Jessica Leston

MPH

Jessica Leston (she/her), is a public health advocate and an enrolled member of the Ketchikan Indian Community. She is the owner/partner of The Raven Collective.

Jessica’s roots are both Indigenous and settler. Her mother’s family are settlers originally from Germany, Sweden, and Ireland, while her father’s side comes from Austria, Finland, and the Tsimshian people of Southeast Alaska. Though she grew up in Chicago, her summers in Alaska with her grandmother’s family shaped her sense of identity, purpose, and connection to the land. “I remember climbing Deer Mountain, picking huckleberries around Ward Lake, and watching the salmon return to Ketchikan Creek Falls,” she recalls. It was during these moments—learning from her grandmother—that she first understood the importance of reciprocity. “When you pick berries, you always give thanks and leave gifts,” her grandmother taught her, a lesson that continues to guide her approach to public health: to give back, to uplift, and to honor relationships.

Jessica’s career has been dedicated to building Indigenous-led solutions that question and challenge systems and foster collective well-being. Her work has contributed to initiatives designed to strengthen health equity, interconnection, and healthcare access for Indigenous communities.

Guided by the Alutiiq cultural value, “We are responsible for each other and ourselves,” Jessica envisions a future where Indigenous communities thrive—where storytelling, advocacy, and relationality serve as counterforces to structural violence, inspiring transformational change in Indigenous health.