Indigenous Perspectives on Earth and Sky: Living with the Stars on Day of the Dead

Doña María O. Ávila Vera is a Maya elder born in the village of Xul and raised in the town of Peto, Yucatán, México. She is a steward of the traditions of her ancestors, using her life experience and native language—Yucatec Mayan. Mother of eleven children and beloved grandmother and great-grandmother, she shares her time between Petaluma, CA, and Mérida, Yucatán. She actively researches the knowledge of the Maya by capturing the oral tradition of her people and sharing Indigenous knowledge with her family, friends, and communities.

Isabel Hawkins, Ph.D., is bilingual and bicultural Latina from Córdoba, Argentina. Dr. Hawkins received her Ph.D. in astrophysics at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1986. She worked for 20 years at the University of California at Berkeley on several NASA satellite projects, and as the Director of Science Education at the Space Sciences Laboratory. Dr. Hawkins has received six NASA awards for her leadership in science education.