About Us

This project brings Native gardeners from the Midwest working to revitalize Indigenous practices together with scholars working to support those practices through their research. Our work explores the cultural and agronomic underpinnings of the Native American practice of intercropping corn, beans, and squash–colloquially called the Three Sisters–and sometimes sunflowers, making the fourth sister. Because historically Native American communities have had limited access to healthy, fresh foods, Native growers have established community gardens to incorporate culturally-appropriate Indigenous growing practices, including the Three or Four Sisters, to build community and improve health. But these gardeners could use more support. This project works to build a collaboration with the purpose of sharing research to benefit Indigenous food sovereignty work done by Native gardeners.

The group partners Native gardeners from the Nebraska Indian College, serving Santee Sioux, Omaha, and Sioux City, Dream of Wild Health, serving the Twin Cities Native community, the Oneida nation, and the Menominee nation with researchers from Iowa State University in Native American studies, nutrition, horticulture, and agronomy. We have an advisory board made up of Native gardeners who help guide the research project. We have Three or Four Sisters research plots at ISU and in communities. We are working collaboratively to design workshops that meet the needs of Native growers. And we are working to rematriate seeds from the Ames Plant Introduction Station and Seed Savers Exchange back to Native nations looking to welcome their seed relatives home.

The team

Christina Gish Hill

Christina Gish Hill is an associate professor in the World Languages and Cultures department at Iowa State University, focusing on American Indian/Native cultures of the Northern Plains. Her current research explores of how social relations impact current cultural expressions of Native relationships with their landscapes in the face of colonial forces working to disrupt these relationships.

She is interested in all aspects of Native food sovereignty, including the efforts of Native nations and growers to reinvigorate Native foodways, particularly Indigenous forms of agriculture, including welcoming Native seeds home through rematriation. She studies the history of Native agriculture in North American, the U.S. policies that led to its decline, and the efforts of communities to reverse that process today.

Ajay Nair

Dr. Ajay Nair is an Associate Professor and Extension Vegetable Specialist working in the area of Sustainable Vegetable Production in the Department of Horticulture at Iowa State University. The focus of his research, extension, and teaching program is on cover cropping, high tunnels, soil amendments (biochar), cultivar trials, conservation tillage, nutrient management, and soil quality and health in vegetable production systems. He teaches an undergraduate and graduate level course on vegetable production and management. He works closely with commercial vegetable growers, extension staff, industry representatives and stakeholders to meet the rising demand of locally grown produce and enhance the profitability and sustainability of Iowa and Midwest vegetable farms.

Marshall McDaniel

Marshall McDaniel is an assistant professor in soil-plant interactions in the Agronomy department at Iowa State University. Marshall’s research focuses on carbon and nutrient exchange between plants and soils, and how management and the environment affect this exchange. He uses soil health as a framework for moving toward a more profitable, regenerative, and sustainable agriculture. Marshall’s research program has recently focused on developing Do-It-Yourself soil health measurements, and engaging farmers and soil enthusiasts in community science.

Donna Winham

Donna Winham is an associate professor in the Global Resource Systems and Food Science and Nutrition departments at Iowa State University. Winham’s research focuses on ways to develop or to preserve positive dietary habits, especially bean consumption, with the goals of improved health, food security, and child growth. Recent studies include, beliefs and attitudes about bean consumption among low income women; the effect of bean-and-rice meals on postprandial glucose; predictors of SNAP benefit usage by low income Latinas; and use of theatre activities to engage minority youth with cultural culinary traditions. She is currently investigating the nutrition composition of tepary beans – noted for their ability to grow in hot and arid marginal areas. In association with USAID projects, she has identified predictors of stunting recovery in Egyptian children, served as a technical advisor for a bean nutrition intervention for Tanzanian children with HIV, and presented an anthropometric assessment workshop for Iraqi physicians. Dr. Winham also co-leads a study abroad trip to Dharwad, India.

Derrick Kapayou

Derrick Kapayou is a member of the Meskwaki tribe in central Iowa. Heis a double master’s student associated with the ISU 3-Sisters Intercropping Project, and his fields of research are anthropology and sustainable agriculture. He conducts interviews with our tribal collaborators, as well as works at the 3-Sisters garden ISU maintains at its Horticulture Research Station. This project is important to him because he thinks analyzing different cultural perspectives about soil-human relationships could benefit those engaging in environmental policymaking.

Emma Herrighty

Emma Herrighty grew up in Allentown, New Jersey, on her parent’s hobby sheep and vegetable farm. After completing an undergraduate degree in International Agriculture and Rural Development, She is now at ISU pursuing a double graduate degree. Her programs are Anthropology and Sustainable Agriculture: She simplifies the intersection of these two disciplines for herself as ethnobotany. Her research interests include biodiversity conservation, seed saving, and seed rematriation. For this project she has had the pleasure of caring for and managing our research plot at the ISU Hort Farm.

Susana Cabrera-Mari

Susana Cabrera-Mariz is from San Jose, California from strong, heart-centered, and resilient people. Susana holds a Bachelor of Science in Restoration Ecology and Resource Management from San Jose State University. Susana was trained in agroecological principles from the renowned Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, the Multinational Exchange for Sustainable Agriculture, and the Rogue Farm Corps. Susana loves to tend the earth, play with seeds, and feels incredibly honored to be able to grow alongside the Three Sisters.

Kristine Micheletti

Kristine Micheletti is a doctoral student co-majoring in Agricultural Education and Sustainable Agriculture. She began working with the ISU Three Sisters Project in August of 2021. She received her master’s degree in Anthropology from ISU in 2018 after studying how human disturbances in Senegal affect chimpanzee behavior. She is continuing her interest in human dimensions by studying aspects of traditional ecological knowledge and how each community views sustainability.

Valeria Cano Camacho

Valeria is an agricultural specialist for the Three Sisters project. She earned both her degrees from Iowa State, completing her masters in Soil Science in 2021 after earning her bachelors in Agronomy and Global Resource Systems in 2019. Her research interests are in soil health, regenerative agriculture and ethnobotany. She enjoys understanding the connections between people, culture, and agriculture. Valeria will be working on tending the research garden and leading the soil health analysis of the three sisters project.