Mckenzie Yazzie-Martin is a Navajo public health professional who grew up on a reservation in Northern New Mexico. He is a product of a rural food
desert community and his family participated in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). This program
helped his family find ways to engage and find creative ways to have healthy meals.

McKenzie’s passion for public health stems from his own experiences with food insecurity. He earned a Bachelor of Public Health and a Master of Public Health from New Mexico State University. During his undergraduate
studies, he facilitated a program called Fit Families, which taught about nutrition, social, emotional and well-being, physical activity, and food preparation.

After graduating, McKenzie continued to work with the University’s Extension Family and Consumer Sciences Program as a Lifestyle Coach for the National Diabetes Prevention Program and pursued to further his education for a master’s in public health. Before joining Brighter Bites, he was a Senior
Program Specialist at NMSU Extension Family and Consumer Sciences, where he worked on a variety of programs related to healthy eating, physical
activity, and chronic disease prevention.

In his free time, McKenzie likes to venture into extravagant ways of making coffee, along with spending time with his wife cooking and doing photography together.