Marissa has a Bachelor of Science from Northern Arizona University where she focused on plant biology and a Master of Community & Regional Planning from the University of New Mexico where she focused on Indigenous Community Planning as well as Historic Preservation & Regionalism.

Following her academic pursuits, Marissa devoted her professional life to working in community and cultivating a strong relationship with community elders who helped her develop a stronger understanding of social & environmental justice based issues that affected her community. Marissa maintains a strong dedication to addressing such issues in her work and hopes to cultivate systemic change with other like-minded individuals.

Marissa is overjoyed to have been chosen to be a part of the Seeds in Common Staff Team and looks forward to cultivating a strong organization that lifts up the needs of the communities we serve.

She calls home the central Arizona southwest, lands nurtured by the Tohono O’odham, Salt River Pima, and Hohokam peoples, the latter developing the canal technology that supports all life in the Salt River Valley. A constantly learning seed saver and food grower in the desert, when not tending to her small but growing garden or learning how to optimize limited water access, she is most likely opting outside somewhere in the desert.

With roots in traditional agriculture that was passed on inter-generationally through my family I maintain a traditional land and acequia-based way of life on land my family has stewarded since time immemorial. I was born and raised in, and grew up farming the High Llanos of the Sangre De Cristo Mountains and the low valleys of El Rio Embudo. My family and I grow corn, beans, squash, chile, legumes, fruit trees, wheat, sheep, horses and pasture and practice a traditional Regenerative and Biodynamic Agriculture that has been sustained and maintained through generations of lived and practiced relationship with the land, water and the natural environment where we have thrived in community. I come from: people struggling with chronic poverty as a result of historical land and culture loss, oppression, lack of quality education, disability and lack of meaningful opportunities in our home communities; people whose rich, deep, and rooted culture and history lives on through our cultural and land based practice and is deeply rooted in the health and wellness of our water shed, our acequias, our seeds, and our relationship with the land. Acequia culture is a regenerative life way rooted in the distribution of water to irrigable lands and has sustained us for centuries in an arid region that would not under natural circumstances sustain life. Both my maternal and paternal grandfathers served over 50 years combined as acequia mayordomos and water rights advocates. Acequias are considered one of humankind's great accomplishments and is a wonder of the world, I’m proud to know my ancestors played a direct role in accomplishing such a wonder. For 10 years I lived in the Atlixco land grant community in the “South Valley” of Albuquerque working with the grassroots community based organization called Los Jardines Institute, building and developing land-based socially sustainable systems, training farmers, facilitating anti-racism and decolonization training, developing leaders, learning, and investing time in creating healthy realities where we live, work, play, pray, and learn. I am skilled in Environmental and Economic Justice, Restorative Justice, and Land Based Justice and have worked as a program director at a non-profit organization working with youth to transform their lives through cultural practices that connects them to their core identity and culture. We farmed year-round and engaged in community service learning projects as a way of giving back to our community. My work in community is the result of an 8-year process of self-transformation and self-discovery in my journey to overcome the impacts of violence, trauma, and addiction which is what people of color in my community face as my community lies within the region known as the “heroin capital” of the world. A place where multigenerational impact of drugs, violence, trauma, and addiction is a daily lived reality for my people. I am a proud father, an active community member and the Community Liaison for the Greenroots Institute at the Northern New Mexico College, the coordinator of the NM Land Based Justice Collective, and a board member of the BioDynamic Association (BDA).