Collective Continuance: Indigenous Knowledge Fellowship
The Collective Continuance: Indigenous Knowledge Fellowship (CCF) supports University of California, Berkeley students whose research engages Indigenous knowledge systems and psychedelic science through ethical, relational and community centered research practices. It is important to engage Indigenous knowledge systems because these communities hold long-standing knowledge related to healing, ecology and consciousness that has shaped contemporary psychedelic research and practice.
About the Fellowship and Collective Continuance
The CCF supports scholars who are navigating complex questions at the intersection of Indigenous knowledge and psychedelic research. Providing a structured environment to explore how Indigenous knowledge systems inform contemporary questions about psychedelics is important; many ethical tensions in this field emerge early, as research questions and approaches are taking shape. The fellowship supports ways of working that emphasize accountability and reciprocity over time, with attention to how knowledge is developed, shared and carried forward through ongoing relationships.
The CCF intervenes early in research training to influence how psychedelic research is designed and governed. The program mentors scholars in developing research questions, methods and partnerships aligned with Indigenous governance, consent and long-term responsibility. This upstream approach reduces extractive practices and strengthens ethical infrastructure across the field.
Collective continuance is an Anishinaabe concept that has been brought to academia by Dr. Kyle Powys Whyte. It describes knowledge as living, ongoing and carried collectively, emphasizing long-term responsibility and asking how actions today shape the well-being of future generations. We chose this name for the fellowship because it reflects our commitment to understanding knowledge as relational, living and carried through ongoing relationships with land, ecosystems and communities across time and space. We offer our gratitude to Dr. Whyte and to Anishinaabe and Potawatomi intellectual traditions for allowing this framework to guide the fellowship’s values and design.
2022 Indigenous Research Student Fellows
Yanabah Jaques
Yanabah Jaques (YAH-nah-bah HAWK-is) from the Navajo Nation and completed her BS in cognitive science at Brown University. As a Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute PhD candidate in Dr. Daniela Kaufer’s laboratory, her research investigates specific serotonin receptor subtypes bound by psilocybin and their contributions to the regulation of traumatic-stress-induced impulsive behaviors. She aims to use the support of the BCSP Indigenous Student Fellowship Program to contribute to evaluations of serotonergic hallucinogens’ behavioral effects and underlying mechanisms to help determine their potential for treating post-traumatic stress disorder and other neuropsychiatric disorders.
Patricia Kubala
Patricia Kubala is a PhD candidate in socio-cultural anthropology at UC Berkeley. Her dissertation project, The Medicine World: Psychedelic Therapy and the Labor for an Otherwise, explores the complex intertwining of Indigenous, postcolonial, and countercultural histories through which psychedelic medicines and therapies came to be adopted in the United States. The dissertation elucidates what notions of illness and cure are at stake in the encounter between the Indigenous, the psychotherapeutic, and the pharmaceutical that is mediated through psychedelics, while also considering the ethics of a practice of healing that has its condition of possibility in settler-colonial relations of appropriation.
Weiying Li
Weiying Li is a PhD student in the Learning Sciences and Human Development cluster in the Graduate School of Education at UC Berkeley. In partnership with teachers from rural China and California, her research focuses on designing culturally responsive science pedagogy using educational technologies and designing adaptive guidance using natural language processing in response to students’ everyday scientific ideas. Her current research with BCSP focuses on designing traditional Chinese medicine–related middle school science inquiry curriculum in partnership with local community leaders, local TCM doctors, and science teachers in rural China.
Emely Ortez
Emely Ortez is an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley. Her interests in the lab include neuroscience and genetics. She researches the effects of psychedelics on the enteric nervous system of mice. Outside the lab, she’s a creative spirit who can be found reading, crocheting, painting, and taking her cat on walks around Berkeley.
