2025 Fellows
Taylor Galvin Ozaawi Mashkode-Bizhiki
Taylor Galvin Ozaawi Mashkode-Bizhiki (Brown Buffalo) is a proud Anishinaabe woman from Brokenhead Ojibway Nation and a member of the Sturgeon Clan. She is a graduate student at the University of Manitoba, where her Master’s thesis explores Lake Sturgeon conservation through Indigenous science, oral storytelling, and community-based knowledge. She is also one of the lead plaintiffs and knowledge keepers in the Lake Winnipeg personhood case, advancing Indigenous water governance on the legal stage.
Taylor serves as the Brokenhead Wetland Ecological Reserve Chair and is the community coordinator for an Indigenous-led environmental monitoring project in Tataskweyak Cree Nation. She is a lifelong student of many Elders and Knowledge Keepers across Manitoba. She walks in both worlds, using Western and Indigenous sciences to guide her work in land guardianship, ceremony, and environmental protection.
Taylor’s advocacy centers Indigenous youth, especially young women, whom she mentors through teachings on plants, medicines, and ceremony. She brings them into spaces of leadership to see themselves reflected in this work. Taylor has shared Indigenous knowledge internationally - from the Netherlands to Belize to the United Nations in New York City - and attributes every opportunity to the strength of her people, the power of ceremony, and the resilience of community teachings.
Mary-Jo Michell
Mary-Jo is nłeʔkepmx (Nlaka’pamux) from ƛ̓əq̓ƛ̓aqtn. (Kanaka Bar). She is a proud mother of two and the Lands and Culture Coordinator with Kanaka Bar Indian Band.
She is passionate about conservation, restoration, and preservation of language, culture, lands and waters because of the teachings she has received from her grandmothers and Nation Elders growing up. She was raised to take only what you need, share what you have, remember what you do to the land, you do to yourself, and to respect and honor the interconnectedness of all life.
We all have a responsibility to take care of our tmíxʷ (earth/land). All lands and waters are sacred, from the highest mountains to our deepest rivers, with the four legged, two legged, finned, winged, rooted ones including those we cannot see, we are all connected, we are one.
These teachings have shaped Mary-Jo’s worldview as a human being, a mother, a leader, and her role as the Lands and Culture Coordinator for ƛ̓əq̓ƛ̓aqtnmx (Kanaka Bar Band). The tmíxʷ (earth/land) is not just a resource; it is our skiʔkíyeʔ (our ancestor), our relative. We are all a part of this tmíxʷ (earth/land).
