Sarah Bird

For her work as an acclaimed author and activist in Austin, TX. Bird, a UNM alumna, feels her novel The Flamenco Academy is her love letter to New Mexico, and in particular, to Albuquerque and her beloved University of New Mexico. She feels that this novel most closely embodies the ideals expressed in Paul Ré’s work.

Dr. Robert Hitchcock

An Adjunct Professor for the UNM Department of Anthropology, Dr. Hitchcock maintains a very active teaching profile, significant anthropological research, and student mentoring. He has dedicated his life to assisting traditional hunter-gatherer, subsistence agriculturalists, and pastoral communities across southern Africa as they negotiate the changing dynamics of the 20th-21st centuries

Gerald Vizenor

Vizenor has sought to raise the difficult questions of the nature of justice in a society that includes colonized peoples. His promotion of “survivance” of tribal peoples implies a process rather than an end, as the ways of tribal peoples continue to change. He also notes that the survival of tribal peoples as distinct from majority cultures is based in resistance, and through his works continues to criticize both Native American nationalism and Euro-American colonial attitudes that in themselves reject peace and peaceful resolutions to understanding cultural differences.

Frank Martinez

A visiting Research Scholar, UNM School of Architecture + Planning. A life-long community volunteer and advocate, Frank Martinez helped form the Citizens Information Committee of Martineztown (CICM) in 1971, created to protest the urban renewal condemnation of Martineztown, one of Albuquerque’s oldest neighborhoods.

Christine Glidden

Christine Glidden leads an all-volunteer non-profit called Women to Be which aims to end the gender violence and human rights violations done to women by depriving them of effective means of menstrual management. Women to Be fabricates and distributes ‘kits’ of underwear and washable sanitary pads to women and girls in Nepal, Zambia and Mexico. The project also offers a reproductive health class offering options to avoid unintended pregnancy.

Dr. Mark Stone

Dr. Stone has served as mentor and project advisor for the UNM Engineers Without Borders. He oversaw the feasibility study, design, and installation of a process to achieve safe drinking water access for the indigenous Tsimane people of Bolivia. He also serves as co-founder and faculty mentor of UNM4Nepal project, formed in response to the 2015 Nepal Earthquake.

Beth Poquette Drews

Beth established Mariachi Pantera de Oro, the second middle school mariachi program in Dallas ISD. Through the Mariachi program, Mexican American students learn and perform music from their Mexican heritage while non-Mexican American students are able to explore a new culture through music, thus promoting cultural understanding. Beth has taught her students to play Mariachi peacefully with dignity.

Frank Blazquez

Utilizing art to interrogate the negative forces of racism and discrimination, Frank Blazquez’s art project “Barrios de Nuevo Mexico: Southwest Stories of Vindication” forges ground to create meaningful discussion. Local art curators tried to dissuade Blazquez from street portraiture as it “had no place in art”. Contacted by the Huffington Post, Blazquez’s street portraits fit an upcoming story on the human condition. That led to his “Duke City Diaries” video series that have experienced hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube.

Wild Friends Program at the UNM School of Law

The program teaches 4th-12th grade students about nature and civics through hands-on research and environmental advocacy. Since 1991, over 12,000 students from across New Mexico have participated in the Wild Friends Program. Students choose a wildlife-related topic by ballot, learn about the topic as well as the democratic process, and draft a bill or memorial based upon their research.

Dr. Myrriah Gómez

Dr. Myrriah Gómez works with the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium (TBDC), the grassroots organization formed to bring attention to the negative health effects suffered by the people of New Mexico after their overexposure to radiation from the nuclear device that was detonated in 1945 at the Trinity Site. TBDC advocates to include the people of New Mexico in the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990, which provides healthcare coverage and compensation to Downwinders from other parts of the country.

Dana Tai Soon Burgess

For his work as an acclaimed choreographer, performance artist, and cultural figure. Burgess, a UNM alumnus, serves as a cultural envoy for the U.S. State Department as the first choreographer-in-residence at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.

Hakim Bellamy

A national and regional Poetry Slam Champion, Bellamy earned a Master of Arts in Communications from UNM and was made Albuquerque’s first Poet Laureate in 2012. Among other honors, Bellamy was named a W.K. Kellogg Foundation Fellow, a Kennedy Center Fellow, and “Best Poet” in the Weekly Alibi’s Best of Burque poll every year since 2010.

Dr. Anthony Fleg

Founder and leader of Running Medicine. Fleg is a faculty member at UNM’s Department of Family and Community Medicine and founder of the Native Health Initiative (NHI) which includes Running Medicine (RM) among other programs. His work welcomes diverse people and organizations in the promotion of health and wellbeing, while nurturing understanding of others.

Bridgit Luján

As founder of Dulce Flamenco Internacional, Luján, an alumna of UNM, has sought to share flamenco in its purest form with communities throughout the U.S. and beyond. Her goal is to bring the deeper meaning and tradition to audiences and students so they can experience the social healing benefits flamenco provides to people experiencing marginalization at any level.

Jami Porter Lara

A UNM alumna, Porter Lara uses a 2000-year-old ceramic process to make objects that resemble a ubiquitous icon of modern life—the plastic bottle. Inspired by water bottles left by people crossing remote stretches of the U.S./Mexico border, her work re-conceptualizes the plastic bottle as a precious object capable of sustaining human life, and exposes the porous nature of “borders,” as well as the “nature” of art and pollution.

Dr. David R. Muñoz

For efforts in combining engineering and humanitarian efforts. Muñoz has used his knowledge in mechanical engineering and his passion for global peace and sustainability to help others

William M. Brown III

Environmental conservation and sustainability work.

Denise Elia Chávez

Chávez is a novelist, short story writer, playwright, actor and teacher who focuses her writing and advocacy on the border corridor of southern New Mexico, West Texas and northern Mexico.

Vincent Barrett (V.B.) Price

For his work as a distinguished poet, human rights and environmental columnist, editor, journalist, architectural critic, novelist and teacher.

Carolina Belmares-Ortega

As a student, Ortega has been dedicated to helping others through her research and academic experience as well as her leadership experience.

Peter Nardini

Green World Health Net: a malaria prevention project which uses a solar powered fan to cool malaria nets so one can sleep under them; it also addresses climate change and poverty

Lynne Jackson and Mike Palter

Peace-themed compositions, including the well-known We Dream a Brighter Day, which was commissioned by the United Nations for the 40th anniversary of UNICEF.

Rudolfo Anaya

The author of dozens of beloved works from Bless Me, Ultima to The Essays, he has long emphasized a deep respect for the environment and our sacred relationship with the earth.

William M. Brown

The Climate Reality Project and other environmental conservation efforts “Presenting Climate Change: The Art of Public Narrative” (speech by Bill Brown)

Peace Talks Radio

A series of more than 190 radio programs exploring a diversity of peace promotion topics

Dr. Arti Prasad

Founder-Director of the UNM Center for Life which provides holistic health care

Peace Talks Radio

(Paul Ingles, Suzanne Kryder, Carol Boss, and Nola Daves Moses) Journalism

Stephen W. Littlejohn

Mediation; significant books and articles about communication and conflict resolution

Alternate

Arti Prasad, M.D.

Integrative Medicine

Honorable Mentions

William Gross

Environmentally and culturally sensitive engineering

Hakim Bellamy

Poetry and cultural advocacy