WHO WE ARE
OUR TEAM OF INDIGENOUS TEACHERS AND ALLIES
Samuel Gallegos, BS, ME
Retired Co-Founder
Mescalero Apache and Southern Cheyenne
Co-founder Sam Gallegos (BS, ME) is Mescalero Apache (Dad's side) and Southern Cheyenne (Mom's side) and a direct descendent of Picken Bones Woman, Southern Cheyenne. Since 1990 he has been teaching/educating in various settings, and is currently an adjunct professor at CSU Pueblo, creating a new Native American/Indigenous studies program. As a Native American cultural teacher, he has recently worked with other educators across the state to develop K-12 curriculum.
Annie Drysdale, MA
Art History & Museum Studies
Co-Founder, Co-Director
Ally
Annie Drysdale is an independent curator specializing in contemporary Indigenous and Chicana/o/x art. Drysdale is the primary expert on the work of Indigenous story quilter, Susan Hudson (Navajo), with whom she has a close collaborative relationship. She holds both her B.A. in Art History and her M.A. in Art History & Museum Studies from the University of Denver, where she curated more than a dozen exhibitions for the DU Davis Art Gallery. Drysdale values working with living artists, and in addition to her work with Hudson, curated "Spectators", a solo exhibition by Tonio LeFebre (Piro/Tiwa). She has co-curated dyanmic exhibitions at the Millicent Rogers Museum in Taos, NM, and the Vicki Myhren gallery in Denver, CO.
Rebecca Robles, MBA, MPP
Co-Director
Mexica
Patli Mayahuel Cihua (MBA/MPP) is a Chicana with Indigenous roots in the Aztec & Purepecha peoples of Michoacan, Mexico. She is a student-teacher of Mexican Traditional Medicine, or Curanderismo, and an Aztec dancer with Groupo Xochitl. She began studying Curanderismo in August of 2020 with Maestra CC, Maestra Paula, and Maestro D'Santi of the Kalpulli Teocalli Ollin (Community of Sacred House of Energy). Before that, she had been studying Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine since 2016.
