Freddie Bitsoie is a proud Navajo and an award-winning chef. Bitsoie is currently Chef in residence at North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems (NATIFS) in Minneapolis, MN. He is the former executive chef of Mitsitam Native Foods Café, located inside Washington, DC’s Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. Bitsoie was previously the executive chef of Fire Rock Casino and is the winner of the Smithsonian’s Native Chef Competition. He is the author of New Native Kitchen (Abrams New York, 2021). He has contributed to a number of Native American cookbooks, including America: The Cookbook (Phaidon, 2017) and James Beard Award–winner Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen (University of Minnesota Press, 2017). He recently moved from Gallup, New Mexico to Minneapolis, MN.

I am a proud Guatemalan immigrant, passionate about food and its connections with pretty much everything around us: culture, politics, spiritual life, health, and environment. I have been working in kitchens since I moved to this country four years ago, and before that, I went to college for Political Science in Guatemala City, but it did not convince me to generate some "change" food, which is why I am here.

Vern DeFoe has been working with our organization since the beginning, first co-managing the Tatanka Truck and then coming on in various management positions at The Sioux Chef. He has been working in the food industry for over 20 years, and is now the Kitchen Manager at the Indigenous Food Lab. He has a passion for showcasing the diversity and flavors of Native foods and connecting Native people to their ancestral foodways. He believes that this connection to ancestral foods is key for Indigenous people, and sees great empowerment in going outside and foraging for foods local to the area.

Vern grew up in Wisconsin and is a member of the Red Cliff Anishinaabe tribe.

Francesca's family is Tarahumara (Raramuri), Yaqui (Yoeme), and Mexican. Growing up her mother and father had always instilled a curiosity of the natural world as well as a respect for all of its beings, through cultural storytelling and experience. Having close family members with degenerative diseases, she began to want to further her knowledge of how to work with plants and learn their medicinal teachings, to better offer support to her family and others. She completed two Herbalist Apprenticeships through the Medicine Tree Herbal Pharmacy in Minneapolis, MN with Herbalist Jessie Belden, and she is continuing her herbalist studies with Master Herbalist, Lise Wolff. Francesca works at NATIFS as an Herbal Educator under Linda Black Elk, and also works with her sister Jessica, creating their own herbal business called Two Sisters Herbals, where they plan to offer herbal creations in the very near future.

Chef Johl Whiteduck Ringuette is Anishnawbe and Algonquin. he was born in North Bay, Ontario and his grandmother is from Nippissing First Nation. His clan is Mink clan. Johl was raised on wild game, fishing and seasonal berry-picks and cooking over the fire. Chef Johl is the owner of NishDish Marketeria and Catering, which specializes in Anishnawbe cuisine since 2005. He is one of Tkaronto’s leading First Nations food sovereigntists and has dedicated his life to identifying, sourcing, relearning and reclaiming what the traditional Anishnawbe diet is.