Our Team of experts

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Dr. Jennifer Wolf, PhD, MPH, (Ponca/Ojibwe/Santee), Owner and Founder of Project Mosaic LLC, has worked with dozens of nonprofit organizations

to define their needs and next steps. She is a Commissioner for the Denver Public Library, on the Racial Equity Board for the City and County of Denver, and the Denver Foundation's Advisory Committee for Community Impact. Her clients include First Nations Development Institute, Johns Hopkins University Center for Indigenous Health. Native Movement, Cochiti de Pueblo, Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe, American Indian Science and Engineering Society, Buffalo Nations Grasslands Alliance, World Wildlife Fund, the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Center, Northwest Native American Center of Excellence, Dream of Wild Health, North Dakota Native Vote, California Native Vote, Johnson Scholarship Foundation, Denver Indian Health and Family Services, Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs, National Native American Boarding School

Healing Coalition, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, IllumiNatives,  and other tribal and educational entities. She has also served as the Director of

Partnership and Business Development for Joining Vision and Action. Jennifer is employed by Denver Public Schools as the Director of Native Student Success, but will continue consulting during school breaks and vacation. 

Richard B. Williams (Oglala Lakota, Cheyenne) holds the distinction of being the first American Indian student to earn a bachelor's degree from the University of Nebraska.  He earned a master's in education administration from UW.  In May 2007, he received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Roger Williams University in Rhode Island. From 1997-2012, he served as president and CEO of the American Indian College Fund. This national nonprofit organization raises private support for all 32 tribal colleges and universities in the United States.  Throughout his career, he has lectured and presented for various organizations, including the Central Intelligence Agency, National Indian Education Association, the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, and the National Council of Educational Opportunity Associations. In 1993 and 1994, he served as a consulting editor for the Discovery Channel series How the West Was Lost. From 1993 to 1997, Williams served as an instructor for the Indian Studies graduate program at the University of Denver. 

Ida Nelson (Oglala/Santee/Ojibwe) graduated from Gonzaga University with my MBA in American Indian Entrepreneurship and has worked at the Native American Bank, evaluating business plans and critically analyzing financial statements, auditor reports, and personal and business tax returns.  She was also responsible for reviewing and adhering to loan polices and regulatory compliance issues.

Nelson also worked for CRAFT3 with their Indian Country Initiatives program.  At CRAFT3, she provided technical assistance to Native CDFI’s and potential loan clients to foster future pipeline activity.  She helped her clients identify, profile, contact and manage potential partners, funders, and program supporters to support the ongoing success of the Indian Country Initiative. Nelson also assisted in grant research and the application process to encourage giving and community support, including assisting with grant compliance and objective completion to ensure future funding. 

Shatta Mejia, White Mountain Apache, has been an independent consultant, international presenter, and content developer for over 5 years. His focus is on Racial, Historic and Linguistic Justice. After spending years serving Indigenous communities in the southwest, Alaska, Caribbean, South America, and South Pacific, he understands that every collaboration starts with listening and putting himself in the shoes of stakeholders and end users. His style is practical and based on data. Shatta understands this because of his experience in education: 11 years as an Elementary and Middle School Teacher before becoming principal. He served as an Assistant Director of Curriculum for Colorado’s second largest district, supervising K-12 Instructional Coaches and leading Educational Equity efforts districtwide. Shatta’s parents met as migrant farmworkers and had 13 children while getting Master’s degrees themselves. When he was growing up in Denver, he was never taught traditions or ceremony, kept away from those extended family who had a lot to teach. In finding his cultural identity after high school, he discovered a passion for helping organizations and students find their collective direction. Across sectors, collective organization building is key to a high functioning culture and longevity! He believes all people are lifelong learners and must have passion for both parts of their job: Data-Gatherer and Artist. But more than that, Heart….

Tara McLain Manthey, MLS, (Osage Nation) is an experienced nonprofit leader and consultant with demonstrated success in public policy and direct services sectors. A former newspaper reporter, Tara (she/her) is an expert communicator and adept facilitator. She offers strategic leadership, communications, development and facilitation support so organizations can move missions forward through consensus-based decision making. Tara has served as the Executive Director of Denver Indian Family Resource Center and Senior Vice President of Advocacy, Communications and Development for the Colorado Children's Campaign. She has a Master of Legal Studies in Indigenous Peoples Law from the University of Oklahoma College of Law and degrees in journalism and music from the University of Colorado at Boulder. A citizen of the Osage Nation, Tara serves on the Editorial Board of the independent Osage News. She lives in Denver with her family and spends as much time as possible in the mountains of Western Colorado, where she grew up and her parents still live.

