The Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery

Sarah Augustine – Co-Founder and Executive Director

Sarah Augustine, who is a Pueblo (Tewa) descendant, is co- founder and Executive Director of the Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery Coalition. She is also the co-founder of Suriname Indigenous Health Fund (SIHF), where she has worked in relationship with vulnerable Indigenous Peoples since 2005. She has represented the interests of Indigenous community partners to their own governments, the Inter-American development bank, the United Nations, the Organization of American States Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the World Health Organization, and a host of other international actors including corporate interests. She is a columnist for Anabaptist World, and co-hosts the Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery podcast with Sheri Hostetler. She has taught at Heritage University, Central Washington University, and Goshen College. In Washington State, where she lives, she serves in a leadership role on multiple boards and commissions to enable vulnerable peoples to speak for themselves in advocating for structural change. She and her husband, Dan Peplow, and their son live in the Yakima Valley of Washington. She is author of the book “The Land Is Not Empty: Following Jesus in Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery” (Herald Press 2021).

Katerina Gea – Coaliton Organizer

Katerina Gea is an organizer with the Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery Coalition and coordinates the Repair Network. She also is the pastor of Wild Church in Fresno, CA, where she currently lives in the traditional homelands of various Yokuts and Mono nations on whose lands her Russian Mennonite ancestors settled.

Michaela Esau – Communications Coordinator and Indigenous Solidarity Organizer

Michaela Esau is working part-time with the Coalition this year through Mennonite Voluntary Service. She currently lives in Tucson, Arizona, on the lands of the Tohono O’odham and Pascua Yaqui people, but calls Kansas home. Michaela graduated from William Jewell College in May 2022 with degrees in Literature and Communication. She has worked as an editor for her college newspaper, a digital communications intern for KC Common Good, and currently as the Adult Basic Literacy program assistant at Literacy Connects through Mennonite Voluntary Service.