Winter BearKing is a Hunkpapa Lakota descendant and serves as the Cultural Sovereignty Curriculum Development Project Lead for the Association. Winter has been working with learners of all ages in both formal and informal educational spaces since 2017, with a focus on building connection, understanding and privileging the voices and stories of those left out of traditional historical and social research. They are a current graduate student at Johns Hopkins University, pursing a master’s degree in cultural heritage management. Winter has an associate’s degree in liberal studies with a specialization in global studies from the Community College of Vermont, and a bachelor’s degree in history with a concentration in American history and minor in sociology from Southern New Hampshire University. Winter’s research has explored the relationship between ontological influence on social perception and access to constitutional rights and socioeconomic opportunity.