Merris Burbank

Merris Burbank is an enrolled member of the Yurok Tribe and descendant of the Tohono O'odham and Karuk Tribes. She lives on the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation, where she was primarily raised and has lived. She has two adult children and is a grandmother. She is an MSW and a Certified Chemical Dependency Counselor (CAC). She has 30 years of experience working as a social services director and program manager for the Hoopa Valley Tribe, Yurok Tribe, Karuk Tribe, and Bear River Rancheria. She started teaching as a professor at Cal Poly Humboldt in 2025 and applies her Tribal management skills, Tribal history knowledge, and cultural knowledge into her curriculum lessons. She teaches Indigenous Social Work and Decolonization of Social Work in the classroom and online.