Bio

I am an Indigenous (Métis) scholar. While working within Me?tis and other Indigenous communities, I continue to learn about my multi-generational Indigenous family. My paternal grandmother, Catherine Anne Sanderson (b. 1902) was the granddaughter of Me?tis voyageur Thomas Sanderson and her family included Gillis, Harper and Asham kin living in Kinosota, Fairford, Cumberland House, Moose Factory and Reedy Creek across the generations. My paternal grandfather James E. Anderson was born in Portage la Prairie in 1899, and, like my grandmother, came from a deep lineage of marriages among Indigenous peoples over five generations that included the surnames Landry, Harper and Moosoo.

I am grateful for having lived and worked all of my adult life in the lands of Anishinaabek and Haudenosaunee peoples. I give credit for the many things I have learned from these nations, and I am indebted to urban Indigenous communities, organizations and the Friendship Centre movement, as all of these relations have informed my identity as an urban Indigenous person working in inter-national contexts. In the last twenty-five years, I have enriched my western Me?tis kinship and identity through the lodge family of my teacher, mentor and friend Maria Campbell. With Maria and other lodge family members, I am part of a large Me?tis network grounded in kinship, visiting, friendship and collaborative work.

Bio

Anita is Mi’kmaw and French Acadian with family living in Esgenoopetitj First Nation and Brantville, New Brunswick. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Ottawa and her M.Sc. from Dalhousie University, both in Microbiology and Immunology. Anita also obtained a M.Sc. from the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation in Health Services Research at the University of Toronto while conducting her postdoctoral fellowship.

Anita is an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto, in the Department of Health & Society (Scarborough Campus) and is cross-appointed at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health (St. George Campus) in the Social & Behavioural Health Sciences Division. She is an Adjunct Scientist at Women’s College Research Institute, Women’s College Hospital. Her research interests include Indigenous women’s health, HIV pathogenesis, intervention research, health service outcomes and evaluation, chronic stress and mental health, harm reduction and determinants of health.

Bio

Dr. Brian Branfireun is a Professor and the Canada Research Chair in Environment and Sustainability in the Department of Biology and Centre for Environment and Sustainability at Western University.  With his colleagues, students, and community collaborators, Dr. Branfireun seeks to understand the physical and biological processes that affect contaminant levels in the environment, with a focus on mercury and other metals.  He is focussed on ecosystems that are sensitive to the impacts of climate and other environmental changes, particularly those in Canada’s north.  He is currently working on community-led projects on mercury in water and fish with First Nations in the Yukon Territory, the Northwest Territories and Ontario, and is an advisor on mercury-related issues to communities, governments and the media in Canada and the United States.

Bio

Heather Castleden is a broadly trained community-engaged geographer and educator; she has spent two decades doing participatory research with Indigenous peoples across the country on their priorities that align with her scholarly and applied expertise in environment, health, social justice, and decolonization. Heather’s ancestral roots are mainly Scottish and English. As a white settler scholar, having lived in multiple Indigenous territories and having received teaching from many generous and patient Indigenous Elders and Knowledge-Keepers, Heather is grateful to live and work (as an uninvited guest) in Lkwungen territories. She is deeply appreciative of the spirit of the land and water around her and recognizes that living in this place, and all the other places she has lived across this country, has only been made possible by the settler colonization of her ancestors and other Europeans, and the ongoing (white) settler colonial state of Canada. Given this reality, and her own complicity as a white settler – and as a human geographer – her research primarily focuses on the politics of knowledge production in Indigenous environment, health, and social justice activism. Heather has also developed concentrations in responsible and relational Indigenous research ethics and decolonizing settler colonialism in the academy.

I am a settler Canadian of mixed European ancestry and an Associate Professor of Sociology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario (Dish with One Spoon territory).

My research investigates the social processes that shape the well-being of historically marginalized communities and the strategies, alliances, policies, and practices that can bring about more just and sustainable societies.

I have collaborated on multiple community-based research projects with Indigenous communities. The Poverty Action Research Project (PARP), led by Fred Wien at Dalhousie University, involved working with five First Nations across Canada to develop poverty reduction and community development strategies and to monitor changes in community well-being.

More recently, in partnership with the non-profit group Reconciliation Kenora, I received a SSHRC Insight Development Grant to conduct sharing circles and interviews with Anishinaabe, Métis, and settler residents of Kenora, Ontario (Treaty #3 territory) on local community understandings of and barriers to reconciliation.

