous Peoples and local communities in Iran, including small-scale farmers, family farmers, mobile pastoralists, and dryland and coastal communities. Maedeh has actively participated in various participatory research and action projects, advocacy, capacity building, and community re-empowerment initiatives. She brings extensive expertise in participatory agricultural research, biodiversity conservation, crop genetic diversity, agricultural heritage systems, traditional knowledge, co-management of natural resources, and climate change. Over the years, she has led and contributed to several national and international projects focusing on agroecology, food and seed systems, evolutionary-participatory plant breeding, agricultural landscapes, food policy, land tenure and farmers' rights.

Mariam Wallet Aboubakrine

Arramat Project

Mariam is a Tuareg from Timbuktu in Mali. She received traditional Tuareg education and has a multidisciplinary background in medical, humanitarian, and education sciences. For more than 20 years, as a member of Tin Hinan, a nomadic women association in Sahel, she advocates for Indigenous Peoples rights. As former chair of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples, she built strong connections with Indigenous Peoples, member states, United Nations, academics, and other partners. Mariam is one of the six co-principal investigators of the Arramat Project, a Co-chair of a UNESCO chair Collaboration for Indigenous-Led Biodiversity Conservation, Health and Well-being, President of the Association Tinhinan, Chair of the Board of Directors at Land is Life, and an Adjunct Professor at la Faculté de droit civil de l’Université d’Ottawa, where she teaches “Les ordres juridiques autochtones et le droit international”.

Mari Guay

Asociación Centro Indígena para el Desarrollo Sostenible (CENTRO CINDES), Peru

Mari Guay is the Director of Centro CINDES, an organization advocating for traditional knowledge and cultural practices among Amazonian communities, focusing on environmental conservation. 

Pamela Katic

University of Greenwich, through its Natural Resource Institute (NRI), United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Pamela Katic's research centres on agricultural and environmental/resource economics, particularly in relation to land and water resources, values of nature and economics of biodiversity, water governance and water justice, including in the context of Indigenous Peoples’ food systems. Pamela has led and participated in over twenty innovative interdisciplinary research projects and has been active in public forums such as agricultural sector working groups and teams advising the implementation of agricultural, water and food systems research for development programs.  

Ramesh Sharma

Ekta Parishad, India

Ramesh Sharma's research interests include land rights, peacebuilding, gender justice, agriculture, and environment. Besides Ekta Parishad, he is an active member of several alliances in India mainly working on the issues related to the land rights, farmers rights, rights of the tribal, nomad and dalit communities, women land rights,. Ramesh has been part of several land reforms committees of the Government of India and state governments.  

Rod McCormick

Thompson Rivers University, Canada

Dr. McCormick’s broad area of research is in Indigenous Peoples’ health. Most of his professional training and experience is in Counselling Psychology and in Indigenous mental health. For the past 15 years he has been engaged in Indigenous health research capacity building and in Indigenous health research advocacy at the provincial and national level. For over 10 years he ran the BC Aboriginal Capacity and Developmental Research Environments (ACADRE), the Network Environment for Aboriginal Health Research (NEAHRBCYT), and Kloshe Tillicum. On the advocacy front he is the co-founder/leader of the National Aboriginal Health Research Steering Committee: Kawatsire. At present he is developing a new centre at TRU called: All my Relations. This centre will be a national Indigenous family and community health research and training centre to identify, research and further develop and implement best practices in Aboriginal family and community health and healing.

Rodion Sulyandziga

Centre for Support of Indigenous Peoples of the North\Russian Indigenous Training Centre (CSIPN/RITC), Russian Federation

Rodion is an Udege (“Forest People”), one of the Indigenous Peoples from the Russian Federation Eastern Siberia with the total population 1600. Since 2000 Rodion is the Director of the Centre for Support of Indigenous Peoples of the North\Russian Indigenous Training Centre (CSIPN/RITC) with the Consultative status of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Rodion has served in several Boards as Chair and Board member including the Arctic Council Indigenous Peoples’ Secretariat (IPS), the Indigenous Peoples Global Coordination Group for the UN World Conference on Indigenous Peoples 2014 and the Indigenous Peoples Global Steering Committee on climate change. From 2019 to 2022 he was a member of two UN bodies: EMRIP (Geneva) under the HRC and LCIPP on climate change under the UNFCCC (Bonn) representing the region of Eastern Europe, Russia, Central Asia and Transcaucasia.

