Shiri Pasternak is an assistant professor of criminology at Toronto Metropolitan University. She was the co-founder and research director of the Yellowhead Institute from 2018-2021, the first Indigenous-focused think tank in the country, where she led the research on a number of major reports, including Land Back and Cash Back. She is also the author of the award-winning book Grounded Authority: the Algonquins of Barriere Lake Against the State, published in 2017 by the University of Minnesota Press, and many other articles and essays.