I am also a co-investigator on another SSHRC-funded project, “For the Long Haul” (led by Lynne Davis at Trent University), about the conditions that foster long-term Indigenous-settler alliances, how such alliances develop over time, and the role that alliances can play in achieving social change. In this case, I am working with the Shoal Lake 40 First Nation to document the role of alliances in the Freedom Road campaign.

Bio

Dr. Downey is a woman of Ojibwe and Celtic heritage, a mother and a grandmother. She is a medical anthropologist and joined the School of Nursing at McMaster in March of 2017. She is cross-appointed with the Department of Psychiatry and Neuro-Behavioural Sciences and is appointed as the Indigenous Health Lead for the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster. She holds a Heart & Stroke Foundation – Canadian Institute of Health Research – Chair in Indigenous Women’s Heart and Brain Health. She is also the A/Director of the McMaster Indigenous Research Institute.

Bonnie Freeman is Algonquin/Mohawk from the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory. Her work and research is rooted in connections with Six Nations, the Hamilton Aboriginal Community and other Indigenous communities throughout Canada and the United States. Her research interests are extensive. Her PhD dissertation research examined the journey of Six Nations Haudenosaunee youth, as they traveled on foot through their ancestral lands promoting the message of peace and unity and understanding the transformation of identity and well-being from the connection to land and culture, and self-determination.

Her research is rooted with Indigenous communities that focus on cultural interventions in social work practice, community healing approaches, anti-oppressive practices and decolonization, and indigenous-non-indigenous relations and alliances.

Bio

Dr. Chris Furgal is an Associate Professor in the Indigenous Environmental Studies program at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. He is cross-appointed to the Departments of Indigenous Studies and Environmental Resource Studies and Sciences. He holds a B.Sc. (Ecology and Evolution) from the University of Western Ontario, an M.Sc. (Biology) and PhD (Environmental Studies/Planning) from the University of Waterloo. He was a CIHR Postdoctoral fellow in Environmental Health at Laval University Research Hospital, Public Health Research Unit from 1998-2003. He has previously held positions at Laval University cross-appointed between the departments of Community Health and Political Science.

Dr. Furgal’s current research focuses on environmental health risk assessment, management, and communication with Aboriginal communities throughout the Arctic.

Dr. Furgal has been a lead author of several national and international science assessments on Arctic environmental health issues including the human dimensions of climate change and environmental contaminants. He was a lead author with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment, and subsequently a co-recipient with the other authors of the 2007 Nobel Prize for raising awareness of global climate change. In addition, he has been a lead author on the Arctic Climate Impacts Assessment and the most recent Canadian assessments on Climate Change in the North published by Natural Resources Canada and Health Canada.

Bio

Chelsea Gabel’s research explores the challenges faced by Indigenous peoples, particularly Indigenous elders and youth that are influenced by changes to traditional Indigenous knowledge and other interconnected health, social, economic, and political processes. Chelsea’s research is typically conducted in partnership with leaders in the community that she s working with. Her community partners help define project research questions, and in turn, the research helps to address issues that they are working with in daily practice.

Traditional interactions among Indigenous elders and youth have been disrupted both by the devastating effects of colonization and residential schools. Working in partnership with Indigenous communities across Canada, Chelsea’s research addresses some of these concerns by considering ways to increase elder-youth relationships and revitalize values related to interactions between different generations.

Chelsea’s research examines how digital technology can be used to leverage and advocate for specific policy and program initiatives in First Nations, Inuit and Méjtis communities. She draws on photovoice, digital storytelling, e-democracy portals and other arts-based technology and advocacy tools as a means of restoring these relationships. Chelsea works with Indigenous elders and youth to assess how such tools can be used to document, articulate and redress issues related to changes in traditional Indigenous culture.

Overseeing two Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) grants as the primary investigator, Chelsea builds on Indigenous and Western ways of knowing and conducting research to address health and well-being in First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities across many generations. She balances academic rigour with a heartfelt desire to ask the kinds of questions that lead to positive social change through public policy.