Sefano Katz

Pacific Blue Foundation, Fiji

Sefano Katz is based in Fiji, as the program director of the Beqa Lagoon Initiative (BLI) he co-founded in 2016. With the PBF team, he develops innovative and applied projects that span across culture, environmental conservation, community development and enhancing education in remote maritime communities, supporting cross-sectoral co-management of the Beqa-Yanuca Seascape. Sefano is also an associate member of the Australian Center for Pacific Islands Research, and an executive committee member of the Fiji Locally Managed Marine Area Network.

Shannon Udy

McGill University, through its Centre for Indigenous Peoples’ Nutrition and Environment (CINE), Canada

Shannon Udy is an Indigenous (Métis) woman and a Registered Dietitian in Canada who works as a Research Assistant with Dr. Treena Delormier at McGill University’s School of Human Nutrition and CINE. Shannon specializes in Indigenous food security and nutrition, holding a Master of Science in Human Nutrition from McGill University. Shannon conducts community-based and systems science research focused on promoting food security and food sovereignty in partnership with the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) community of Kahnawà:ke and the Kahnawà:ke Schools Diabetes Prevention Program.

Sheina Lew-Levy

Durham University (Hg-Edu network), United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Using methods from anthropology and psychology, Sheina conducts research in hunter-gatherer societies to understand the cultural diversity in childhood learning. Specifically, she uses quantitative and qualitative methods to study how and from whom children learn through meaningful participation in everyday activities. With Forager Child Studies, the interdisciplinary research team she co-founded and co-direct, she conducts cross-cultural reviews and secondary data analysis on the pasts, presents, and futures of forager children's learning. Since 2016, she works with egalitarian BaYaka foragers and their farmer neighbours in the Congo Basin. Her primary research uses behavioural observations to understand social learning. She has also collected social network data, ethnographic data, and conducted experiments for collaborative cross-cultural projects.

Tania Eulalia Martinez Cruz

Arramat Project - UIMQRoo, Mexico

Tania Eulalia Martinez Cruz has engaged in projects on sanitary engineering, biofuels production, water management and irrigation, agricultural research and development, climate justice, gender and social inclusion, nutrition, and food security/sovereignty. As an Ëyuujk Indigenous woman and researcher, Tania promotes the conservation of Indigenous knowledge as key to the biocultural diversity of Indigenous Peoples and to tackle global problems. 

Teresa Borelli

Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) 

Teresa is a scientist providing research support to the Food Environment and Consumer Behavior research program. She has over 20 years’ experience working within the CGIAR system on research and development of sustainable agri-food systems in low and middle-income countries. Over the years, she has acquired a cross-disciplinary set of skills spanning from soil biology, agroforestry, agrobiodiversity and crop wild relatives’ conservation, food security and dietary diversity as well as policy development and awareness raising. She holds a BSc in Zoology from Bangor University, UK, and a MSc in Advanced Ecology from Durham University, UK.

Treena Wasonti:io Delormier

McGill University, through its Centre for Indigenous Peoples’ Nutrition and Environment (CINE), Canada

Dr Delormier recently joined the School of Human Nutrition at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada as an Associate Professor. She is also serving as the Associate Director of McGill's Centre for Indigenous Peoples' Nutrition and Environment (CINE). Her research focuses on food and nutrition of Indigenous peoples. She is involved in health promotion interventions that address the social determinants of health underlying the health inequities Indigenous Populations experience, particularly in a historical context of colonialism. Dr Delormier's research approaches employ qualitative methodologies, and privilege Indigenous and community based methodologies. She is dedicated to building capacity in Indigenous health research through mentoring and training students and community researchers.

Valmaine Toki

Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP)

Dr Valmaine Toki is a Professor in Law and currently works at the Faculty of Law (Te Piringa), The University of Waikato. Valmaine was the first New Zealander and first Māori appointed to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Valmaine's area of research and writing is within the area of Indigenous legal systems and the recognition of Indigenous Peoples' rights. Her book "Indigenous Courts, self-determination and criminal justice" was released in 2018. She is the current chair of EMRIP.

