OUR TEAM
Nico Albert Williams (ᏣᎳᎩᎯ ᎠᏰᎵ Cherokee Nation) is a chef, caterer and student of traditional Indigenous cuisines based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She began her culinary education growing up in California and Arizona, spending time in her mother’s garden and in the kitchen preparing family meals. After relocating to Northeastern Oklahoma, Nico embraced her return to the post-removal homeland of her mother’s people as a calling and opportunity to reestablish a relationship with her Cherokee community, first and foremost through the language of food. Her journey to learn traditional Cherokee ways, dishes and the wild and cultivated ingredients involved in their preparation grew to encompass the Indigenous cuisines of tribes from all parts of Turtle Island and led to her involvement in Indigenous food revitalization and food sovereignty.
Nico is the Executive Chef behind the catering services offered by Burning Cedar Sovereign Kitchen. Her work centers on the revitalization of ancestral Indigenous foodways to promote healing and wellness in the Native American community. Chef Nico's efforts to expand her knowledge of traditional ingredients and techniques continue through research and collaboration with Indigenous chefs and traditionalists from all Nations. Nico is the recipient of the 2021 Greater Tulsa Indian Affairs Commission Dream Keeper's Award for Leadership in Business, the 2022 Cherokee Phoenix Seven Feathers Award for Culture, and she serves as a culinary diplomat for the US Department of State Arts Envoy program, representing North American Indigenous foodways in international spaces. Her work has been featured regionally and nationally by Food Network Magazine, USA Today, Hulu, Smithsonian Institute, BBC, Cherokee Nation's OsiyoTV, King Arthur Baking Co, Atlas Obscura, PBS, PRX, Gilcrease Museum, and Philbrook Museum among others.
Nico serves as a board member for Matriarch, a 501(c)(3) Native led program empowering Native women through education, community building, and direct services to create positive change within communities in Tulsa and Oklahoma City. Matriarch services include domestic and sexual abuse education, cultural re-connection, suicide prevention, financial planning, physical, mental and spiritual health education, job market preparation, and healthy relationship guidance.
Nico also serves on the Gilcrease Museum Community Advisory Committee and the board of The Goff Center of the Continuous Present.
Crystal Brownstone, an enrolled citizen of the Muscogee Nation with familial ties to the Ponca and Citizen Potawatomi Nations, is a dedicated librarian and advocate for Indigenous representation in libraries and education. Crystal holds a Master of Library and Information Studies from the University of Oklahoma and a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies from Oklahoma State University. She currently serves as a Research and Instruction Librarian at Tulsa Community College, where she also advises the Native American Student Alliance, fostering a supportive and inclusive environment for Indigenous students.
Her professional journey includes nine years at the Tulsa City-County Library system, where she contributed to the development of Native American programming and collection curation. As the inaugural Chair of the Native Voices American Indian Affinity Group, she collaborated with colleagues to support Indigenous-focused initiatives. Crystal also worked closely with the American Indian Resource Center, serving on the Festival of Words Author Selection and Planning Committees. Throughout her career, Crystal has been committed to connecting community members with valuable resources, promoting information literacy, and offering expert readers’ advisory services. Her work reflects a deep passion for empowering diverse communities through accessible and inclusive library services.
Bio coming soon!
Bio coming soon!
MARY JO
PRATT
board advisor
“Initiating wellness in our communities has never been more crucial for our people. Eat like your life depends on it, because it does.” - Mary Jo Pratt
Recognizing the impact food had on her own journey to a better quality of life, Mary Jo is energized and inspired to support, create, develop and deliver wellness to our communities.
Mary Jo currently serves as the Chief Financial Officer of Bacone College, a private non-profit institution of higher education that was originally founded in 1880 as The Indian University.
The mission of higher education resonated with her because her personal constitution directly aligns with the mission to empower people to take ownership of their future through education. This means elevating human potential and creating a new pathway for our people to new beginnings. The ultimate goal of our efforts is to reduce gaps because we know education elevates the human condition and advances human potential.
Mary Jo brings over 10 years of progressive financial management experience and five years of techno-functional experience implementing/supporting business operations, applications, and software as well as financial experience across the nonprofit, private and tribal businesses. Having served in corporate accounting, finance and development, Mary Jo's experience also includes creating and maintaining multimillion dollar budgets.
DR. VALARIE
BLUE BIRD
JERNIGAN
board advisor
Dr. Valarie Blue Bird Jernigan is a Choctaw woman and Professor of Medicine and Rural Health. She received her Doctorate in Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in cardiovascular disease prevention at Stanford University, where she also completed a degree in documentary filmmaking. She is the Principal Investigator of more than a dozen research studies aimed at improving Indigenous food environments through policy and systems interventions. She also leads the Center for Indigenous Innovation and Health Equity, funded by the Office of Minority Health. Dr. Jernigan is a member of the Canadian Institutes of Health research College of Reviewers. She is the inaugural chair of the National Cancer Institute’s Intervention Research to Improve Native Health (IRINAH) initiative, a collaboration of NIH-funded investigators conducting intervention science research. In 2019 she established and now directs the Center for Indigenous Health Research and Policy (CIHRP), an endowed research Center of Oklahoma State University’s Center for Health Sciences. In all of her work she has focused on fostering long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with Indigenous communities that promote tribal sovereignty and build community capacity to improve health.