DANIEL BYERS is the founder and Director of Skyship Films. As a filmmaker focused on wildlife, climate, and indigenous rights, Daniel has worked in over 60 countries – from tracking cartels along the rivers of Honduras to chasing snow leopards through the mountains of Afghanistan.

His award-winning films and photographs have been featured in hundreds of film festivals and publications around the world, including the Smithsonian, UK Guardian, BBC, and National Geographic. Daniel also writes and directs fiction. His first feature film, Eradication, was released in 2022, with his second in the works for next year. He completed his MFA at Columbia School of the Arts in 2022.

CARRIE HEITMAN is an Associate Professor of anthropology and the Associate Director of the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is a globally engaged anthropologist, Southwestern archaeologist, and digital humanist, with a professional mission is to share inclusive pasts to build inclusive futures.

She holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Virginia and, among other topics, her research explores how new technologies can support scholarly communication and facilitate responsible and inclusive digital access to cultural heritage information.

Dr. Heitman has helped lead various collaborative, open-access digital cultural heritage projects including the Chaco Research Archive and the Salmon Pueblo Archaeological Research Collection. In addition to her digital scholarship, she has published various books and articles and has received two national anthropology awards.

She is the project director for “(Re)Connections Through Time: Developing a model for multi-modal storytelling about Indigenous communities and their collections,” funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This project is a partnership with The Hopi Tribe, the Pueblo of Zuni, the National Museum of Natural History, the American Museum of Natural History, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

OCTAVIUS SEOWTEWA is an A:shiwi (Zuni) scholar, elder and religious leader. He supervises the Zuni Cultural Resources Advisory Team where he provides guidance on Zuni ancestral lands and cultural objects. Mr. Seowtewa is also a master silversmith specializing in needlepoint jewelry.

Over the last 40 years he has been involved in numerous cultural preservation projects in the Southwest and around the world, including the Bears Ears National Monument Inter-Tribal Coalition. He has written and contributed to various books, journals, magazines, films and multi-media works focused on A:shiwi history and cultural preservation. Mr. Seowtewa is also the Community Lead for the Zuni (Re)Connections Through Time project.