Our People
The AFC is made up of Northern grantmakers who value continued and growing collaboration. The success of the Collaborative has been dependent on an evolving group of AFC members who have taken on leadership roles as the AFC Steering Committee in order to provide guidance and support to the AFC staff.
.jpg)
Liz Liske
Director
​
Liz is a Yellowknives Dene First Nation member, a descendant of the Tatsot'ine, copper people surrounding Great Slave Lake. Born and raised in Somba Ké, Northwest Territories, CANADA on Chief Drygeese Territory. As the Director of the Arctic Funders Collaborative, she interacts with its members and supports their collective activities. In addition, she supports the development and ongoing growth of the Arctic Indigenous Fund (AIF). Liz also participates in leadership development programming through Philanthropy Northwest’s Momentum Fellowship Program.
Liz joined the philanthropic sector after years working for her Indigenous government. She is an active community member serving as a Council Member for the Yellowknives Dene First Nation, on the NWT Regional Wellness Council for the North Slave Region, and an inspiring Dene Doula. She is a lifelong learner, Indigneous language and Dene rights advocate.
​
"I see the importance in integrating culture, language, spirituality and tradition in my home and work life - this is where I find success in my accomplishments."
Alina Enggist
Steering Committee
Alina Enggist is the Program Officer for the Trust for Mutual Understanding (TMU) and is based in New York City. TMU supports cultural and environmental exchanges between professionals in the United States and their counterparts in Central, East, and Southeast Europe; the Baltic States; Central Asia; Mongolia; and Russia.
30 years ago, TMU’s donor’s aim was to create a philanthropic entity focused on supporting direct person-to-person contact between American and Soviet professionals working in the fields of art and environmental science. Though geographic boundaries have since shifted and countries have been added to the foundation’s geographic scope, TMU’s focus remains the same: to encourage the understanding and appreciation of languages, cultures, and values systems, both shared and different.
Alina joined TMU in August of 2011 after earning Masters Degree from the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences at Columbia University in socio-cultural anthropology. She focused on the intersection of art and anthropology and wrote a thesis on earth art under Professor Michael Taussig. While completing her degree, she worked for Columbia’s human rights institute, Joseph Stiglitz’s Initiative for Policy Dialogue, and Columbia’s Arts Initiative. Before graduate school, Alina worked for the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, an organization that recognizes emerging artists founded by Jasper Johns and John Cage. Alina earned a BA degree in Philosophy with a focus on Ontology and Aesthetics from Boston College, and spent her first few years after college working in cross-cultural consulting and for several contemporary art galleries.
Aaron Poe
Steering Committee
Co-Chair
​
Aaron (he/him) has worked in Alaska for over 25 years. He works to build equitable partnerships between agency managers, Tribes, nonprofits, academia, industry, and communities that address large scale conservation and adaptation issues. He is the Network Program Officer for the Alaska Conservation Foundation where he helps provide and direct resources to 3 regional adaptation efforts known as the Northern Latitudes Partnerships.
Aaron serves on the Steering Committee of the Sustainable Southeast Partnership and coordinates a new food security program, Alaska Resilience Farms. He has B.S. degrees in Fisheries and Wildlife Management and Geography, from Utah State University and a Masters in Natural Resource Management from the University of Arizona.
Aaron is grateful to be able to live and work on the never ceded lands of the Dena’ina [“Deh-ny-na” ] people in Anchorage with his wife and two teenage children.
Anne Henshaw
Steering Committee
Anne is currently a Managing Partner at the Inuit Nunaat Fund, a new philanthropic fund
designed to support advance to Indigenous self-determination across Inuit Nunaat. She
has a profound commitment to serving as an ally to Indigenous Peoples in the Arctic
through philanthropy and advocacy.
​
Prior to the Inuit Nunaat Fund, Anne oversaw a substantial grant portfolio while she was
a Program Officer at Oak Foundation that helped advance the rights of Indigenous
Peoples in the Arctic and globally, environmental sustainability, climate resilience, and
fisheries conservation. She lives on the unceded territories of Wabanaki Peoples in
what is now known as the State of Maine.
​
Anne is an anthropologist by training and spent her early career as a Professor at
Bowdoin College and conducted community oriented research archaeology and oral
history in Nunavut, Canada.
Mary Turnipseed
Steering Committee
Co-Chair
​
Mary is a Program Officer with the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s Marine Conservation Initiative. Her grantmaking promotes the protection and resilience of U.S. and Canadian Arctic Ocean ecosystems and coastal communities.
Mary has dedicated her career to advancing marine conservation and stewardship through research, policy advocacy, and partnering with people most impacted by climate change and ecosystem declines.
Before joining the Moore Foundation, Mary studied ways to improve U.S. ocean management and the sustainability of global fisheries and aquaculture. Before that, she worked for Blue Ocean Institute (now the Safina Center) and as a scientist on research ships in the Atlantic and Southern oceans.
Chandre Iqugan Szafran
Arctic Indigenous Fund Advisor
Steering Committee
​
Chandre Iqugan Szafran Is Inupiaq from Nome and grew up in Alaska’s largest city of Anchorage. Her love for her home state has led her to build programming across Alaska, weaving cultural heritage, environmental stewardship, academia, and arts with the thread of advocacy for Indigenous futures. Chandre is an MFA candidate at the Institute of American Indian Arts, and earned her BA in English from University of Alaska Anchorage. She is a First Alaskans Institute Fellow, an alum of Alaska Humanities Forum’s Leadership Anchorage Program, and an Advisor to the Arctic Indigenous Fund. She is active indoors and out, enjoying community volunteering, berry picking, travel, reading, and
writing.
