Rebecca Renteria (B.S. and M.A. degrees in anthropology, University of Arizona) is a PhD student in the Arid Lands Resource Sciences program at the University of Arizona. Her research is at the nexus of archaeology; public health; and traditional food, land, and water systems. She is especially interested in the impact of various forms of colonization on mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical health related to diabetes among marginalized communities, especially in the United States-Mexico Borderlands. Her roots in the Mexican American/Chicanx community in Tucson have inspired her to continue to deconstruct the nuances of ascribed and forced identities and relations to better serve borderland communities in a culturally responsive way.

Rebecca also serves as the American Indian Initiatives Outreach Coordinator for Crow Canyon Archaeological Center in southwest Colorado. She is interested in learning more about how Indigenous and Native communities in this region relate, in past and present, to communities in what is now Sonora, Mexico where her ancestral history sits. We know these communities hold memories and histories of relationships, and she is interested in learning more about shared traditional knowledge around food plants and their relationships to understandings around health. We can observe past foodways through archaeology, and combining this knowledge with practices of hope, reconciliation, reparations, and restorative justice we can aid in addressing current health disparities in marginalized communities.