Kelsey Freeman is an award-winning writer, policy researcher, and advocate focused on Indigenous rights, migration and climate change.
Her debut book No Option but North (IG Publishing, 2020) is based off of her year on a Fulbright Fellowship in Mexico interviewing Central American migrants. It interweaves their stories with research into the policies that reveal the fundamental moral quandaries involved in contemporary migration. It won the 2021 Colorado Book Award in creative nonfiction and was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. It also received acclaim in Publisher’s Weekly, The New York Journal of Books, Choice Reviews of the Association of College and Research Libraries, and many others. She has since spoken and interviewed across the U.S. on immigration policy. Kelsey has written for Stanford International Policy Review, UCLA’s Journal of Law and Environmental Policy, The Mantle, Complex(ion) Magazine, and is the recipient of a Steinberg Reporting Award.
She is currently a Knight Hennessy Scholar studying international policy and environment and resources at Stanford University. At Stanford, she is the founder of Powershift, an initiative to support tribes in developing renewable energy and worked with Nevada’s green bank to help develop their tribal clean energy program. She also researches international climate displacement and migration and organized a course and conference on climate migration.
Kelsey has also focused on Native American affairs for the past 10 years and has a strong track record of building programming to support tribes. She previously worked at Central Oregon Community College, where she collaborated with tribes across Oregon to start a college-readiness program for Native American high school students. She also facilitated workshops on equity, advised the college’s Dreamers’ Club, and served on the City of Bend Accessibility Advisory Committee. Kelsey holds a BA with high honors in Government and Legal Studies from Bowdoin College.