Jack (John Kuo Wei) Tchen, Project Director. Jack is a historian, curator, writer, and dumpster diver devoted to anti-racist, anti-colonialist democratic participatory storytelling, scholarship, and opening archives, museums, organizations, and classroom spaces to the stories and realities of those excluded and deemed “unfit” in master narratives. Professor Tchen has been honored to be the Inaugural Clement A. Price Professor of Public History & Humanities at Rutgers University – Newark and Director of the Clement Price Institute on Ethnicity, Culture & the Modern Experience since Fall 2018. Decolonizing the histories of Newark, NYC, and our estuarial bioregion is his primary focus. His leadership will be instrumental in the workshops.

Kerry Hardy, Project Faculty and Researcher. Kerry is a researcher, eco-historian, and author with special interest in the human ecology of pre-Contact Native Americans, primarily through archaeological, geographic, and linguistic analysis. He is the Lead Researcher and Cartographer at the Public History Project, the Stewardship Coordinator at the VinalHaven Land Trust, and author in 2009 of Notes on a Lost Flute: A Field Guide to the Wabanaki; a book that delves into the Native American foodways, languages, place names and ecologies of Maine. He has presented talks at the Maine Audubon Conference on Endangered Languages and Cultures of North America, Algonquian Conference. Kerry is the primary researcher and cartographer for the visual work that is shared above and will be the connective tissue for our 5-day sessions.

Lacey Hunter, Project Coordinator and Education Specialist. Lacey received her PhD from Drew University. Her dissertation focused on the role of African American religious ideologies on racial constructions. She holds an MA in American History from Rutgers University-Newark and is currently teaching courses on African American Studies and Afro-American History. She is actively involved in organizations that help urban students transition into college, as well as collaborative programs for “at-risk” college first-year students. She is also deeply committed to restructuring historical teaching and encouraging greater literacy rates among students of color.

Oscar M. Schofield, Project Co-Director is a biological oceanographer interested in how physics and chemistry regulate ocean ecosystems, with a primary research focus on the physiology and ecology of phytoplankton. His research is conducted in a range of oceans from the rapidly warming/melting along the West Antarctic Peninsula to sustained studies along the northeast United States. He is a co-founder of the Center of Ocean Observing Leadership (COOL), which is focused on developing innovative technologies and ocean sensor networks to better document and model the marine system. The COOL group innovates in a range of technologies spanning from remote sensing, radars, and autonomous underwater robotics. Oscar is also Department Chair for Rutgers Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences.

Chief Mann is the Turtle Clan Chief of the Ramapough Lenape Nation, which encompasses Passaic County NJ, Warwick, and surrounding areas in New York. Chief Mann has been the Turtle Clan Chief for approximately fifteen years. Chief Mann has been at the forefront of the New Jersey environmental justice movement, where he has worked to protect the water supply of 4 million people and advocated for the community living near the Ringwood mines superfund site, shedding light on his community’s efforts to fight back after the Ford toxic dumping. Chief Mann is also a community builder reaching across the state and region to bring together the Six First Nations of NJ, PA, and DE. He will facilitate First Nation attendance at the Workshop.

Jimmy Sweet (Lakota/Dakota), Program Advisor and Faculty. Jimmy specializes in Native American and Indigenous studies with a concentration on interactions between American Indians and Euro-Americans. His current book project, “The ‘Mixed-Blood’ Moment: Race, Law, and Mixed-Ancestry Dakota Indians in the Nineteenth Century Midwest,” analyzes the legal and racial complexities of American Indians of mixed Indian and European ancestry with a focus on kinship, family history, land dispossession, and citizenship. Sweet is dedicated to Indigenous language revitalization and preservation. His research is driven by a need to understand the full effects of American colonialism on Indigenous Americans and how those consequences influence Native people today, doing so with the hope of contributing to the continued fight for Indigenous sovereignty and the healing of Indigenous communities.

Elaine La Fay, Program Faculty. She is an Assistant Professor of History at Rutgers University, Arts and Sciences.

Janice McDonnell, Program Education Advisor. Janice is currently serving as the Science Engineering & Technology Agent for the department of 4-H Youth Development at Rutgers University where she supports county 4-H Agents in promoting STEM in their communities. She hosts a variety of on-campus programs designed to engage young people in Rutgers University science and engineering programs. In addition, Janice helps university faculty to develop innovative and effective broader impact statements in accordance with NSF’s Criterion II.

Lyla June Johnston, Indigenous Food Systems Advisor and Faculty. Lyla is an Indigenous musician, scholar, and community organizer of Diné (Navajo), Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne) and European lineages. Her multi-genre presentation style has engaged audiences across the globe towards personal, collective, and ecological healing. She blends her study of Human Ecology at Stanford, graduate work in Indigenous Pedagogy, and the traditional worldview she grew up with to inform her music, perspectives, and solutions. She recently finished her PhD on the ways in which pre-colonial Indigenous Nations shaped large regions of Turtle Island (aka the Americas) to produce abundant food systems for humans and non-human. She has a five-year contract with the Ramapough Culture and Land Foundation, and the timing of her talks will be coordinated with her other contract commitments.

Sarah Rivett is professor of English and American studies at Princeton University. She works at the intersection of early American and Atlantic literature & Indigenous studies.

Peggy King Jorde is a Cultural Projects Consultant combining more than 30 years of experience in planning, design, public art, and historic preservation projects in New York. She led the fight to preserve a 17th century African Burial Ground and will share her experiences and expertise regarding that journey as well as the role of slavery in our development as a nation.

Jerome Choice is a Jersey Community Leader, member of the board of the Jersey City Museum. Jerome and the Museum staff will provide tours of the museum and co-facilitate Jersey City days.