Board Members

Dr. Peggy L. Bird (she/her) is of the Sun Clan from Kewa Pueblo, New Mexico. She is mom, grandmother, an advocate/ attorney/ consultant/ human rights activist and works to enhance the sovereignty of indigenous women by ending violence against Native women, both nationally and internationally. She provides training and technical assistance to address violence against Native women and also facilitates comprehensive strategic planning sessions with a Native perspective. Peggy is a co-founder of the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women, Inc., and the Indigenous Women’s Human Rights Collective, Inc.  She is a board member of Tewa Women United, Inc., the National American Indian Court Judges Association, and a co-founder of the NCAI Violence Against Native Women Task Force.  She is a recipient of the U.S. Department of Justice National Crime Victims Service Award and the Sunshine Peace Award granted by the Sunshine Lady Foundation and the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.  She received her Juris Doctorate from the University of New Mexico School of Law in May 1990, became a member of the State Bar of New Mexico in October 1990, and in May 2018, she received her Doctorate of Philosophy from Arizona State University.

Dr. Amber Elizabeth Lynn Gray  (Muxkwudeheenawxkway; Saa’am So Otsi) )  is an award winning dance movement therapist, human rights psychotherapist, authorized Continuum teacher and  member of the American Dance/Movement Therapy Native American Affinity Group.

Amber has worked for 25 years with survivors of human rights abuses, war, torture, oppression, collective and historical trauma globally and here on Turtle Island. Equally artist, advocate, author, educator, mystic and therapist, she, her clients and mentors co-created Survivor- & Spirit-centered, Polyvagal-informed approaches to Somatic Psychotherapies for trauma that are holistic and emergent. A lover of all things wild, Amber regularly facilitates eco-somatic-dance retreats for survivors and caregivers. She consults to organizations world-wide on staff care programming, and is a fierce advocate for self-care, self-compassion and self-respect.

Regis Pecos is a citizen of the Pueblo de Cochiti. He is currently Co-Director of the Leadership Institute at Santa Fe Indian School, which he co-founded. He has served as Councilor and Former Governor, Lt. Governor (three terms), and is a lifetime member of the Tribal Council of the Pueblo de Cochiti. Pecos was most recently Chief of Staff to the Speaker of the House, New Mexico House of Representatives. Pecos previously served as Senior Policy and Legislative Analyst to the Speaker, New Mexico House of Representatives; and for 16 years, as Executive Director of the New Mexico Office of Indian Affairs under four administrations.

Pecos is a graduate of Princeton University and is completing his doctorate degree at the University of California, Berkeley. Pecos is actively involved in many organizations and was a former trustee at Princeton University and currently is Chairman of the Board of Governors for the Honoring Nations program at Harvard University. He is the co-founder of the Summer Junior Policy Institute at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University.

Rose B. Simpson (b. 1983, Santa Clara Pueblo, NM) has an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design and an MA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her works are in many museum collections, including the Hirshhorn, Washington, D.C.; Guggenheim, New York; Museum of Fine Arts Boston; ICA Boston; Princeton University Art Museum; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia; MCA Chicago; Denver Art Museum; Portland Art Museum; LACMA, Los Angeles; Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont, CA; and SFMOMA.  Simpson has enjoyed solo shows at ICA Boston; the Nevada Art Museum, Reno; SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA; Pomona College Museum of Art; the Wheelwright Museum, Santa Fe, and The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia.

Her work has recently been included in group exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA; Cleveland Museum of Art; SFMOMA; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; the Berkeley Art Museum, CA; and the Bronx Museum of the Arts, NY. 

Simpson lives and works in Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico. She is represented by Jessica Silverman, San Francisco, and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. 

In 2022, Simpson debuted Counterculture, a twelve-figure public work at Field Farm, MA, which is now on view at the Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan, WI. In 2023, she was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the Institute of American Indian Art by President Biden. 

Photo by Minesh Bacrania. Courtesy of the artist.

Justina Trott, M.D., F.A.C.P. is an internist, health care and health policy consultant, Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, and fellow of the American College of Physicians. She serves on the Sex and Gender Health Collaborative of the American Medical Women’s Association.

She is a former senior fellow at the RWJF Center for Health Policy at the University of New Mexico, former Senior Fellow NM Center for the Advancement of Research, Engagement, & Science on Health Disparities, former faculty member of the Northern New Mexico Family Practice Residency Program, and former president of the New Mexico Chapter American College of Physicians (2011-2012).

She has taught medical students and residents for over 45 years and developed and teaches a women’s health on-line course at UNM for the past 10 years. She was a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Congressional Fellow 2008-9 in the office of Senator Jeff Bingaman. Prior to her fellowship she was medical and executive director at Women’s Health Services, a nonprofit organization designated as a National Community Center of Excellence in Women’s Health in 2001 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In 2006 she was appointed chair of the New Mexico Governor’s Women’s Health Advisory Council.

Born and raised in the Española Valley, Dr. Patricia Trujillo has dedicated her career to improving social engagement via critical education, social justice, and community-building. She is the Deputy Secretary of the New Mexico Higher Education Department. She formerly served as founding director of the Office of Equity and Diversity at Northern New Mexico College since 2013, where she oversaw programming to address access and inclusion for historically underrepresented populations in higher education.

Dr. Trujillo has served on multiple commissions and boards, including the Northern Rio Grande National Heritage Area, Tewa Women United, NewMexicoWomen.Org, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory Foundation. Trujillo also has more than 15 years of experience in higher education, and is a tenured professor at Northern New Mexico College. She has taught in the areas of Chicana/Chicano studies, Southwest literature, Indigenous history, and New Mexico history, and has published work in multiple academic books and journals.

Trujillo has a Ph.D. in U.S. Latina/Latino Literature from the University of Texas San Antonio, an M.A. in English from the University of Nebraska, and a B.A. in English with a supplemental major in Law and Society from New Mexico State University.