2022 Nature and Health Symposium: Body, Mind, and Soul: A Return to Nature’s Gifts

A return to nature’s gifts refers to the relational benefits of the body, mind and soul that comes from connections and differential relationships with nature. These relational benefits are not something to be extracted or objectified. Therefore, this theme asked presenters to acknowledge the ongoing exploitation of marginalized communities. Talks covered the following topics:

• Community-engaged nature and health projects
• Critical analysis of reciprocity or reconciliation while atoning for historical inequities
• Equitable solutions in nature
• Historical inequities, traumas and dispossession in research, policy, and practice
• Familial, generational knowledge and wisdom
• Nature-health responsibility and collective impact
• Nature-based teachings for well-being
• Solutions and policy beyond the deficit model

The 3-day, in-person conference offered presentations that explored, engaged, connected, and reconsidered how to build impact with nature, human health, and well-being. We posited how activities, policies, programs, practices, and designs benefit all people and nature in health care, education, environmental management, and community settings.

The conference was designed for researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and students in the physical sciences, social sciences, and humanities as well as practitioners and community leaders in health, conservation, planning, education, and related fields. 

Coco Alarcon
PhD Student, Global Health in the Implementation Science

Coco is a Peruvian architect, landscape architect, and public health researcher. He is currently working on his PhD in Global Health in the Implementation Science track. For the last twelve years, Coco has worked in low-income and indigenous urban migrant communities in Peru. His work focuses on designing, building, and assessing projects with community-participatory and holistic approaches to understand the relationships between the built environment and human and ecological health.

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Hassan Arab
PhD Student, Wayne State University; Sponsored Graduate Scholar, Kuwait University

Hassan is a second year PhD student at the School of Social Work at Wayne State University. He is currently specialized in policy analysis and planning with a concentration on community organizing and social mobility. He has adverse research interests, but mainly focuses on environmental policies, social work education, welfare policies in Kuwait, and marginalized communities in Kuwait political and social rights. Community organizing has always been a passion as he was one of the founders of the Social Work Society at Kuwait University and the Kuwaiti Student Federation at Wayne State University. He also has an interest in arts as a form of community learning tool and has written and directed a play funded by the Kuwaiti Ministry of Youth that revolves around community polarization, women rights violations, and structural power struggles between society and political actors.

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Amaya Carrasco Torrontegui
PhD Student, Food Systems Program, Agroecology and Livelihoods Collaborative, & Gund Institute for the Environment, University of Vermont; The Caliata Initiative

Amaya is a PhD student in the Food Systems Program with a Specialization in Agroecology at the University of Vermont. For her dissertation, she is working on two case studies (Ecuador and Bolivia) to understand collective action in the context of agroecological transition. Amaya also has worked for several years with NGOs, grassroots, governments, and academia at the intersection of agroecology, climate change, food justice, and well-being. She has training as a well-being coach and is the Operations Director of the Caliata Initiative, which aims to reimagine the rural sector in the Andes. Amaya collaborated on different research projects and co-authored several articles.

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Traci-lee (Traci) Christianson (she/her)
MA Student, Department of Psychology and Health Studies, University of Saskatchewan

Traci is of white settler ancestry. She received her BA (honors equivalent) in Applied Psychology from Concordia University of Edmonton in 2019. Subsequently, she worked with women who have experienced intimate partner violence to help them identify, obtain, and maintain meaningful employment. She is now a second-year master’s student studying Applied Social Psychology at the University of Saskatchewan. In addition, she is a research assistant for the Coronavirus Variants Rapid Response Network’s Indigenous Engagement, Development, and Research Pillar 7 (CIEDAR). Traci’s research interests are diverse; however, her research has focused primarily on language and bias.

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Katherine (Katie) A. Collins, PhD, HBSc
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology and Health Studies, University of Saskatchewan

Katie is of mixed-race ancestry: her mother is Cree while her father had white Irish ancestry. Katie received her Honours Bachelor of Science from the University of Toronto in 2007 and her Doctorate in Experimental Social Psychology from the University of Ottawa in 2015. She is now an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology and Health Studies at the University of Saskatchewan. As a social psychologist, Katie believes it is of vital importance to conduct research that is relevant to, and can inform, socio-cultural issues. In line with this, she is an emerging scholar in the areas of culture, language, and identity. She believes that a strong cultural identity is necessary for individuals and communities to thrive. As Katie knows from her own experience, language is inextricably linked to both culture and identity; it links us to other people, shapes our experience of the world, and defines the way we think about ourselves.

