Natalie Vaughan-Wynn (Fort Peck Assiniboine Sioux Registered Descendant) is a Ph.D. Candidate in the University of Washington’s Geography Department and is working toward her Certificate in American Indian and Indigenous Studies. Her educational path entails a G.E.D., attending the same college with her mom at the same time, and a graduate degree in Sustainable International Development from Brandeis University.
Work centered on food justice and sovereignty over the last 15 years has brought her to West Africa, where she worked with the Indigenous Hausa people to facilitate village-to-village agricultural knowledge sharing, to Oxfam, as part of a farmworkers’ rights campaign, and to a research institute engaged in international conversations around food and hunger.
Specific ways that food is part of her life include Big Leaf Maple sugaring, foraging and fishing with her husband and son, and frequently shared meals with friends and family.