2022 Turtle Island Indigenous Science Conference

Dr. Jeannette Armstrong, Professor, University of British Columbia, is Syilx Okanagan, a fluent speaker, and teacher of the Nsyilxcn Okanagan language, and a traditional knowledge keeper of the Okanagan Nation. She is a founder of En’owkin, the Okanagan Nsyilxcn language and knowledge institution of higher learning of the Syilx Okanagan Nation.

Dr. A. Blair Stonechild is a member of the Muscowpetung First Nation in Saskatchewan. He obtained his B.A. from McGill, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Regina, and in 1976 was the first academic hired by the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College (SIFC). Blair is currently a Professor of Indigenous Studies and has served as Dean of Academics and Executive Director of Development for the First Nations University of Canada (formerly Saskatchewan Indian Federated College). He co-authored with Dr. Bill Waiser, Loyal Till Death: Indians and the North-West Rebellion, which won the Saskatchewan Book Award and was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award in 1997.

Dr. Nicole Redvers, ND, MPH, is a member of the Deninu K’ue First Nation in Denendeh (NWT) and has worked with Indigenous patients, scholars, and communities around the globe her entire career. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine and the Department of Indigenous Health at the University of North Dakota where she helped developed and launch the first Indigenous health PhD program. Dr. Redvers is co-founder and current board chair of Canadian charity the Arctic Indigenous Wellness Foundation based in Yellowknife, NWT, providing traditional Indigenous-rooted Land-based wellness supports to northerners. She has been actively involved at regional, national and international levels promoting the inclusion of Indigenous perspectives in both human and planetary health research and practice. She is author of the trade paperback book titled, ‘The Science of the Sacred: Bridging Global Indigenous Medicine Systems and Modern Scientific Principles

Dr. Fowler is a teacher and the co-founder of the Navajo Math Circles. The Navajo Math Circles provides teacher workshops for grades K-12 and works with over 40 mathematicians to promote math education for students from the Navajo Nation. His research interests lie in the area of ethnomathematics. Dr. Fowler is passionate about promoting math literacy and advocating social justice through mathematics. He strongly supports relevant cultural materials to guide instruction.

Dr. Deborah McGregor (Anishinabek), is Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Environmental Justice at York University. Professor McGregor’s research has focused on Indigenous knowledge and legal systems and their various applications in diverse contexts including water and environmental governance, environmental and climate justice, health and environment, and sustainability.

Dr. Marcia Anderson, MD is Cree-Anishinaabe and grew up in the North End of Winnipeg. Her family roots go to Peguis First Nation and Norway House Cree Nation in Manitoba. She practices both Internal Medicine and Public Health as a Medical Officer of Health with Indigenous Services Canada- Manitoba Region. She is the Vice-Dean, Indigenous Health and the Executive Director of Indigenous Academic Affairs in the Ongomiizwin Indigenous Institute of Health and Healing, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Manitoba.

Dr. Melissa Arcand is an associate professor at the University of Saskatchewan. She is a soil biogeochemist with research interests focused on optimizing plant-soil synergies and soil health in agricultural landscapes. She received her Ph.D. in Soil Science from the University of Saskatchewan and conducted her post-doctoral research with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

Dr. Myrle Ballard is an Assistant Professor/Indigenous Scholar in the Faculty of Science, University of Manitoba. She is a First Nation from Lake St. Martin St. Martin First Nation. Her mother tongue is Anishinaabe mowin. She did not learn or speak English until she started school. Dr. Ballard is embarking on important ecological research that is based on Anishinaabe mowin as baseline monitoring for water management. Her current research is developing baseline monitors / frameworks using Anishinaabe mowin for water management using three-eyed seeing as a framework.

Wilfred Buck is a member of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation. He obtained his B.Ed. & Post Bacc. from the University of Manitoba. As an educator Wilfred has had the opportunity and good fortune to travel to South and Central America as well as Europe and met, shared and listened to Indigenous people from all over the world. He is a husband, father of four, son, uncle, brother, nephew, story-teller, mad scientist, teacher, singer, pipe-carrier, sweat lodge keeper, old person and sun dance leader. Researching Ininew star stories Wilfred found a host of information which had to be interpreted and analyzed to identify if the stories were referring to the stars. The journey began… The easiest way to go about doing this, he was told, was to look up.

Ogamauh annag qwe is crane clan from Garden River First Nation. As a PhD Candidate at York University, her work focuses on “N’bi G’giikendaaswinmin” (water knowledge) exploring humanity’s relationship to N’bi and how improving this relationship can support the well-being for N’bi, and all life. Sue is the recipient of the Vanier Graduate Scholarship and was the Pre-Doctoral Fellowship in American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program at Michigan State University. She has worked extensively with First Nation Peoples and is a volunteer for the Traditional Ecological Knowledge Elders of the Robinson Huron Treaty territory. Sue is a member of the Aboriginal Traditional Knowledge Subcommittee to the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada and is co-chair on the Indigenous Advisory Committee to the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada.

Dr. Edward Doolittle is Mohawk from Six Nations in southern Ontario. He earned a PhD in mathematics from the University of Toronto in 1997. He is currently an Associate Professor of Mathematics at First Nations University of Canada in Regina, Saskatchewan. Edward’s interests are Indigenous mathematics, Indigenous mathematics education, and differential equations.