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Mariah Emerson
Herbalist, Ethnobotanist, Healer, Naturopathic Medical Student

Mariah is a Black, queer woman navigating life through the lens of healing, connection, and communal care. Her mission is to “bring wellness back home” by teaching, initiating, and participating in the sacred return of her communities to their roots. She places collective power, dreambuilding, and health equity at the foundation of her work and passion. Mariah is currently studying to become a naturopathic medical doctor where she intends to blend her love for culture, wellness, and liberation into her practice and care model.

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Derek Jennings, PhD
Assistant Professor, School of Public Health, University of Washington

Derek is a Bezruchka Family Endowed Professor within the UW School of Public Health. As a tribal nations member, he works primarily with Indigenous communities as a health educator, addressing the social determinants of health related to food, diet and improving diet.

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Mary Jessome
PhD Student, Sociology, University of British Columbia

Mary is a PhD student in the University of British Columbia’s sociology department. Interested in relationships and how they shape our lives, Mary’s own research focuses on mating and dating practices among different equity-deserving groups. Most recently, this involved conducting oral and written interviews to understand how people living with chronic pain understand and experience intimacy. Mary’s interest in equity-deserving groups is informed by their four years working for the Department Canadian Heritage, where they had the opportunity to complete policy research for Canadians with disabilities, gender and sexual minorities, racialized Canadians, and Indigenous Peoples. Leaving the federal government to be closer to community, Mary now acts as the Research Manager for the Coronavirus Rapid Response Network’s Indigenous Engagement, Development, and Research Pillar 7 (CIEDAR).

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Ian Munanura, PhD
Assistant Professor, College of Forestry, Oregon State University

Ian is an assistant professor in the College of Forestry at Oregon State University. His research in Africa focuses on understanding ecotourism-based solutions to human-wildlife conflict. In the United States, Dr. Munanura’s research aims to understand forest-based recreation constraints for people of color. Previously, for over 15 years, Ian served in senior-level management for integrated conservation programs in Africa:

• He led a multi-million dollars US government-funded program integrating ecotourism, biodiversity conservation, and human development at Nyungwe National Park in Rwanda.
• He also served as country director for the Wildlife Conservation Society in Rwanda.
• He served as a director for IUCN’s (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Forest Landscape Restoration Program for the East and Southern Africa region.

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Juniper Redvers 
BSc., MEDes, Research Advisor, Institute for Circumpolar Health Research

Juniper is a member of the Deninu K’ue First Nation, a mom, an academic, Indigenous counselor, and land-based advocate. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Global Resource Systems from the University of British Columbia and a Masters in Environmental Design at the University of Calgary. After growing up in Denendeh Northwest Territories (in what is now known as Canada), she currently lives on Kwanlin Dün First Nation and Ta’an Kwäch’än territory in the Yukon, northern Canada, where she offers supportive Indigenous based counseling for youth and families, curriculum development, facilitation, training and research around various wellness topics including trauma-informed practice, cultural safety, Indigenous resilience, and land-based healing approaches. She is interested in how the fields of ecology, health, and education are interrelated, and aims to integrate across these disciplines for practical application in northern communities.

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Jacqueline Smith
MA Student, Department of Indigenous Studies, University of Saskatchewan

Jacqueline (Swampy Cree) is a band member of Opaskwayak Cree Nation in Northern Manitoba. She completed her BA in History with a minor in Canadian Studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2016. She is currently a MA student in the Department of Indigenous Studies at the University of Saskatchewan. Her research focuses on accessibility to mental health services for Indigenous women in urban centres and her research interests include Indigenous health and healing. She is also a research assistant for Coronavirus Variants Rapid Response Network’s Indigenous Engagement, Development, and Research Pillar 7 (CIEDAR).

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Kelsey Timler
Phd Candidate, Interdisciplinary Studies, University of British Columbia

Kelsey is a settler scholar and fourth-year doctoral candidate at the University of British Columbia. She works on a number of Participatory Action Research projects in partnership with currently and formerly incarcerated peoples, with the ultimate goal of supporting the health, well-being and dignity of those unjustly burdened by the colonial carceral state. In previous life she was a professional cook for many years, and her doctoral work is focused on co-developing a food justice project with women on parole, seeing food as an entryway to community building, healing, and resurgence. She believes in the power of food to bring people together, the strength of art and storytelling to empower, disrupt, and dream, and the obligation of academic researchers to acknowledge and confront the ongoing harms of extractive research. She is grateful to work alongside a vibrant network experts who’ve survived incarceration, artists and activists, and of Indigenous Elders and teachers. Kelsey lives on the unceded and occupied territories of the Stό:lō Nation in British Columbia, Canada.

