Yáma M’Bok Borum-Kren (Bárbara Nascimento Flores) is a scientist whose roots trace back to the riverbanks of Uaimií, Uatu, and Paraopeba. She weaves together ancestral heritage, academic inquiry, and advocacy for socio-environmental justice.

As a leading voice of the Borum-Kren nation, she researches how the return of Indigenous peoples to their territories can trigger far-reaching socioecological cascades—chains of regeneration that restore landscapes, memory, lifeways, and cosmologies.

Flores holds a degree in tourism from the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais and completed her master’s and Ph.D. in development and the environment at the State University of Santa Cruz in Bahia. During her postdoctoral work at the University of Colorado, she founded the Center Wayrakuna of Indigenous Ancestral Sciences to connect Indigenous scholars across the Americas.

Despite her activism, research, and writing, Flores sets aside time for aerial dance, embracing it as a form of resistance and a celebration of her ancestors and identity.