KATHERINE's Bio

Katherine Gaia Barbaree (she/her) brings to BRN over two decades of experience building resilience at the intersection of community, ecology, and education. Katherine credits her lifelong love affair with arid mountain landscapes and all their biocultural richness to both her eastern Mediterranean ancestry from the rocky hillsides of Sicily and the Greek Peloponnese, as well as to a deeply formative experience as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco supporting an indigenous Tamazight community-driven initiative to remove barriers in rural villages to girls’ access to education.

 

Since that time, she has worked to develop culturally responsive place-based curriculum with teachers on Diné Bikéyah in Northern Arizona, as well as with youth from a grassroots conservation NGO in Honduras’ Pico Bonito National Park. Katherine has held leadership roles in local food system work in Sonoma County, California, as a community farm manager and school garden coordinator, as well as helping uplift underrepresented voices in regenerative farming as the Education Program Manager for the Ecological Farming Association. Katherine holds master’s degrees in Teaching and Learning from the University of Arizona and in Sustainable Communities from Northern Arizona University, along with a Permaculture Design Certificate from the Sonoran Permaculture Guild. She finds endless wonder and delight in discovering the myriad of ways humans and others forge adaptation and ingenuity in their desert homes.

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Email: Katherine Gaia Barbaree