Kaylani is a William Fontaine Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania interested in Indigeneity, healing practices, and climate change in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Prior to her time at Penn, she received a MSc in Biology for her work in exploring local perspectives on CHamoru medicine and its relationship with the environment, rise of biomedicine, and disease prevalence. Kaylani’s research integrates genetic, epidemiological, and botanical methods with multi-media documentation, linguistic analysis, and cultural anthropological study. She currently trains as a contemporary CHamoru healer (known locally under different titles including makana, Yo’Amte, or Suruhana) and is interested in the development of a feminist Chamoru semiotics which is genealogically linked to maga-haga Fu’una, the CHamoru creation goddess.