Jessica Hernandez

Jessica Hernandez is a Maya Ch’orti and Binnizá-Zapotec Indigenous environmental scientist, activist, author, and researcher at the University of Washington. Her work is primarily focused on climate, energy, and environmental justice. She is known for her book, Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science. And is currently putting efforts into rebuilding indigenous communities through her non-profit organization, Earth Daughters.

Early life and education Hernandez grew up in both South Central Los Angeles, California and southern Mexico. Hernandez's father is from El Salvador and her mother is an indigenous woman from Oaxaca. Growing up, Hernandez's family taught her all about indigenous teachings which significantly influenced her career. In her early life, Hernandez also learned from her grandmother, Maria de Jesus, about the environment and how to tend to it. Maria de Jesus, a member of the Zapotec community in southern Mexico, passed down the rich teachings of indigenous traditions to her granddaughter, shaping her understanding of their ancestral ways.

Hernandez attended college at the University of Washington, During her college career, there were some difficulties in her research due to professors claiming that her work was missing citations or that what she was stating did not have scientific merit. When she started college, she looked forward to sharing what she had learned from her grandmother and father about nature, but her lived experiences and knowledge were dismissed and sometimes mocked by her professors. Hernandez claims that her accounts were from family lived experiences and they have inspired her to bridge the connection between the indigenous way of practice and modern Western practice.

Career Hernandez started working at the University of Washington as a professor and in a postdoc position beginning 2021. There Hernandez has taught the introduction to climate science where she incorporates indigenous knowledge and perspectives by having her students do restoration projects. Hernandez also provides educational outreach to high school teachers on indigenous teaching methods. Also in 2021, she wrote Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes Through Indigenous Science which was published on January 18, 2022. The book focuses on changing the perspective on conservation using stories and experiences that Hernandez gathered from her indigenous family and other indigenous people, and combining these experiences with modern science. In 2019, she organized an event to re-introduce indigenous plants in the Bernie White Bear Garden. She also went on to release a podcast episode to share the thoughts of native Seattle community members called “Indigenizing Urban Seattle.”

Hernandez published her second book, Growing Papaya Trees: Nurturing Indigenous Roots During Climate Displacement, on November 11, 2025.

Awards and accomplishments While attending the University of Washington in 2015, Hernandez was chosen to be a “Latino/A Scholars Graduate School Fellowship Awardee" from the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs. In 2017, Hernandez was named in the Husky 100 and received the “Outstanding Commitment to Diversity” award from the University of Washington. She also was the first professor at the University of Washington to integrate indigenous teachings into their climate change course.

Peer-reviewed publications

Hernandez, J., Skiba, J., German, M., Scherr, R., Huynh, T., Mathis, C., & Araya, M. (2022). Exploring Sociopolitical Landscapes in Physics Education. Sustainability and Climate Change, 15(4), 279-288. Hernandez, J., Meisner, J., Jacobs, L.A., Rabinowitz, P. (2022) Re-Centering Indigenous Knowledge in Climate Change Discourse. PLOS Climate. Hernandez, J., Meisner, J., Bardosh, K., Rabinowitz, P. (2022) Prevent Pandemics and Halt Climate Change? Strengthen Land Rights for Indigenous Peoples. The Lancet Planetary Health. Accepted. German, M., Hernandez, J., & Scherr R.E. (2022). Connecting the Science of Water to Students' Communities. The Science Teacher. Hernandez, J., Scherr, R., Gorman, M., & Horowitz, R. (2022) Place-based Education in High School Physics: Situating Energy and Climate Change in Students' Communities. Sustainability & Climate Change. Hernandez, J., Scherr, R., & Robertson, A. D. (2021). Redefining Energy Justice in Physics Classrooms. Environmental Justice. Hernandez, J., and Vogt, K.A. (2020) Indigenizing Restoration: Indigenous Lands before UrbanParks. Human Biology 92.1: 37-44. Hernandez, J., and Spencer, M.S. (2020). "Weaving Indigenous Science into Ecological Sciences: Culturally Grounding Our Indigenous Scholarship." Human Biology 92.1: 5-9 Spencer, M. S., Fentress, T., Touch, A., & Hernandez, J. (2020). Environmental Justice, Indigenous Knowledge Systems, and Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders. Human Biology, 92(1), 45-57. Hernandez, J. (2019). Indigenizing Environmental Justice: Case studies from the Pacific Northwest. Environmental Justice, 12(4), 175-181.