Viliamu Iese (Vili)

University of Melbourne, Australia

Lau Dr. Viliamu Iese (Vili) has conducted research and published widely in the field of risk resilience in agriculture, food security, climate change loss and damage, and evaluation of adaptations and risk reduction actions in Pacific Island Countries. Vili is a member of the Pacific Resilience Partnership Task Force. Vili is co-leading the USP research team for the 1) EU Horizon 2020 RISE project on Family Farming, Lifestyle and Health (FALAH); 2) ACIAR Conservation Agriculture and Sustainable Intensification (CASI); and 3) UK Research and Innovation grant for Intervention Co-creation to Improve Community-based Food Production and Household Nutrition in Small Island Developing States (ICoFaN).  

Vincent Gitz

Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF)

Vincent Gitz director, Program and Platforms and Director for Latin America at CIFOR-ICRAF. Vincent graduated from Ecole Polytechnique in France, and holds a Ph.D. from AgroParisTech on land use and global climate policies, awarded the Le Monde prize for academic research. He has a background in earth sciences and natural resources and development economics. Vincent has experience in research, prior to CIFOR-ICRAF with the Center for International Research on Environment and Development (CIRED) and the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD); in policymaking (at the French ministry of Agriculture: as advisor for sustainable development and research to the French agriculture and fisheries minister, Michel Barnier, and as head of the food policy department); and at the interface between research and policymaking as coordinator of the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE), the science-policy interface of the U.N. Committee on World Food Security (CFS). 

Yasmina Sultanbawa

University of Queensland, Australia

Yasmina Sultanbawa is a food scientist, Director, Centre for Nutrition and Food Sciences, Director ARC Industrial Transformation Training Centre for Uniquely Australian Foods and a Professorial Research Fellow at Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI), the University of Queensland, Australia. Her research is focused on the areas of food processing, preservation, food safety and nutrition. She brings together a unique combination of research areas combining process technologies and engineered delivery systems for bioactive compounds to improve nutrition, flavour, quality and food safety. This work has provided commercially applicable solutions to address challenges and opportunities throughout the agri-food value chain. In addition, her research area also includes the challenge of nutrition security, in particular micronutrient deficiency (hidden hunger), lack of diet diversity and nutritional losses in the food supply chain. Her work on Australian native plant foods is focused on incorporating these plants in mainstream agriculture and diet diversification and working with First Nations communities to develop nutritious and sustainable value-added products for use in the food and beverage industry.

Yon Fernández-de-Larrinoa

FAO Indigenous Peoples Unit, Head

Yon Fernández-de-Larrinoa is Head of the Indigenous Peoples Unit at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) since 2014.  In the frame of his responsibilities, he supported the creation of the Coalition on Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems post 2021 UN Food Systems Summit; with Canada, he set up in 2019 the Group of Friends of Indigenous Peoples in Rome; from 2018, led the establishment of the Global-Hub on Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems to its official endorsement at the FAO Technical Committee on Agriculture 27 in 2020. Yon joined FAO in 1998 as a Policy Officer. He worked for several years in Latin America and Asia, coordinating emergency operations in the Asia tsunami, avian influenza, Peru earthquake and Haiti earthquake. In 2010, Yon joined the Partnerships and UN Collaboration Division (PSU) leading the FAO Civil Society team, co-authoring the strategy to engage with civil society and supporting the participation of civil society in the World Committee of Food Security. He co-founded the Pastoralists Knowledge-Hub in FAO. Yon Fernández-de-Larrinoa is an agricultural economist with a MABD on entitlements and food security.

Zeyuan Wang

University of Toronto, PhD Candidate, Social and Behavioral Health Sciences, Canada; Graduate Fellow, Culinaria Research Centre, Canada

Zeyuan Wang has ancestors from four different ethnic groups in Central Asia and East Asia. He received interdisciplinary training in China, Europe, and America and has fieldwork experience in India, Mexico, Armenia, Tanzania, Kenya, China, Ecuador, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and the Philippines. His research is about traditional and Indigenous food systems and nutrition, climate adaptation, mixed-method research, breastfeeding behavior, food and spirituality, and social and commercial determinants of health. He is also exploring how to use visual arts for sustainable Indigenous food systems education, such as photo essays and documentaries. He is currently working on how commercial determinants of nutrition and traditional health belief influence breastfeeding behavior in the Philippines and documenting Indigenous/traditional dietary biodiversity in the tea ecosystem, steppe, and Pamir region in China. He is also collaborating with scholars for the sustainable food system transformation in Southeast Asia and Central Asia.