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Randy Jackson (NPI) is Associate Professor at McMaster University in the School of Social Work with a cross-appointment in the Department of Health, Aging and Society. Randy is Anishinaabe from Kettle and Stony Point First Nation and has become an expert in HIV in Indigenous communities in Canada. Dissatisfied with existing research, which tended to focus excessively on pathologizing Indigenous people, Jackson works with communities to find another perspective–one grounded in Indigenous cultural world views. By better understanding the role of culture in the lives of people living with HIV, Jackson reveals parts of the bigger picture of the sociological facets of human health. Jackson teaches courses in Indigenous Health and Wellness and Community-Based Research methods that are at the heart of his own research. In the recent past, he also held a CIHR Doctoral Awards, a Community Scholar Award with the Ontario HIV Treatment Network (OHTN), and also held the position of Director of Research and Programs with the Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network (CAAN). Reflecting his beliefs about the significance of Indigenous self-determination in research, Randy helped develop CAAN’s Principles of Research Collaboration. Current areas of research include Indigenous masculinity and chronic illness, Indigenous leadership and it connection to health and wellness, and Indigenous transgender health. In 2012, Randy was honoured and recognized for his decade-plus long involvement in Indigenous HIV/AIDS research with a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal (2012). 

Bio

Malcolm King, PhD, FCAHS, is a member of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation (Ontario). He completed a PhD in polymer chemistry at McGill University in Montreal and research fellowships at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, and the Meakins-Christie Laboratories at McGill University. He has held faculty positions at McGill University (MRC Scholar), the University of Alberta (AHFMR Senior Scholar), Simon Fraser University, and most recently at the University of Saskatchewan, where he also serves as the Scientific Director of SCPOR, the Saskatchewan Centre for Patient-Oriented Research.

Malcolm’s areas of research interest include respiratory health issues among Indigenous peoples, health service delivery to vulnerable populations, the interaction of education and health, airborne disease transmission and chronic obstructive lung disease. He is the author of more than 200 scientific papers and has supervised many health research trainees including graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and community-based researchers. His international Indigenous health interests include improving Indigenous well-being through health workforce development and provision of culturally appropriate care, and developing Indigenous health indicators to monitor progress in programs aimed at achieving wellness and health equity.

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Dr. Kelsey Leonard is a water scientist, legal scholar, policy expert, writer, and enrolled citizen of the Shinnecock Nation. Dr. Leonard is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo, where her research focuses on Indigenous water justice and its climatic, territorial, and governance underpinnings. Dr. Leonard seeks to establish Indigenous traditions of water conservation as the foundation for international water policymaking.

She represents the Shinnecock Indian Nation on the Mid-Atlantic Committee on the Ocean, which is charged with protecting America’s ocean ecosystems and coastlines. She also serves as a member of the Great Lakes Water Quality Board of the International Joint Commission. Her regional ocean policy work in collaboration with Tribes, state, federal and fishery management council entities received a Peter Benchley Ocean Award for Excellence in Solutions.

Bio

Dr. Lévesque leads the Community-Engaged Heath Promotion Research group in the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies. Her research focuses on program evaluation and implementation science examining community-based physical activity interventions through an ecological approach. A long-time member of the Kahnawake Schools Diabetes Prevention Project (KSDPP) research team, and frequent collaborator on Indigenous research initiatives, Dr. Lévesque has extensive experience working with Indigenous communities within a CBPR framework. Her work is founded on community engagement for the production and dissemination of action-oriented knowledge. Dr. Lévesque’s research encompasses both Indigenous and mainstream/Western science approaches and has informed the ways in which respectful and relevant research is conducted with Indigenous communities in Canada (e.g., KSDPP Code of Research Ethics; Canada’s Tri Council Policy Statement 2: Module 9 – Research Involving the First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples of Canada). In addition to her research with Indigenous communities, she also collaborates with public health researchers in local communities and in Latin America and the Caribbean to conduct program evaluation and research related to physical activity and health promotion.

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I am a member of the Sipekne’katik Mi’kmaq First Nation in Nova Scotia. My research interests are to foster a wider understanding of Indigenous worldviews and how Indigenous worldviews must inform environmental decisions, specifically as Indigenous peoples are impacted by resource or industrial development. I am a strong advocate for Indigenous data sovereignty and Indigenous-led decision making, and I am currently working with Indigenous communities across Canada to develop an Indigenous-led environmental health risk assessment approach.

Dr. Dawn Martin-Hill holds a PhD in Cultural Anthropology and is one of the original founders of the Indigenous Studies Program at McMaster University. She is the inaugural Paul R. McPherson Indigenous Studies Chair.

