Jess Erin has a BA in Cultural Anthropology from University of Maryland Baltimore County, where they graduated summa cum laude and received both a David T. and Jeanette Lewis Memorial Scholarship and a Phi Kappa Phi Chapter 22 Undergraduate Research Award. Their research centers social justice and the pursuit of ancestral knowledge with an emphasis on queer theory, intersectional feminism and cultural ecology. They are currently pursuing an MA in Folklore & Ethnology at University College Dublin to explore story as medicine and the preservation of traditional foodways and medicine techniques in Irish lore.