Meet the SPARK: Volume VI Contributors
Racquel Banaszak
Racquel Banaszak is a scholar and visual artist based in Minneapolis. She is an enrolled citizen of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe. She is a doctoral student in the Department of History at the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on Indigenous public art in Minneapolis as a form of reclamation and community building. Her work is grounded in Indigenous visual culture, urban Indigenous histories, and Native feminisms. She is interested in building connections between Anishinaabe epistemologies and lifeways through language and art as a way of centering mino-bimaadiziwin.
pim gonzales
pim gonzales is a poet and Ph.D. student in the Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Their research centers the Filipinx/a/o body as a critical site to understand how those in the diaspora re-construct senses of identity, home, and belonging. In their dissertation proposal, gonzales directs attention to second-generation Filipinx/a/o artists in diaspora to think with and through the afterlives of Spanish, Japanese, and U.S. occupation of the Philippine archipelago. Their book chapter titled “Unmaking Empires and Ongoing Genocide: Transnational Feminist Critique and Recovering the Voice in Communication Studies” is forthcoming in the Routledge Handbook of Communication and Transnationalism.
Isabella Irtifa
Isabella Irtifa (she/her) is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of Minnesota, where her research focuses on the intersections of abolition and critical race theory. As a bi-racial, second-generation Pakistani immigrant, Isabella’s lived experiences shape her scholarship and commitment to building communities of care through organizing against settler colonialism and state violence. She is passionate about advocating for a world without borders and carceral systems. She has co-run free legal clinics for people seeking asylum, organized mutual aid initiatives, and worked on campaigns to end prison slavery. She holds a master’s degree from the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University and a bachelor’s in sociology and ethnic studies. Her writing can be found in Routed Magazine, Unwinnable Magazine, and The Sociological Review, among others.
Samhar Khalfani
Samhar Khalfani is a feminist studies Ph.D. candidate at the University of Minnesota, with a graduate minor in African-American and African studies. Their research blends literary analysis, Black feminisms, sexuality studies, and religious and spirituality studies to explore Afrodiasporic trauma and healing in the afterlives of slavery and colonization. Samhar’s research focus specifically centers Black intimacy and interiority as vital spaces from which we read and resist the traumatic consequences of global anti-Blackness. Their writing ultimately works to develop a framework of healing based in the particular conditions of Black trauma, and the liberatory potentialities of Black spiritual realities.
C. Kamana’okekai Lattig
C. Kamana’okekai Lattig (she/he) is a theater practitioner and Ph.D. student in the Theatre Historiography and Performance Studies program at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Her ohana has been sustained by the ‘āina of Hawai’i island, is tied to Mauna Kea and Kilauea, and has been empowered by ka Moana. Kamana’s position as second-generation diasporic Kanaka Maoli guides his research path, which attends to Kānaka Maoli identity away from the archipelago and theorizes the body as an alternative site of connectivity embedded with cultural values, practices, and embodiment. She hopes her research will inspire other diasporic Kānaka Maoli who feel disconnected from their ancestral ties to call upon the ho’omana they carry in their bodies, and discover their own kuleana in their lāhui.
Sangmi Lee
Sangmi Lee is a Ph.D. candidate in Elementary Education at the University of Minnesota. Her research explores culturally relevant pedagogy and autoethnography in teacher education. As a teaching assistant, she supported courses in special education and supervised preservice teachers in field placements for three years. Now she is a supervisor of the Initial Licensure Program (ILP). She is passionate about supporting preservice teachers who teach students with multicultural backgrounds and advancing inclusive practices through reflective inquiry. Her work is deeply interdisciplinary, drawing from education, cultural studies, and transnational feminist praxis to challenge dominant narratives and promote inclusive learning spaces.
Nicole Márquez-Reyes
Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Nicole Márquez-Reyes is currently completing her Ph.D. in microbiology at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. She holds a B.S. in biology from the University of Puerto Rico, where her interest in microbial life first began. Her research explores how bacteria adapt and survive, but her work extends beyond the lab. As a volunteer at the Como Park Zoo and Conservatory, she has supported environmental education efforts aimed at making science accessible to broader communities. Growing up in a U.S. territory has shaped how she understands science—not only as a field of discovery, but also as a space where access and opportunity are unevenly distributed. Through both her research and outreach, she is committed to advancing equity and inclusion in STEM and amplifying perspectives that have historically been underrepresented.
Nisogaabokwe Melonee Montano
Nisogaabokwe “Niso” Melonee Montano is a mother, grandmother and an enrolled member of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe. She is co-author of various works, including the children’s book Ishkode: A Story of Fire, published in 2025. She has spent the majority of her life living and learning in her community of Gaa-Miskwaabikaang (Red Cliff), on the southern shores of Lake Superior. Niso holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Northland College and is currently a master and Ph.D. student in the Natural Resources Science and Management program at the University of Minnesota. She has spent many years focused on treaty rights, traditional ecological knowledge, climate change and environmental issues. Niso’s current passions, advocacy work and research are centered on learning from the gift of fire as a historical and contemporary land caretaking tool used by the Anishinaabeg.
Bazile Minogiizhigaabo Panek
Bazile Minogiizhigaabo Panek comes from the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe where he was born and raised. His culture is an integral part of his life, as he consistently participates in cultural events and ceremonies. In 2022, Bazile graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Native American studies from Northern Michigan University. Currently, Bazile is a student at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities working towards his M.S. in the Natural Resources Science and Management program and Ph.D. in American Indian and Indigenous studies. His research focuses on the use of cultural fire as a tool for land caretaking and how to return that fire to landscapes that miss it. His guiding philosophy in life is to “honor my ancestors and become an honorable ancestor for future generations.”
Shari Lynn Robinson
Shari Lynn Robinson (she/her) is a Black, fat, cis-femme-queer, Gen X, life-long traveler, and teacher. She has dark skin and natural hair which contribute to her lived experience of anti-Blackness. She is Zora’s mom and a plant mama who enjoys watching Star Trek and collecting Lt. Uhura and Guinan figurines, reading young adult Afro futurism written by Black women, writing, watching British murder mysteries and professional women’s sports, and eating dessert first, (usually ice cream). She also enjoys cooking all things spicy with a side of rice and a sugar-free beer, ginger or root. Shari is currently on her third and final doctoral journey. She is a Ph.D. student in the College of Education and Human Development, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Culture and Teaching program. Her research will uplift the collective memory and meaning making of historical movements across the Black African diaspora and how they must continue to serve as sites of insistence and persistence for Black students in the U.S. who are seeking a “higher” education at predominately white-serving institutions (PWSIs).
Jessica Tran
Jessica Tran is a doctoral candidate at the University of Minnesota studying natural resources science and management. As an environmental social scientist using participatory methods, her research and teaching focus on environmental justice, Indigenous natural resource management, sense of place and the social impacts of climate change. Along her career, she has fed anacondas and counted seals along the Alaskan coast.
