is a land steward and ethnobotanist with a strong lineage of land-based people. She has spent the last 12 years managing and founding farms and deepening her herbal knowledge through communing with elders, practice, and scientific research. Aleya uses her bachelor's degree in physiology and neurobiology as well as the ancestral wisdom in her fingertips to guide her studies and research interests. She blends her upbringing in Maryland with a strong focus on Trinidadian roots in her writings. She is considered a pollinator of people and weaver of landscapes. Aleya also managed and cofounded farms in Baltimore City, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, in Northwest Virginia, and now, in her ancestral lands of Trinidad and Tobago, where she lives with her husband and daughter. She can be found on social media at @naturaleya or naturaleya.substack.com.