Shelly Fyant is a member of the Bitteroot-Salish. She is the former Chairwoman of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT). In her role as leader of these tribes, she is managing the return of the National Bison Range to CSKT and the tribes’ recent 1.9-billion-dollar water compact settlement. Ms. Fyant’s path to her current tribal leadership position included the work she did for her community in food sovereignty as the founder of the Healing the Jocko Valley Food Sovereignty Project.

Helen Augare Carlson Mamiatsikimiiaki-Magpie Woman is an enrolled member of the Ampsakapii Pikanii Blackfeet Tribe. She was born and raised on the Blackfeet Nation in Northern Montana. She is the wife of Sheldon Carlson (Mistakiiootahs – Mountain Horse) and mother of two daughters and a son. Her family are tied to the Two Medicine River Valley. She attended the Browning Public Schools, Blackfeet Community College, and Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Montana in Business Administration with emphasis in Management and Information Systems. Helen began her career in STEM education reform as the director of the Rural Systemic Initiative project at Blackfeet Community College in 2000. As a result of her leadership in education reform through the development of the NSF-funded Blackfeet Community College Rural Systemic Initiative (BCC-RSI) and Native Science Field Centers, she is demonstrating outstanding mentoring that significantly increases the participation of Native American youth K-12, tribal college students, and graduate educators in STEM throughout the Northern Rockies and Plains. Helen is currently the Title III Director in the Institutional Development Department at Blackfeet Community College. Together with her husband they hold the Ksisktahkii Mopistan Beaver Bundle and the Ponoka Iikokan (Elk Painted Lodge). She is also a student of the Niistipowahsinni language and a devoted advocate of IINNII relatives.

Jason Baldes is a member of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe from the Wind River Indian Reservation (WRIR) in Wyoming. He received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Land Resource & Environmental Sciences from Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana. Interest in Indigenous cultural revitalization afforded Baldes opportunities to work in New Zealand, Russia, and Denmark. Work in his own community has been focused on the reintroduction of Buffalo to the WRIR and is currently the Buffalo Representative and herd manager for the Eastern Shoshone Tribe. He is currently the Tribal Buffalo Program Manager for the Tribal Partnerships Program of the National Wildlife Federation working with numerous Tribes seeking to restore Buffalo to Tribal lands. With his father and others, we worked diligently to bring buffalo back to the Eastern Shoshone Tribe as well as the Northern Arapaho Tribe that share the WRIR. He is the former Executive Director of the Wind River Native Advocacy Center, a non-profit organization with a mission of empowering Native Americans in Wyoming to have a stronger voice through community organizing, education, research, legal advocacy, and leadership development. Mr. Baldes serves as Secretary on the Board of Directors for the Inter-Tribal Buffalo Council, the Board of Trustees of the Conservation Lands Foundation and the Environmental Commission of the Congress of Nations and States. He is also an instructor at Central Wyoming College and the Wind River Tribal College.