Dr. Martin-Hill’s research is grounded in the principle that solution-based research in the area of Indigenous health must occur alongside building capacity for community collaborations. She has embodied this principle through her numerous community commitments: including serving as Chair of the Indigenous Elders and Youth Council to promote the protection and preservation of Indigenous Knowledge systems; serving as an expert witness on traditional medicines; and supporting reconciliation efforts to improve health services delivery to First Nations through the “Harmonization of Traditional Medicine” in partnership with Six Nations Health Services. While working with communities, Dr. Martin Hill has led numerous grants funded by both the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to conduct Indigenous knowledge research focused on Indigenous youth, women, language, ceremonies, traditional medicine and well-being.

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Professor Angela Mashford-Pringle is a member of the Timiskaming First Nation (Algonquin) who was the second Indigenous graduate from the Dalla Lana School of Public Health where she is now an Assistant Professor and Associate Director at the Waakebiness-Bryce Institute for Indigenous Health. Professor Mashford-Pringle collaborates with Indigenous communities across Ontario in the areas of cultural safety training, justice involved Indigenous peoples, climate change affecting food sovereignty and revitalization of cultural ways of being. The basis of many of her projects focus on land-based learning, spirituality and the Indigenous social determinants of health, and their relationships to health, healing and cultural resurgence.

Drawing from her own teachings, Professor Mashford-Pringle integrates Indigenous pedagogies and ontologies of land-based learning and relationality into her teaching. Professor Mashford-Pringle co-teaches with Elders, Knowledge Keepers and Senators to allow students learning about Indigenous health to experience and learn in a culturally safe and welcoming manner. She emphasizes the importance of relationship with ourselves and one another in the classroom, fostering a community space for students to reflect on their power, positionality and privileges as they approach problems and case studies. Professor Mashford-Pringle delivered a five-day land-based learning course hosted at Hart House Farm in Caledon, Ontario where students received teachings from Elders, Knowledge Keepers and artists on topics such as sacred medicines, fire-making and water. Despite the pandemic and virtual learning, she continued to offer land-based activities in her syllabi. As public health restrictions begin to lift, Professor Mashford-Pringle will continue to offer land-based learning opportunities, particularly through a new 10-day land-based intensive programming for first year Master of Public Health in Indigenous Health students.

Bio

Lorrilee McGregor is an Anishinaabe from Whitefish River First Nation and her clan is nme (sturgeon). Dr. McGregor is an Associate Professor at NOSM University in Sudbury where she teaches about Indigenous peoples’ health. Her current research projects include Indigenous research sovereignty and Indigenous children’s consent in research. For the past 20 years she has served as the Chair of the Manitoulin Anishinaabek Research Review Committee which is a community-based research ethics board.

Bio

Dr. Mushquash is a Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Mental Health and Addiction, and Professor in the Department of Psychology at Lakehead University and the Division of Human Sciences at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine University. He is also Vice President Research at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre and Chief Scientist at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Research Institute.

He is the Director of the Centre for Rural and Northern Health Research at Lakehead University. In addition to his academic appointments, Dr. Mushquash is a registered clinical psychologist providing assessment, intervention, and consultation services for First Nations children, adolescents, and adults at Dilico Anishinabek Family Care.

In 2017, Dr. Mushquash was inducted in the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists. He is currently the vice-chair of the Institute Advisory Board for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Institute of Indigenous Peoples’ Health.  Dr. Mushquash also serves as a board member for the Ontario Psychological Association, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, and the George Jeffrey Children’s Centre.

Bio

I am Nishinaabe-kwe with connections to Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory and Nipissing First Nation. I am an Associate Professor and inaugural Chair in Indigenous Education in the Schulich School of Education at Nipissing University. My research is community-based and focuses on the intersections between Indigenous peoples’ health and education. Grounded in Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing, my work seeks to employ appropriate methodologies to ensure cultural safety. With successful funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, my priority continues to be sharing research findings in ways that will be meaningful for Indigenous peoples and communities.

Bio

Dr. Perreault is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Guelph and is a member of the College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists in the Royal Society of Canada. She acquired her PhD in behavioural neuroscience from McMaster University followed by additional training as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Toronto. The primary research goal of Dr. Perreault’s preclinical program is to determine how neuronal network communication is impaired in neuropsychiatric disorders using rodent models, and to elucidate the molecular and cellular mechanisms responsible for the network disruption. A common theme in her research is the study of sexual dimorphisms. Dr. Perreault is a citizen of the Métis Nation of Ontario and is descended from the historic Métis Community of the Mattawa/Ottawa River. She works to promote Indigenous initiatives and equity, diversity, and inclusion at institutional, national, and international levels.