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Usha Varanasi, PhD
Affiliate Professor in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences; Distinguished Scholar in Residence, College of the Environment, University of Washington

Usha is an affiliate professor in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, and a Distinguished Scholar in Residence in the College of the Environment, University of Washington. She is interested in the projects at the boundary of science and policy that define and encourage positive engagement of people with nature. She was the science and research director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Northwest Fisheries Science Center from 1994-2010, and served from 2004-2010 as the director of NOAA’s Westcoast Center of Excellence for Ocean and Human Health which was dedicated to studying and informing policymakers how the degradation of oceans and aquatic ecosystems can affect the health and well-being of people. Currently, she is deeply interested in examining reciprocal healing of ecological and human health.

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Hiwot Zewdie
PhD Student, Epidemiology, University of Washington

Hiwot is a second-year doctoral student in the Department of Epidemiology and pre-doctoral trainee on the Biostatistics, Epidemiologic, and Bioinformatic Training in Environmental Health training grant at the University of Washington. She previously received an MSc in Global Health and certificate in Geospatial Analysis from Duke University. Hiwot’s research interests include exploring social and built environment determinants of chronic disease outcomes, particularly in rapidly urbanizing contexts globally.

Star Berry, EdD
Assistant Director of Equitable Partnerships and Initiatives, Nature and Health

Star brings over 20 years of program leadership to higher education and public service. Her dissertation, focused on university staff at similar research universities, evaluated institutional websites for staff visibility and group recognition. She identified how university staff offer cultural expertise through individual and group actions that contribute to institutional diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) strategies. Despite the lack of symbolic presence through institutional websites, collective grassroots work within organizations can make a major difference for organizational transformation and for the staff themselves.

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Gregory Bratman, PhD
Assistant Professor, University of Washington

Gregory’s work takes place at the nexus of psychology, public health and ecology, and is focused on investigating the ways in which the environment is associated with human well-being. He takes both empirical and theoretical approaches to understand how nature experience impacts cognitive function, mood, and emotion regulation, with an emphasis on people living in urban environments. He has also published reviews about the impacts of the environment on mental health, informed methods for integrating these effects into ecosystem service studies, and proposed ways in which this science can be put into practice to address health inequities that are disproportionately experienced by underserved communities. Gregory is the Doug Walker Endowed Professor at The University of Washington and a JPB Environmental Health Fellow through the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

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Rev. Dr. Robert Charles Butler
Independent Scholar

Robert is an independent postdoctoral researcher, practitioner, and advocate studying refugee settlement experiences, urban ecology, and missional ecclesiology. Engaged in refugee field work in Hong Kong, Western Africa, and India since 1982, his current research focus is the development of place for refugees and immigrants. He has concurrently held the position of International Director of King of Kings Fellowship (Lethbridge) since 2003, and was recently recognized as Pastor Emeritus. He is in the process of co-founding King of Kings International Development Agency Inc., a Canadian NGO committed to increase individual, community, and regional capacities to care for their communities.

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Carlos Andres Gallegos-Riofrío, PhD
Faculty Associate, Agroecology Institute in University of Vermont and Kathryn M. Buder Center for American Indian Studies in Washington University in St. Louis

Carlos is an inter-and-trans-disciplinary researcher who combines behavioral, social and life sciences, arts, and communications with applied and community-based research. Currently, he works with indigenous Andean populations in Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia to co-learn the wellbeing and mental health effects of disconnecting from traditional agroecosystems. Carlos Andres is part of the Agroecology Institute in University of Vermont and a faculty associate at the Kathryn M. Buder Center for American Indian Studies in Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL). He is also the research director of the Caliata Initiative, an international partnership promoting community-based projects in rural Andes.

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Michelle Johnson-Jennings, PhD
Professor; Director, Environmentally based Health & Land-based Healing, IWRI
PhD, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Michelle, a Choctaw Nation-enrolled tribal member, serves as a UW full professor and director of the division of environmentally-based health and land-based healing at the Indigenous Wellness Research Institute. She holds joint/affiliate appointments at the University of Colorado’s School of Public Health, University of Saskatchewan, and the University of Waikato. As a clinical health psychologist, Her therapeutic expertise lies in working with Indigenous communities and decolonizing healing approaches. She has partnered and received large-scale funding with many international and national Indigenous nations, organizations, and communities. Together they have co-developed health interventions entrenched in ancestral guidelines to encourage a renewed commitment to health and revitalize land-based healing practices.

