Michael Bakal is a post-doctoral researcher at UC Santa Cruz and the co-founder of Voces y Manos por el Buen Vivir, a youth empowerment and environmental justice NGO based in the Maya-Achí region of Guatemala. With colleagues in Voces y Manos, Michael is working on several participatory research projects at the intersection of climate change resilience and cultural revitalization. At the center of this work is agroecology: the science, practice, and popular movement concerned with regenerating sustainable, healthy, culturally appropriate food systems. As a learning scientist, Michael specifically focuses on the role of culture and Indigenous knowledge in the design of community-based agroecology programs.
He received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Education in 2024. For his dissertation, Michael worked with colleagues in Voces y Manos to develop a methodological framework for instantiating Indigenous knowledge, values, and cultural practices within the design of health promotion and sustainability programs. In addition, he is involved in an international effort to develop a set of principles and values to guide processes of knowledge co-creation among Western researchers and Indigenous communities. This work aims to provide methodological guidance to researchers who recognize the critical role of Indigenous knowledge systems — particularly concerning the socioecological crisis — and who seek to form constructive partnerships among ways of knowing. Using these principles of co-creation of knowledge, Michael is currently working with schools and youth agroecology promoters to understand successful strategies for promoting cultural revitalization among Maya-Achí children and adolescents.
Michael previously worked as a high school biology teacher in the United States and Guatemala. After completing his MPH, he worked with the Berkeley Media Studies Group, where he provided training in strategic communications to public health advocates. His academic work has been published in Health Promotion International, NPJ-Climate Action, and Mind, Culture, and Activity, where he also serves on the editorial board. He also writes articles for the popular press on Guatemalan politics, sustainability, and migration policy, and his op-eds have appeared in the Sacramento Bee, Truthout, and the San Francisco Chronicle. In his free time, Michael studies Afro-Cuban percussion and is trying to learn how to grow food.
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