2022 Alaska Food Festival
Conference Keynote Speakers & Special Guests

Janie Simms Hipp, Keynote Speaker
USDA GENERAL COUNSEL

Hipp holds an LL.M. in agriculture and food law from the University of Arkansas. Her work focuses on the complex intersection of Indian law and agriculture and food law. A citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, she was the founding director of the Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative at the U of A and served in numerous capacities at USDA in the past. She leaves her position as CEO of the Native American Agriculture Fund to rejoin the USDA as general counsel.

Hipp has served as national program leader for Farm Financial Management, Trade Adjustment Assistance, Risk Management Education and the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development programs at the USDA National Institute for Food and Agriculture. She also served as a division director within the USDA Risk Management Agency, and thereafter, served as senior adviser for tribal relations to Sec. Tom Vilsack. Hipp is the author of numerous publications, including her most recent ones: the Feeding Ourselves report, co-authored with Wilson Pipestem and Crystal EchoHawk; the Regaining Our Future report with Colby Duren; and most recently the Reimagining Native Food Economies. She has also received many accolades and awards, including the President's Volunteer Service Award for Lifetime Achievement and the National Center for American Indian Economic Development's 2017 Tim Wapato Public Advocate of the Year Award. She was also recently honored by the Congressional Hunger Center with their 2021Trailblazer Hunger Leadership Award.

Eva Dawn Burk, Keynote Speaker
University of Alaska Fairbanks

To restore her Denaakk’e (Koyukon) and Lower Tanana Dene’ Athabascan traditional harvesting practices, Eva Dawn Burk is returning to a semi-nomadic lifestyle, living in relationship with her family’s ancestral lands and waters. Eva Dawn earned a B.S. from the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) in Civil Engineering (2007) and worked for ASRC Energy Services as a Senior Project Engineer, specializing in infrastructure, environmental studies, logistics, stakeholder engagement and renewable energy through 2013. Currently, she is working on a Master of Science in Natural Resources and Environment with a focus on “Healing Through Food and Culture.” To transition into her new career, she spent the last few years volunteering and working for her village of Toghotthele (Nenana) as a Wellness and Culture Camp Leader, Fisherwoman, Cook and Laborer. Eva Dawn earned several prestigious fellowships and represents the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Solve Indigenous Communities, Intertribal Agriculture Council Inter-institutional Network for Food, Agriculture and Sustainability, and SLOAN Indigenous Graduate Partnership. She works for UAF as a research assistant for both the College of Rural and Community Development and the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy. Eva Dawn is dedicated to improving food sovereignty and security and community well-being through maintaining traditional lifestyles, advocacy and opening educational spaces on ancestral lands.

Helga Garcia-Garza, Keynote Speaker
Executive Director of Agri-Cultura Network and La Cosecha CSA

Helga Garcia-Garza has a vision for equity and food justice for underserved Hispanic and Native communities in her Central New Mexico region. Helga’s lived experience as a member of a marginalized Native and Indigenous community, more than two decades of experience with cooperative organic farming, and her long history as a community organizer and environmental justice activist all inform her work as Executive Director of Agri-cultura Network and La Cosecha CSA. She has worked at ACN member farms, worked on tracking, quality control, and distribution of the network’s produce. For the last 30 years she has been dedicated to community health initiatives on both sides of the US/Mexico region organizing and educating communities on Right to Know Right to Act regarding water, land and air contamination. She bases her work in a from-the-ground-up approach to building an environmental economy, as she believes the nutritional needs of her community are best served by local farmers who grow healthy, culturally appropriate food using organic and sustainable practices. Helga is the New Mexico Food & Ag Policy Council Chair, Castanea Fellow 2020-2021 and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Culture of Health Leader Fellow 2018-2021.

“As a Native woman in agriculture I am guided by our ancestral calendar, and I share this knowledge through an intergenerational process. As a farmer myself, I know first-hand the challenges of farm to market. I have experience and lessons learned through development of farm cooperatives in Brownsville, Texas and in Central Mexico. This inspired my strong commitment to protecting the environment and to building a healthy, sustainable, local economy through agricultural practices.”

Tiffany ayalik, Film Screening Panelist
Food for the rest of us, PRODUCER

Tiffany Ayalik is from Yellowknife, NT and is Inuk from the Kitikmeot region in Nunavut. It was in the North, listening to stories from her elders, that she discovered her love of storytelling, and the powerful change that hearing a story can bring about. Tiffany graduated ‘With Distinction’ with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting from the University of Alberta. As a film actor, her work can be seen at many international film festivals. In Canada you can see her as Daphne in CBC’s “A Christmas Fury” the full-length spin-off of cult-classic “Hatching Matching and Dispatching” and on CBC’s “Little Dog” and as the host for “NorthernHer”. When she isn’t touring performing or composing, Tiffany enjoys teaching movement, song and storytelling. Tiffany is a Juno award winning musician and collaborates with her sister Inuksuk Mackay in their band PIQSIQ.