María José Uribe Pérez
María José Uribe Pérez is a second-year PhD student in Earth Science and Environmental Sustainability at Northern Arizona University. With a background in environmental and civil engineering and a master’s in international development, María José’s work centers water security of historically disenfranchised communities. Her research employs interdisciplinary and participatory approaches to investigate drinking water quality and the microbial ecology of water. She brings professional experience from the WASH sector in Colombia, combining research with practical implementation to address critical water challenges.
Miguel Cuj
Miguel Cuj is a Guatemalan with Indigenous roots. He is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Vanderbilt University
Over the last six years, Miguel has fostered meaningful collaborations with women’s groups in the Maya K’iche’ community of Chi u wi meq’in ja, a hamlet within the town of Santa Maria Chiquimula, Totonicapán, Guatemala. Through immersive ethnographic fieldwork, Miguel has come to recognize that the intricate food culture of K’iche’ Maya women is the product of complex interactions between diverse contexts, various objects, and subjects involved. Miguel’s specific research focus centers on the K’iche’ language and how it classifies and categorizes different types of foods, illuminating the profound impact these classifications have on nutrition, agriculture, and consumption practices. Through his work, Miguel can demonstrate that Indigenous food knowledge systems are intricately woven into the fabric of this community, involving material, symbolic, and biological dimensions, making them resistant to easy translation into conventional Western dietary norms.
