Mallery Quetawki

Mallery Quetawki (She/Her/Hers) is from Zuni Pueblo and of the Badger Clan and child of the Turkey Clan. She is the mother of two and shares residence in both Albuquerque and Zuni Pueblo. Mallery received a degree in Biology with a minor in Art studio (BS ’09 UNM) and is currently a Communications and Outreach Specialist with the Community Environmental Health Program at the University of New Mexico College of Pharmacy. Mallery has used art to translate scientific ideas, health impacts and research on uranium mines that are currently undergoing study in several Indigenous communities. She currently leads the Research Translation Core of the UNM METALS Superfund Research Program Center and serves in several other community engagement cores within UNM. 

The University of New Mexico’s Community Environmental Health Program (UNM CEHP) is a multi-center program that is currently working on understanding toxicity within Indigenous communities associated with chronic exposures to metal mixtures in abandoned mine waste and other emerging chemical exposures. CEHP has a study looking at birth outcomes and development in children and families living in proximity to mine wastes. Other studies are focused on environmental effects of uranium mine dust on plants, water and air. Community concerns have shaped the direction of the research into exposure studies on the community members living near abandoned mines. Other communities have concerns on emerging chemicals such as microplastics and its effects when degradation occurs via open pit trash burning and or sunlight.