Lina Turiya Richardson
Lina Turiya Richardson is a reentry psychology student at UC Berkeley. After nearly two decades of study and practice in several lineage traditions, Lina arrived at the university focused on the potential role of whole plant medicines in healing and mental health. Her personal experiences have fueled an interest in the function of prayer as one of several central, non-entheogenic practices common among Indigenous traditions in which ceremonial psychedelic medicine use is established. Over the last year, Lina has supported the evaluation of BCSP’s training program through UC Berkeley’s Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program. In addition to studying psychology, Lina is a consultant and educator working with startups founded by women. She also serves as a board advisor to Psychedelic Science at Berkeley, and is a UC Berkeley Regents’ and Chancellor’s Scholar.
Marlena Robbins
Marlena Robbins is Diné from the Yeii Dine’e Táchii’nii (Giant Red Running into Water People) clan. She has been accepted into the Doctor of Public Health program, focusing on interdisciplinary studies and the advancement of Indigenous representation in sacred plant medicines. Her intention is to bridge Indigenous knowledge of sacred plants with Western clinical medicine, specifically in psychotherapeutic settings on tribal reservations.
Tiffany Taylor
Tiffany Taylor is a doctoral student in the department of anthropology. Previously, she received a Master of Public Health in Epidemiology from Columbia University and has all coursework completed with a thesis in progress for a Master of Science in Systems Biology and Bioinformatics from New York University. She graduated as a triple major and as a Student Marshal from the University of Chicago with undergraduate majors in Political Science, Sociology, and Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies. During her time at the University of Chicago, she was the sole recipient of the Brady Dougan Award in Economics. Her current research interests include visual, cultural, and medical anthropology; the science of psychedelics; human-computer interaction; social data science, bioinformatics, and systems biology; science and technology studies and ethnography. She loves learning languages and is studying Modern Greek.
The 2022 cohort participated under the fellowship’s prior name, the Indigenous Research Student Fellowship.
Staff and Leadership
Marlena Robbins, MS, DrPHc
Diné | Mescalero Apache
Program Coordinator, Collective Continuance: Indigenous Knowledge Fellowship
Marlena Robbins leads the design, implementation and coordination of the fellowship’s pilot and future iterations. In this role, she oversees program development, curriculum design, mentorship structures and fellow support, while working closely with Indigenous advisors, faculty mentors and institutional partners. Marlena stewards the fellowship’s ethical commitments, including relational accountability, responsible engagement with Indigenous knowledge systems and alignment with BCSP’s broader mission. The program coordinator also supports evaluation, learning and adaptation of the program to inform long-term sustainability and institutional practice.
Indigenous Advisory Council
The fellowship is supported by an Indigenous Advisory Council and faculty mentors who guide governance and participate in fellow selection.
Joshuaa Burbank
Joshuaa D. Allison-Burbank, PhD, CCC-SLP is Diné and Acoma Pueblo. His clans are T’ógi, Parrot Clan (Acoma), Tó’áhani, and Yellow Corn (Acoma). Joshuaa is a licensed speech-language pathologist and previously worked at Northern Navajo Medical Center in Tsé Bitaí, Navajo Nation. He continues to provide developmental services to Navajo families enrolled in the Navajo Nation Early Intervention Program. His previous clinical work included being a Research Project Coordinator for the Culturally Responsive Early Literacy Instruction: American Indian/Alaska Native graduate training program at the University of Kansas. His research interests include community assessment, parent coaching, assessing the effects of stress on neurodevelopment, and the prevention of developmental delay in American Indian children.
Dr. Allison-Burbank received his master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Kansas where he focused on neurodevelopmental disabilities and prevention research. He has a Public Health Training Certificate in American Indian Health from Johns Hopkins University. He attended the University of New Mexico where he received a BA in Speech and Hearing Sciences. Joshuaa has held several leadership positions recently including vice chair of the Multi-Cultural Committee (MCC) within the Association of University Centers on Disabilities and co-chair of the Native American Caucus within the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA).
Dr. Allison-Burbank joined the Center in April of 2021 and is based at the Johns Hopkins office in Albuquerque, NM.
Belinda Eriacho
Belinda Eriacho Diné (Navajo) and A:shiwi (Zuni Pueblo) is a cultural advocate, healer, educator, author, and international speaker dedicated to wellness and culturally grounded plant-medicine practices.
