Board of Directors

Lori Sherman, Yellow Feather Women, was born and raised in Zeba, Michigan. She is a member of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community.

Currently, Lori is the President of the Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College (KBOCC). She holds a Master’s Degree in Rhetoric and Technical Communications from Michigan Tech University. Lori believes in our people as well as supports bringing greater healing and wellness to our community.

Lori Sherman

Renard Monczunski has lived in Detroit since 1994 in a single-father household along with his sister, attended Detroit Public Schools, and earned his diploma from David Mackenzie High School. Renard is a proud alumnus of the University of Michigan with a B.A. in Sociology. Since 2014, Renard has been a Transit Organizer with the Detroit People’s Platform beginning his work five years ago when bus riders were experiencing lack of reliable bus service and severe cuts to service. His mentor, Linda Campbell inspired him to organize for transit justice, on the account of being a long-term bus rider. He has also been involved in several campaigns to overturn Citizen’s United in Colorado, the Raise Michigan campaign – to raise the minimum wage and is a supporter of the Affordable Care Act and Medicare for All. Renard is also involved with the Earned Sick Leave and One Fair Wage campaigns.

Renard Monczunski

Philomena Kebec belongs to the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and is a 2008 graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School. She currently serves as the Co-Coordinator of Gwayakobimaadiziwin Bad River Needle Exchange, along with Aurora Conley. Gwayakobimaadiziwin is an all-volunteer tribal harm reduction program offering syringe exchange and overdose prevention services since 2015. The program serves people who inject drugs, their friends and family members who live in and around the Bad River Indian Reservation with respect and dignity, access to sterile injection equipment, overdose prevention services, food and other services.

Philomena enjoys living in Ojibwe traditional territory and spends free time harvesting wild food and medicine with her two children.

Philomena Kebec

Jeneile Luebke (Ogimaakwe) is an Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing at University of Wisconsin-Madison in Madison, Wisconsin. She holds an affiliate appointment for the American Indian Studies program and is a faculty member of the campus Sexual Violence Research Initiative. She is an enrolled member of Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians. She received her LPN diploma and AS Nursing from Northland Community College (Bemidji, MN). She received her BS and MS Nursing degrees from the University of Wisconsin- Madison, and her PhD Nursing from University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee. Her research aims to better understand the lived experiences of intimate partner violence through storytelling to develop survivor-led, trauma informed, and culturally safe screening methods and interventions for Indigenous survivors of violence using Indigenous specific and community engaged research methodologies. Her other current work focuses upon the relationship between land violence, planetary health, and gender-based violence among Indigenous peoples.

Jeneile Luebke

Rebecca Shea Irvine (she/her) lives in the Ann Arbor area and serves as the Director for Research Development in the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Michigan. She holds a B.A. in International Relations, M.A. in Comparative Ethnic Conflict, Ph.D. in Social Policy, and is currently working towards an Executive MBA at the University of Michigan. Some of her ongoing projects include improving DEI considerations in research development practices, monitoring human rights policies, supporting healing for survivors of gender-based violence, and chronicling MMIWG2S campaigns. She also has a particular passion for leadership development and works closely with student leaders.

Rebecca identifies as a disabled woman of mixed European and Ojibwe heritage and holds citizenship rights and responsibilities in the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, United States, and United Kingdom. She enjoys making things, particularly traditional crafts, and learning.

Rebecca Shea Irvine