Angelo Baca is a cultural activist, scholar, filmmaker and recent PhD graduate in the Department of Anthropology at New York University, where he focused his research on Bears Ears National Monument. He is also the cultural resources coordinator at Utah Diné Bikéyah, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the defense and protection of culturally significant ancestral lands. Shash Jaa’: Bears Ears is Baca’s latest award-winning film about the five tribes of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition that work together to protect 1.36 million acres of Utah wilderness through a national monument designation. He published the widely read op-ed in The New York Times: Bears Ears Is Here to Stay. 

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Recently, he worked with Patagonia on the public lands film Public Trust, about the current administration’s assault on Indigenous and public lands. He has research interests in Indigenous international repatriation, Indigenous food sovereignty and sacred lands protection. His work reflects his commitment to collaborative research with Indigenous communities on equal and respectful terms and a long-standing dedication to both Western and Indigenous knowledge. He continues to focus on the protection of Indigenous communities by empowering local and traditional knowledge keepers in the stewardship of their own cultural practices and landscapes.