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Naima Yael Tokunow (she/her/hers) is the Design and Communications Manager at Change Elemental, where she stewards narrative strategies to support transformative justice and liberation. She first joined the organization in 2021 as a Communications Associate and continues to shape storytelling that builds power and possibility.

Beyond her communications work, Naima is an artist, poet, activist, educator, and editor. She lives on unceded Tiwa land (also known as Albuquerque, NM) with her husband, children, dog, gecko, four guppies, and a wild box turtle that lives in the backyard. Rooted in a deep commitment to equity, justice, and joy, she works to cultivate liberatory education, narrative-sharing, and radical reinvestment in BIPOC, queer, poor, and disabled makers, artists, and thinkers—grounded in accountability to a beloved community, including the community of the self.

Before joining Change Elemental, Naima served as the Project Director for The University of New Mexico’s Office on Violence Against Women Campus Grant, leading initiatives to end interpersonal and sexual violence through education, staff and faculty training, and strengthening coordinated community responses for survivors. She also worked in the university’s Communication and Marketing Department and African American Student Services.

With nearly a decade of experience in higher education, Naima has taught English, Black literature, creative writing, and cultural studies at New Mexico State University, the University of New Mexico, and Southern New Hampshire University. She has been lucky to co-create accessible, anti-racist, queer-positive learning spaces alongside brilliant youth.

She holds a BA in Literary Arts from The New School and an MFA in Poetry from New Mexico State University.

You can often find Naima collaging, gardening, or basking in the sun like a lizard. She is blessed to be Black and alive.