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Chantelle Richmond (Biigtigong Anishinabe) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at Western University in London, Ontario (Canada), where she holds the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Health and the Environment. Chantelle is Director of the Interdisciplinary Development Initiative in Applied Indigenous Scholarship at Western University. She is Leader of Ontario’s Indigenous Mentorship Network (www.imnp.uwo.ca). Chantelle is a health geographer by training and her research is based on a community-centred model of research that explores the intersection of Indigenous people’s health and knowledge systems within the context of global environmental change. Along with colleagues and community partners in Canada, Hawaii and Aotearoa, Chantelle’s current research examines concepts and applied processes of environmental repossession. Another major emphasis of her research explores the concept of relational accountability as it relates to Indigenous research environments. In 2015, Chantelle was inducted to the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars.

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Michael Robidoux is a full professor and director of the School of Human Kinetics, Faculty of Health Sciences. With expertise in ethnology, Robidoux has led multidisciplinary research programs studying land-based food practices in rural remote Indigenous communities in northern Canada for over 20 years.

Professor Robidoux and his Indigenous Health Research Group have maintained longstanding partnerships with tribal organizations and Indigenous communities advocating to build local food systems in northern Canada to address high rates of food insecurity and disproportionately high levels of diet-related disease. Robidoux  is particularly interested in studying the impact of local food procurement on local dietary practices and developing economic strategies to help build local food capacity in remote northern communities.

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Dr. Sophie Roher (she/her) is a settler scholar and health policy researcher who specializes in policies impacting Indigenous and circumpolar communities. She is SPOR-funded post-doctoral fellow at the Well Living House, and a Senior Research Advisor at the Institute for Circumpolar Health Research. Dr. Roher believes in the power of relationships and storytelling. Her work uses community-based approaches and narrative and arts-based methods to foster dialogue and co-learning between community and health system stakeholders with the goal of addressing inequities in care and driving patient-centred health policies and programs. She is passionate about advancing Indigenous and circumpolar health outcomes and has worked over the past eight years on a wide-range of community-led research projects with Indigenous communities and governments in the Northwest Territories. She has an MSc in Health Policy and Bioethics and has experience working on policy initiatives in Ontario, Yellowknife, Whitehorse, and Uganda.

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Amanda joined Cancer Care Ontario as Scientist for the Aboriginal Cancer Control Unit in September 2016. She holds a BSc in Biology and Anthropology from Trent University, an MSc in Epidemiology, a PhD in Medical Health Research, and has completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Toronto. Elevating the health and wellbeing within Indigenous populations has been a focus of Dr. Sheppard’s research interests. Much of her work has been concentrated on maternal and child health initiatives, and cancer control. Amanda is mother to two little girls, Madeleine and Juliette.

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Dr. Janet Smylie is a family physician and public health researcher. She currently works as a researcher scientist in Indigenous health at St. Michael’s Hospital, Centre for Urban Solutions (CUHS), where she directs the Well Living House Applied Research Centre for Indigenous Infant, Child and Family Health. Her primary academic appointment is as a Professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. She maintains a part-time clinical practice with Inner City Health Associates at Seventh Generation Midwives Toronto. Dr. Smylie has practiced and taught family medicine in a variety of Aboriginal communities both urban and rural. She is a member of the Métis Nation of Ontario, with Métis roots in the prairies. Her research interests are focused in the area of addressing the health inequities that challenge Indigenous infants. Children and their families through applied health services research. Dr. Smylie currently leads multiple research projects in partnership with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities/organizations. She holds a CIHR Applied Public Health Research Chair in Indigenous Health Knowledge and Information and was honoured with a National Aboriginal Achievement (Indspire) Award in Health in 2012. A Métis woman, Dr. Smylie acknowledges her family, teachers, and lodge.

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Katrina Srigley is associate professor in the Department of History at Nipissing University in North Bay, Canada. Author of the award-winning monograph Breadwinning Daughters: Young Working-Women in a Depression Era City (University of Toronto, 2010), Srigley’s scholarship forefronts women’s collective and individual experiences and explores the dynamics of memory making and storytelling. Her Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)-funded research developed in partnership with Nipissing First Nation picks up the themes of storytelling and engaged practice.

