Aimee Roberson, Executive Director, is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and also of Chickasaw, Scottish, Irish, and English descent. She is a lifelong student of Mother Earth’s wisdom and holds a bachelor’s degree in geology and a master’s in conservation biology. She is committed to reciprocity and community, and works with people to ensure that the social-ecological systems upon which we all depend continue to flourish. Throughout her career, Aimee has provided leadership to partnerships focused on environmental stewardship, co-creating a vision, integrating cultural values and ecological knowledge with science for meaningful decision-making, and implementing shared strategies in caring for people, wildlife, water, and ecosystems. Aimee comes to Cultural Survival from her role as the Director of the American Bird Conservancy’s Southwest Region. Previously, she served as Coordinator for the Rio Grande Joint Venture, and prior to that she worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, focused on conserving biodiversity and helping people adapt to our changing climate. Aimee is a co-founder of the Indigenous Kinship Circle and Regalia Making Relatives. She also serves on the board of the Big Bend Conservation Alliance, and previously served on the boards of the Rio Grande and Sonoran Joint Ventures. Within her community, Aimee is learning Chahta anumpa (Choctaw language), practicing traditional arts, growing and preparing traditional foods, and learning and teaching about her Peoples’ history, values, and responsibilities to care for our land, waters, and all our relatives.

Marcus Briggs-Cloud (Maskoke), Ph.D., is a language revitalizer, scholar, musician and co-founder of Ekvn-Yefolecv (ee-gun yee-full-lee-juh): an off-grid, climate-positive, income-sharing ecovillage comprised of Indigenous Maskoke People who, after 180 years of displacement, returned to their homelands for the revitalization of their language and culture, and commitment to ecologically regenerative lifeways. A graduate of Harvard Divinity School, he has a PhD in interdisciplinary ecology from the University of Florida’s School of Natural Resources and the Environment where his work intersected ecology, linguistics, genetics, ecofeminism and liberation theology.  Marcus received awards for his Maskoke hymn album Pum Vculvke Vrakkuecetv, and in 2012 served as composer/choir director for the Vatican canonization liturgy with Pope Benedict XVI for Saint Kateri Tekakwitha.  He is partnered to Tawna Little (Maskoke) and they have two children, Nokos-Afvnoke and Hemokke, with whom Marcus enjoys speaking exclusively in the Maskoke language.