Allianchu (Quechua)! Choa Mibizine (Chibcha)! I was born in the Colombian Andes, in the Muisca territory of Bacatá (Bogotá), at the base of my godparent mountains—Quijicha Caca and Quijicha Guexica. I am an Indigenous daughter of the Andes, initiated as a Nusta Paqo (medicine person) in the Q’eros lineage (Kiko territory, Apaza family line) rooted in the tribal territories above Cusco, Peru. Combining the wisdoms of my Andean ancestors from the Muisca and Quechua peoples, I serve as an ancestral storyteller and ceremonial companion to the sacred Elder, Mama Coca (the coca leaf).

I hold a Master’s in Clinical Social Work with a focus in traumatology from New York University (2007) and have practiced integrative, community-based, and Indigenized trauma care for twenty years. My career has included serving as full-time and adjunct faculty in social work programs at St. Augustine College, University of Louisville, and Florida Atlantic University. Currently, I am a Ph.D. student at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in the Philosophy program, with a concentration in Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion (ESR).

My research engages a transdisciplinary approach to the field of Indigenous Studies by weaving together Andean cosmology, ecology, and Indigenous Futurism. As an Indigenous folklorist and ceremonialist, I center the practice of "co-storying" with plant, animal, and land wisdom-keepers. This methodology bridges Andean philosophy with the urgent needs of our current season of Pachakuti (the great turning), calling for Indigenous knowledge to be "re-storied" for the flourishing of all human and more-than-human kin.

My scholarship works to visibilize the sovereignty of human and more-than-human elders from the Andean territories of Peru and Colombia, with a focus on the powerful shapeshifting of tradition found in migratory expressions of these lineages within the North American diaspora. By integrating academic rigor with ancestral praxis, I seek to expand the discipline’s understanding of how Indigenous wisdom navigates and transcends colonial borders, fostering global ecological and relational healing. I currently live in Lenapehoking, territory of the Hackensack clan, also called Orange, New Jersey. I share my home with a chi-mix elder pup with four-eyes markings, meaning she is a spiritual protector of the household.​