About Us
Our Vision and Mission
The Aki Institute seeks to change the world through rest, responsibility and resistance. We are dedicated to promoting social justice, environmental sustainability, and human rights. Our team is committed to challenging the status quo and creating a more equitable and inclusive society. Through advocacy, education, and community engagement, we aim to inspire individuals to become agents of positive change in their communities. Join us in our journey to build a better world for all.
Our Story
Why are we launching the Aki Institute?
Many of us pause at different moments to ask what it means to live a fulfilling life of connection to ourselves, one another, and the world around us. We believe at the Aki Institute that a good and full life is one of constant learning, connection and relationship, one in which we make space for hard and beautiful conversations about what it means to be human.
AKI (ah-kee) is the Algonquian word for dirt or earth (spoken by the Anishinaabe people), and that is the foundation of everything we hope to do at the Aki Institute--to create and sustain a better world beginning with our roots, with who we are at our core--people who want to shape the world for good.
The logo for the Aki Institute, designed by artist Megan Gambino, is the peace lily, a universal symbol of peace, unity, solidarity and love. We believe that in caring deeply for ourselves, one another, and the earth, we align with these values and shape a better future.
We believe that connecting to our own roots in every way connects us to the earth. We believe that learning to love ourselves better in an embodied way will help us foster healthy relationships to one another. We believe that our work, no matter what it is, should bring peace to the world and help us practice solidarity with one another.
Travis is a social scientist who studies political violence and policing, and Kaitlin is an author, poet-storyteller and public speaker. We are also both rock climbers who are at our best when we are moving in nature. We believe that the overlap of our work and play matters outside the realms of what we do individually, and we want to foster that space. That’s why we created the Aki Institute, a peace and justice initiative that values holistic relationships to the earth, ourselves and each other.
The Aki Institute has three central pillars: Rest, Resistance and Responsibility. Our vision is sure to change as we navigate what this space will be like, but the core of what we want to do is to create and sustain relationships through conversations, research, online courses and resources, retreats, art, and more.
Thank you for being here.
Meet The Team
Kaitlin Curtice
Co-Founder & Director
Kaitlin Curtice is an award-winning author, poet-storyteller, and public speaker. As an enrolled citizen of the Potawatomi nation, Kaitlin writes on the intersections of spirituality and identity and how that shifts throughout our lives. She also speaks on these topics to diverse audiences who are interested in truth-telling and healing.
As an inter-spiritual advocate, Kaitlin participates in conversations on topics such as colonialism in faith communities, and she has spoken at many conferences on the importance of inter-faith relationships. Kaitlin leads workshops and retreats, as well as lectures and keynote presentations, ranging from panels at the Aspen Climate Conference to speaking at the Chautauqua Institution and at universities, private retreat centers, and churches across the country.
In 2020 Kaitlin’s award-winning book Native: Identity, Belonging and Rediscovering God won Georgia Author of the Year in the religion category. Native explores the relationship between American Christianity and Indigenous peoples, drawing on Kaitlin’s experiences as a Potawatomi woman.
In 2023, Kaitlin released two books, first, Living Resistance: An Indigenous Vision for Seeking Wholeness Every Day, which examines the journey of resisting the status quo of hate by caring for ourselves, one another, and Mother Earth, and second, her first children’s book called Winter’s Gifts: An Indigenous Celebration of Nature, which is the premier book in a series of four books on the four seasons coming out with Convergent, RandomHouse Books. Her second book in the series called Summer’s Magic was released in 2024. In 2025 Kaitlin released her newest book Everything Is a Story with Brazos Press.
Besides her books, Kaitlin has written online for Sojourners, Religion News Service, On Being, SELF Magazine, Oprah Daily, and more. Her work has been featured on CBS and in USA Today. She also writes essays and poetry for The Liminality Journal and spends her time supporting other authors as they navigate the world of publishing. Kaitlin lives near Philadelphia with her partner, two dogs, and two kids.
Travis Curtice, PhD
Co-Founder
Travis Curtice is an Assistant Professor of Politics at Drexel University and a faculty affiliate at Drexel University’s Center for Public Policy. He serves on the executive board for APSA‘s African Politics Conference Group, as Communications Chair.
From 2020-2021, he was a Dickey Center U.S. Foreign Policy and International Security Postdoctoral Fellow and Niehaus Postdoctoral Fellow at Dartmouth College. He was a 2019-2020 Peace Scholar Predoctoral Fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace and a 2017-2018 Predoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Developing Nations and the Carter Center. He completed his PhD in Political Science at Emory University in 2020, winning the 2019-2020 Pursuit of Excellence in Political Science Award.
His research is motivated by the following questions. How does state repression work on the ground? What kinds of dilemmas emerge for governments, agents of repression, and citizens who interact with coercive institutions? What are the larger forces influencing the use of state repression? In answering these questions, his work examines the use of police to repress citizens in authoritarian regimes and unconsolidated democracies and the effects of repression on the provision of law and order. Travis uses diverse methods including survey experiments, field research, qualitative interviews, and cross-national comparisons.
He is currently working on a book manuscript entitled The Repression Dilemma: The Politics of Policing in Multi-ethnic Societies. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in International Security, The Journal of Peace Research, The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Conflict Management and Peace Science, The Journal of Global Security Studies, Social Science and Medicine, Political Violence at a Glance, and The Washington Post.
His research has received funding from the Folke Bernadotte Academy, the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Carter Center, the Institute for Developing Nations, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation PhD Interventions Project. Drexel University awarded Curtice the prestigious 2022-2023 Antelo Devereux Award for Junior Faculty in support of his research program.
Three Pillars of the Aki Institute
Rest
Empowerment Workshops
Responsibility
Policy Influence
Resistance
Global Impact