Gemara Gifford, M.S., Ph.D. Candidate (Chicana/Tiwa), is an effective leader with 15 years of experience in nonprofit management and environmental justice. As a connector and bridge-builder, she has built partnerships with dozens of Indigenous and Native-led groups to support grassroots efforts in climate justice, natural resource protection, and fish and wildlife conservation. As a program director, wildlife researcher, and social scientist, she has worked at local, state, federal, and transnational levels to support Indigenous organizations, leaders, and youth in realizing their goals. She has been recognized as a Technical Expert for Colorado’s Outdoors Strategy, a National Science Foundation Fellow, Gates Millennium Scholar, and Next 100 Colorado Mentor. Her past and current partnerships include the Keystone Policy Center, the Center for Collaborative Conservation, Native Voices Rising, and more. Gemara is also pursuing her doctorate at Colorado State University focused on Indigenous land and wildlife stewardship opportunities on Colorado’s public lands. Gem is a descendent of the Pueblo of Picuris in Northern New Mexico, and was raised in Denver where her mother instilled in her a deep love for and appreciation of animals and the environment.  

Christine Diindiisi McCleave is a scholar and an activist. She is an enrolled citizen of the Turtle Mountain Ojibwe Nation and has been working in Indian Country at the national level for more than 10 years. Most recently, as the CEO of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, she advocated for truth, justice, and healing for the ongoing trauma from the genocidal policy of U.S. Indian Boarding Schools. Before that, she was the Communications Officer for the Indian Land Tenure Foundation, advocating for #LandBack in the U.S.

With a Bachelor’s degree in Communication Studies and a Master of Arts in Leadership, she conducted her master's thesis on Native American spiritual leadership and the intersectionality of Native spirituality and Christianity in the spectrum of Native spiritual practices today. Christine has completed her Ph.D. in Indigenous Studies at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Her dissertation focuses on using traditional entheogenic plant medicines to heal Indigenous historical trauma. Her scholarship and advocacy concentrate on the intersection of cultural, political, and spiritual agency for global Indigenous Rights and the neuroscience of healing historical trauma as a generational survivor of U.S. Indian Boarding Schools and settler-colonial genocidal violence. She is dedicated to prioritizing Indigenous knowledge and perspectives in all sectors and communities, particularly decolonizing spaces in psychedelic research pertaining to Indigenous plant medicines.

Marie Zephier, MPH, Oglala/Kul Wicasa Lakota, serves as the Evaluator for PM and provides expertise in data aggregation, synthesis, and reporting. With a strong focus on cultural approaches, Ms. Zephier has aggregated and reported data to tribal, state, and federal grant sectors that integrated evaluation and data visualizations. Since 2007, Marie has provided quality assurance, facilitation, strategic planning, data analysis, and processes improvement expertise. She received her bachelor’s from Creighton University in 2009, and master’s in public health policy and management from the University of Arizona in 2011. Ms. Zephier is a student through University of North Dakota Doctorate in Indigenous Health Program. Marie enjoys movies, crafting, and spending time with her daughter, nieces, and nephews. 

Born and raised surrounded by volcanoes in central Mexico, Fernando Briones found in social science a pathway to understand his heritage at the crossroads of Nahuatl culture and Spanish colonialism. He has two decades of experience working on local and global issues, such as climate change adaptation and mitigation, disaster risk, environmental resilience, indigenous knowledge, public policies, displaced populations, and social vulnerability.

Fernando is a research affiliate at the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He prioritizes connecting fragmented stakeholders and knowledge to achieve community-based outcomes. His experience includes partnership engagement with Indigenous Peoples, governments, NGOs, scientists, and the private sector in initiatives in the Americas, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

Fernando holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris, France). He speaks Spanish, English, French, and Portuguese. He is passionate about culture, photography, and mountains.