Gary Farmer is a Canadian actor and musician. Farmer was born in Ohsweken, Ontario into the Cayuga Nation and Wolf Clan of the Haudenosaunee/Iroquois Confederacy. He is perhaps best known for his role as Nobody in the films Dead Man (1995) and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999), and for his role in Smoke Signals (1998). In his career spanning over three decades, Farmer received three Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male nominations. He is widely recognized as a pioneer in the development of First Nations media in Canada and is the founding director of an urban Indian radio network, Aboriginal Voices Radio Network. He has most recently been noted for his role as Uncle Brownie in the hit FX series Reservation Dogs.

Tala Mohammad Ali is the daughter of a Jordanian father and a Palestinian mother who was ethnically cleaned from her homeland at the age of 13. She has lived most of her life in Cincinnati--OH, where she currently works at the Dorothy Day Center for Faith & Justice at Xavier Univresity. It is there that she serves as the Muslim Chaplain and Assistant Director of Interfaith Program, and where she also facilitates service and justice immersion programming. She also sits on the governing Board of the Islamic Association of Cincinnati, Clifton Mosque. She has organized and served in justice based movements for most of her life. Tala has been an active organizer in the movements against the invasion and occupation of Iraq (2003), for Palestinian rights and liberation, as well as for the rights, lives and liberation of Black and Indigenous peoples. She has intentionally worked to highlight the parallels between these movements and building for solidarity along the way. Tala sees herself as a daughter of indigenous resistance, displacement, resilience, and survival. She stands in solidarity with all peoples struggling for liberation.

Irene Bedard (she/her/hers) is of Inupiat and Metis heritage and is enrolled in the Native Village of Koyuk. She has played many American Indian characters in a variety of television shows and films. She is best known for her voice role as the title character in the Disney animated film "Pocahontas," and the cult-classic "Smoke Signals" as Suzy Song. Irene has always used her platform to advocate for Native people. In the past she has done work around Murdered and Missing Indigenous Relatives and to protect the sacred lands. Irene now serves as a board member for GCNAC. Irene will be speaking on the Indian Boarding School system.

Dawn Knickerbocker (Anishinaabe/ White Earth Nation) has spent the majority of her career working as a philanthropist, in nonprofit leadership, and as a project manager. She worked as a grant-maker in Washington State when she designed and implemented Spokane Arts Grant Awards (SAGA). Dawn recently worked as the Director of Foundation Relations at Antioch College. Dawn holds a bachelor’s degree in organizational management from Whitworth University, completed graduate work in social impact from Claremont Lincoln University, and a master’s in arts in human rights practice from University of Arizona. Dawn is the former elected Chair of the Advisory Commission on Diversity for the most diverse city in the State of Washington, Renton from 2006-2010. She is a published nonfiction writer, poet, columnist, and speaker, and the 2020 Martin Luther King Drum Major for Justice Award recipient. Her latest anthology, NAVIGATING THE PANDEMIC: Stories of Hope and Resilience is now under contract with Page Publishing and is set to be released soon. Her collaborative coffee table book, Edible Ohio is scheduled to be released in 2021. Dawn resides in Yellow Springs, Ohio with her husband and four sons. Dawn is the board president of the Greater Cincinnati Native American Coalition. Dawn will be speaking on Food as Medicine.

Shepherd Tsosie is Diné, 4th gender, from Arizona, and a survivor of Western academia. They live and work in North Carolina with their wife and cats. Their recent work interrogates power in library and archives, and via this interrogation they seek ways to queer/decolonize/Indigenize spaces of learning and inquiry. Last year Shepherd spoke on Indigenizing your reading list, this year we are excited to hear from them about archival records and their own journey to "find" Indigenous knowledge about their gender identity.