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Associate Professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health University of Toronto. Dr. Stewart is a member of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation. She is a registered psychologist and Director of the Waakebiness-Bryce Institute for Indigenous Health at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto (U of T), where she is an Associate Professor in the Division of Social and Behaviour Health Sciences. She holds the TC Energy Research Chair in Indigenous Health. At U of T she is the current Advisor on Indigenous Research to Division of the Vice-President & Provost. She recently completed the Canada Research Chair in Aboriginal Homelessness and Life Transitions. Research and teaching interests include Indigenous health and healing in psychology (homelessness, youth mental health, identity, and work-life development), Indigenous determinants of health, Indigenous pedagogies in higher education and health sciences, and Indigenous research ethics and methodologies. She is committed to advancing Indigenous healing issues in academics, health practice, and policy.

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Dr. Jaris Swidrovich is an Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, in the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Toronto. He is a queer, Two Spirit, disabled, Saulteaux and Ukrainian pharmacist from Yellow Quill First Nation. Dr. Swidrovich is the first and only Indigenous faculty member in pharmacy in North America. His mother was a 60s Scoop Survivor, and both his grandmother and great-grandmother were residential school survivors.

He received a Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy from the University of Saskatchewan and a postbaccalaureate Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Toronto. His primary areas of research and practice include pain, HIV/AIDS, substance use disorders, 2SLGBTQ+ health, and Indigenous health. Dr. Swidrovich is also a PhD Candidate in Education at the University of Saskatchewan, where he is studying Indigenous Peoples’ experiences with pharmacy education in Canada.

Dr. Swidrovich recently founded and is the chair of the Indigenous Pharmacy Professionals of Canada, which is the first national organization for Indigenous pharmacy professionals in the world. He has been recognized with several awards and honours, including the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal for service to the community and the National Patient Care Achievement Award from the Canadian Pharmacists Association.

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Dr. Jennifer Walker is a Haudenosaunee member of the Six Nations of the Grand River and a health services researcher. She holds a Ph.D. in Community Health Services (Epidemiology) from the University of Calgary. She is an Associate Professor at McMaster University in the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, & Impact. Her collaborative research program is transforming the capacity of Indigenous communities and health services organizations in Ontario and across Canada to address complex health challenges through culturally grounded evidence. Her program uniquely addresses two key areas of research priority: 1) aging and dementia in Indigenous populations, and 2) Indigenous data sovereignty.

Dr. Walker’s work focuses largely on Indigenous community-engaged health research using large health services databases through her work as a Core Scientist and Indigenous Health Lead at ICES in Ontario and through the Health Data Research Network Canada. Dr. Walker also has an active research community-engaged research program in aging and dementia. She is the co-lead of the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration and Aging’s (CCNA) Team 18 – Issues in Dementia Care for Indigenous Populations and the lead for the Indigenous Cognitive Health Program. She has also led the validation of the Canadian Indigenous Cognitive Assessment tool and the implementation of the tool in Anishinabek communities of Northern Ontario.

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Dr. Sonia Wesche is an Associate Professor in Environmental Studies and Indigenous Studies at the University of Ottawa. She has worked collaboratively with Indigenous communities in the Northwest Territories and Yukon, Canada for more than a decade to better understand their vulnerability and capacity to adapt to environmental change (and also has a newer project in Nunavut). Her multi-disciplinary research draws on multiple sources of knowledge, with a focus on local and traditional knowledge and knowledge co-production. She is particularly interested in links among environmental change, traditional land and resource use, food and water security, and health and well-being in Indigenous communities.

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Dr. Amy Wright’s program of research seeks to understand the experiences of parents with young infants and toddlers, with a focus on Indigenous parenting and cultural safety. Recent work includes how Indigenous mothers experience using health care services to meet the health needs of their infants and demonstrates an urgent need for cultural safety and TVIC training for everyone working in health care. Other community-engaged projects aim to address the needs of Indigenous fathers caring for infants, and to understand the strengths and service needs of gender-diverse Indigenous parents. Dr. Wright has experience in community-based approaches to research, collaborating with Indigenous communities to meet their research goals. Her research is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Dr. Wright also works clinically as a Neonatal Nurse Practitioner in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at McMaster Children’s hospital.

Dr. Wright is the President of the Canadian Association of Neonatal Nurses (CANN), which provides education and networking opportunities for neonatal nurses in Canada, as well as the Past-Chair of the Nursing Research Interest Group (NRIG) through the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario (RNAO). She was named one of 150 Nurses for Canada by the Canadian Nurses’ Association in 2017.