Who We Are
Meet the people behind Save California Salmon.
The board is made up of tribal leaders, fishermen, educators, and scientists from the watersheds we work in.
Chief Caleen Sisk
Caleen Sisk is the Spiritual Leader and Tribal Chief of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. Caleen's leadership started in 2000 and has focused on maintaining cultural and religious traditions of the Tribe and has led the revitalization of the Winnemem’s H’up Chonas (or War Dance) and BaLas Chonas (Puberty Ceremony). She advocates for California salmon restoration; healthy, undammed watersheds and the human right to water. She has received international honors as a sacred site protector and leads the tribe’s resistance against the proposal to raise the Shasta Dam.
Morning Star Gali
Morning Star Gali is a member of the Ajumawi band of the Pit River Tribe in Northeastern California and a Leading Edge Fellow. Morning Star formerly worked as the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Pit River Tribe. She served as a volunteer and advocate on behalf of Indigenous incarcerated tribal members in California and worked with a number of Indigenous-led grassroots organizations in the Bay Area for over a decade. Morning Star leads large-scale actions and assists with organizing Native cultural, spiritual, academic, and political gatherings throughout the state. She has been the lead organizer since 2006 for the prominent “Thanks-taking” sunrise ceremony on Alcatraz island.
Allie Hostler
Allie Hostler is a Hoopa Valley Tribal member. She is the editor of the Two Rivers Tribune and the former Communications Director for the Hoopa Valley Tribe’s Fisheries Department. She received a journalism degree from Humboldt State University in 2009 and graduated from the Freedom Forum’s American Indian Journalism Institute in 2005.
Marva Jones
Marva Jones is an enrolled Dee-ni' (Tolowa) citizen, Yurok, Karuk and Wintu of Northern California and fortunately comes from the villages of Nii~-lii~-chvn-dvn and Mvn'-sray-me' along the Smith River and the villages of Wausek and Weitspus along the Klamath River. Sii~xuutesna comes with a myriad of professional practices, experience and tribal community-building expertise. Sii~xuutesna attended Humboldt State University with an emphasis in Political Science and Native American Studies. Marva continues active participation and strategizing in ensuring language survival and maintenance, and strong traditional/cultural values.
Malissa Tayaba
Malissa Tayaba is the Vice-Chairperson of the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians. She is also the Director of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). Her work includes: sharing the ways aboriginal territory and its natural resources have historically been, and continue to be, utilized and tended to by Nisenan and Miwok people and bringing cultural activities back into the tribal community, such as basketry, traditional song and dance, ceremony, land stewardship, and language revitalization. Before becoming TEK Director, Malissa spent six years as a Cultural Researcher and ten years as Director of Social Services. She is a member of the Delta Conveyance Project Stakeholder Engagement Committee and a member of the Delta Protection Commission’s National Heritage Area Management Plan Advisory Committee.
Sammy Gensaw
Sammy Gensaw is a Yurok fisherman and youth activist who has gone around the world fighting dams and displacement of natives. He is the director of Ancestral Guard and is on the board Nature Rights Council.
Brook Thompson
Brook Thompson is a Yurok and Karuk Native American from Northern California. Brook fights for water and Native American rights through public speaking, academic research, and frontline activism. Brook has a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Portland State University, an M.S. in Environmental Engineering from Stanford, and is now a Ph.D. student at UC Santa Cruz where she studies how Indigenous Knowledge can be better implemented to into California water policy. Thompson’s goal is to bring together water rights and Native American knowledge through engineering, public policy, and social action.