Michelle recently served as the Canada Research Chair for Indigenous Community-Engaged Research at the University of Saskatchewan, founded and directed the Research for Indigenous Community Health Center at the University of Minnesota, and was awarded a U.S. Fulbright Scholarship to research in Aotearoa/New Zealand. She has been invited to present her research at numerous professional conferences held in the Philippines, Italy, Czech Republic, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. She received a Biomedical Research Excellence postdoctoral fellowship with the University of Montana, her doctoral degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a master’s degree from Harvard University, and a BS from the University of Oklahoma.

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Josh Lawler, PhD
Director, Nature and Health Professor, University of Washington

Dr. Josh Lawler, Director of Nature and Health, is an ecologist driven by applied conservation questions and their real-world applications, with a focus on climate change and land-use change. His work explores how climate change affects animals and plants as well as the ways that human health, climate, and the environment are connected.

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Doreen E. Martinez, PhD
Associate Professor

Doreen’s expertise is in Indigenous knowledge systems and sociopolitical land and environment issues. Her work focuses on how knowledge, the theoretical grounding of our lives, is engaged and practiced.

She is Mescalero Apache and Pennsylvania Dutch, born in San Antonio, Texas; yet, raised in Pennsylvania. Her family was the “only Martinez in the phone book.” She is the fourth of five children and was the first in her family to wander, break ground, gain access, and pursue US formal education.

She uses a combination of collective principles, natural reason, and decolonial praxis coupled with her formal background in sociology, personal experiences, and traditional values rooted in Indigeneity in all her efforts. Dr. Martinez contemporary projects address and include mis/understandings of knowledge, collective principles, and kinship responsibilities in various environmental, climate justice, and racial justice pursuits. She is committed to ethically engage and pass along this knowledge and understandings. Thus, she is an avid advocate of alliance building and promoting justice.

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Gabe Minthorn
Tribal Liaison, University of Washington Tacoma

My name is Gabe Minthorn (Yakama, Umatilla, and Nez Perce). I work for the Center of Equity and Inclusion as the Tribal Liaison at the University of Washington Tacoma. I enjoy serving students and the communities they represent. I graduated from Blue Mountain Community College with an Associate’s of Arts Degree, Haskell Indian Nations University with a Bachelor’s Degree in American Indian Studies, and Lewis & Clark College with a Master of Arts in Teaching.
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I have worked in Pre-Kindergarten as an elementary Special Education Teacher assistant, taught middle school Personal Wellness, 7th grade English/Social Studies, I was high school Literacy Coach and Social Studies teacher. I enjoy spending my free time traveling with my wife, Dr. Robin Minthorn, and our daughter Roxie.

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Hector A. Olvera-Alvarez, PhD
Associate Professor, Oregon Health and Science University

Hector is an associate professor at Oregon Health and Science University School of Nursing. He received a PhD in environmental science from the University of Texas at El Paso and graduate certification in epidemiology from the University of Michigan. Hector is also a Senior Fellow in the JPB Environmental Health Fellowship. At OHSU he directs the Total Environment and Wellness laboratory where he and his team study how social and environmental conditions interact and how they can be leveraged to help vulnerable populations attain health and well-being.

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Jennifer D. Roberts, PhD
Associate Professor, University of Maryland College Park

Jennifer is an associate professor with tenure in the Department of Kinesiology, School of Public Health at the University of Maryland College Park (UMD). Dr. Roberts is also the Founder and Director of the Public Health Outcomes and Effects of the Built Environment (PHOEBE) Laboratory as well as the Co-Founder and Co-Director of NatureRx@UMD, an initiative that emphasizes the natural environmental benefits interspersed throughout and around the UMD campus. Her scholarship focuses on the impact of built, social, and natural environments, including the institutional and structural inequities of these environments, on the public health outcomes of marginalized communities. More specifically, much of her research has explored the dynamic relationship between environmental, social, and cultural determinants of physical activity and using empirical evidence of this relationship to infer complex health outcome patterns and disparities as well as instigate a powerful shift that recognizes, breaks, and transforms these conditions and determinants of health.

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Ulises Charles Rodriguez
PhD candidate in Population Studies in Health

Ulises Charles Rodriguez is a PhD candidate in Population Studies in Health with a concentration in diversity, disparities, inequalities and social determinants of health. He has a graduate degree in Mental health, cultural processes and psychological interventions with immigrants, minorities and the socially excluded. His current work focuses on the social integration and health benefits of immigrants’ exposure to natural environments. In 2021 he led a community action and a participatory evaluation to increase newcomers’ access to community gardens. Ulises is a health promotion and population health instructor and a planetary health advocate.

Nature and Health has been hosting an annual symposium since 2019. View our other symposia.