She holds degrees in Health Sciences, Public Health, and Technology.
Belinda is trained in MDMA-assisted therapy, ketamine-assisted therapy, and EMDR, serving as a bridge between ancestral healing and emerging mental-health modalities. She served on Colorado’s Natural Medicine Act, Federally Recognized American Tribes and Indigenous Communities Working Group. In addition, is the a co-founder and board member of the Church of the Eagle and the Condor.
Belinda’s work uplifts Indigenous knowledge, strengthens cultural safety, and advances ethical, community-rooted healing pathways. As an educator, advocate, and bridge builder, Belinda works at the intersection of culture, health, and community empowerment.
Pablo Gonzalez
Dr. Pablo Gonzalez is a Continuing Lecturer in Chicanx and Latinx Studies and Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley. He is also the recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award for 2022. Dr. Gonzalez holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin. His research and teaching specializations include: transnational indigenous social movements, engaged ethnographic methods, urban anthropology, politics of history and memory, dispossession, and decolonial thought and praxis. Dr. Gonzales is also the director of the Ethnic Studies Changemaker project at UC Berkeley. He is originally from Berkeley, California.
Diana Negrin
Diana Negrín da Silva is a geographer, educator, writer and curator with a focus on identity, space and social movements in Latin America. Born and raised between Jalisco and California, since 2003 Negrín has conducted ethnographic and archival research in the Mexican states of Jalisco and Nayarit with a primary focus on Wixarika youth activism and interracial organizing. Her scholarship engages human and cultural geography, critical race theory, cultural studies, political ecology and urban studies. Negrín longstanding current research examines the politics of solidarity within interracial and cross-geographic alliances that mobilize around Wixarika cultural and territorial defense.
Diana Quinn
Diana Quinn, ND is a licensed naturopathic doctor, healing justice practitioner, and psychedelic educator with over 20 years of service to marginalized communities including people of the global majority (BIPOC), 2SLGBTQIA+, and people living with disabilities and chronic illness. She holds a Doctorate in Naturopathic Medicine from National University of Natural Medicine and a Bachelor of Arts in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Michigan, with a concentration on ritual, religion, and ethnobotany. In her clinical work she has focused on integrative oncology and end of life care, psychoneuroimmunology and mind/body medicine, and integrative mental health.
Dr. Quinn is the former Director of Clinical Education at the Naropa Center for Psychedelic Studies, where curriculum centered historically excluded communities within an anti-oppressive framework. Her other work in psychedelic education has included serving as Director of Training at Alma Institute Psilocybin facilitator program, mentor for the Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics, and guest instructor at several training programs. She has served on numerous advisory boards with an emphasis on ethical integrity, equity, accessibility, and Indigenous reciprocity in the psychedelic field.
As a facilitator and ceremonialist, Diana is in humble relationship with her elders and teachers, dharma teachings, sangha and communities of liberatory practice, ancestral lineages, the land and more-than-human beings where she resides on Anishinaabe Aki, and the Great Mystery.
Sandor Iron Rope
Sandor Iron Rope is an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota Oyate from Pine Ridge, South Dakota, whose work centers on Indigenous sacred medicine protection, cultural continuity, and ethical leadership within conversations surrounding psychedelic research and policy. He received his B.A. in Human Services and American Indian Studies from Black Hills State University.
Mr. Iron Rope supports Tribes and Native American Church communities throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico, serving as President of the Native American Church of South Dakota and former Chair of the Native American Church of North America. His leadership emphasizes the protection of Indigenous ceremonial practices, sovereignty, intergenerational knowledge transfer, and the long-term conservation of peyote as a sacred medicine.
Through his work, Mr. Iron Rope advocates for Indigenous-led approaches to sacred medicines and contributes to broader discussions surrounding mental wellness, healing, conservation, and the evolving psychedelic landscape. His perspective calls for ethical collaboration rooted in Indigenous knowledge systems, respect for ceremonial responsibility, and the protection of sacred medicines for future generations.
For questions about the fellowship, please contact: CCF@berkeley.edu