BIOGRAPHY
Aiyana Jakoski is Anishinaabe and a proud citizen of Bay Mills Indian Community, a band of Lake Superior Ojibwe located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. She is Crane clan. She was raised in Seattle, Washington and still calls these Coast Salish lands home.
She started her career in Indian Country working for the Cowlitz Indian Tribe as a Childcare Provider where she provided trauma-informed and culturally attuned childcare to Native children. Aiyana then went on to serve as a Program Associate for the Urban Indian Health Institute. Here she supported public health programming, MMIP research, and UIHI’s mission to decolonize data. In her most recent role, she was the Workforce Development Coordinator for the Seattle Indian Health Board where she helped implement 30 workforce development programs aimed at increasing the number of Native professionals in the medical and public health fields.
Aiyana is also a student and is currently pursuing a BS in Computer Information Systems from her tribal college, Bay Mills Community College. She hopes to combine her love of data, technology, art, and culture to serve her community.
In her free time, Aiyana enjoys playing with her dog Slayer, reading, collecting comics and vinyl, beading, and going to the beach.