Dr. Dube received his Bachelor’s degree in experimental physics from Cornell where he co-founded the American Indian Studies Program there. He obtained his PhD in experimental physics from Princeton. Currently Professor Emeritus and Research Professor at Rochester Institute of Technology and a previous Fulbright scholar at the University of Manitoba, he has held positions at Kitt Peak and Caltech’s JPL, the University of Michigan, the University of Arizona, and Yale. Dr. Dube, an enrolled member of the Abenaki Nation of Missisquoi and Mohawk Turtle clan, is a Sequoyah Fellow of AISES. He was awarded the 2019 Ely Parker Award from AISES, their highest honor.

Dr. Jürgen W. Kremer received his doctorate in clinical psychology from the Universität Hamburg, Germany. In 1982 Jurgen settled in the San Francisco Bay Area to teach full-time and serve as dean at Saybrook University and at the California Institute of Integral Studies. His teaching and research interests range from general psychology, clinical psychology and research methods to the relevance of indigenous knowledge and shamanism for today as well as ethno-autobiography. For four years he co-directed, with Dr. Apela Colorado, a program for Native American students and others concerned with indigenous roots and origins. Today Jürgen is a tenured faculty member at the Santa Rosa Junior College, he also teaches at the National University (School of Consciousness) and the University for Peace, Costa Rica.

Darrel Manitowabi, PhD, is an associate professor in Human Sciences at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. He is the inaugural Jason A. Hannah Chair in the History of Indigenous Health and Traditional Medicine. He is Three Fires Anishinaabe from Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory on Manitoulin Island and currently resides in the Whitefish River First Nation. His research interests are in Nishnaabe ethnohistory and Indigenous gambling, Indigenous social determinants of health, Indigenous healing, Indigenous-state relations, and Indigenous self-determination. He is currently collaborating with Indigenous healers in capacity building, policy development, training, and mentorship.

Emily McKinnon is an Instructor and Science Education Specialist with the Access & Aboriginal Focus Programs at the University of Manitoba. She teaches biology and statistics, provides support for students in science courses, and participates in a variety of outreach programs, including Path2Math Summer Academy for Indigenous students, Health Career Quest Camp for Northern students, Northern Student-Led Arctic Research Program, and Math Mania & Bio Buzz. Emily is passionate about science, and interested in land-based experiential learning, two-eyed seeing concepts of science and promoting equity and diversity in STEM.

Dr. Jesse Popp is a Canada Research Chair & OAC Chair in Indigenous Environmental Science, School of Environmental Sciences, at the University of Guelph. She is an emerging scholar and member of Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory and strives to promote inclusive science that embraces multiple ways of knowing while on her journey of learning and sharing.

A professional educational consultant for over 20 years from Muscowpetung Saulteaux Nation. Dawn has been passionate about chemistry since the day her parents bought her a chemistry kit in Grade 4. Since then, Dawn has pursued a life-long ambition of becoming a chemist and passing on that love and passion for science to children, youth, and adults. Dawn is the founder of Askenootow STEM Enterprise Inc. a newly created Indigenous-owned STEM company by an Indigenous female chemist developing Indigenous STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) lesson activities. Treaty 6 Territory and Homeland of the Métis Turtle Island Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Dr. Brian Rice is a full professor and holds the position of Indigenous land-based educator in the Department of Kinesiology and Recreation Management at the University of Manitoba. He is also one of the first graduates of the Indigenous Knowledge and Recovery of Indigenous Mind doctoral programs developed by Dr. Apela Colorado in the 1990s.

Originally born in Buffalo New York, Dr. Rice is an enrolled member of the Indigenous Mohawk Nation at Kahnawaké Quebec, Canada. Besides being a teacher and an interim principal for four years in an Indigenous-operated school, he has taught full time in the departments of Native Studies, Religious Studies, Continuing Education, and Education over a 30 year period. He continues teaching courses in Indigenous history and culture both national and global.

Dr. Yolanda Teran is a Post-Doctoral Fellow Post Doctoral Fellow, Native American Studies, Kichwa, University of New Mexico from the Indigenous Kichwa Nation of Ecuador. She was born in San Gabriel City in the north of Ecuador, South America. Since 1994 she has been an Indigenous representative for Latin America and the Caribbean before the United Nations. She got her B. A. in Museology at the Universidade do Rio de Janeiro, “UNI-RIO” in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and her Master of Arts at the University of Leicester, Leicester-England. She obtained her doctorate degree at the College of Education, concentration in Language, Literacy and Socio-Cultural Studies at the University of New Mexico. Her doctoral dissertation study focused on: “The Cultural Foundations for the Development of a Kichwa Language Program at El Centro Infantil Alejo Saes in Quito City, Ecuador”. This study was carried out with and for the Puesitus Indigenous community, that in 1950’s migrated from a rural area from the South of Ecuador to Quito City, the capital.

Dr. Nathalie Tufenkji earned the PhD. degree in Chemical and Environmental Engineering from Yale University. She is presently a Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at McGill University where she holds the Tier I Canada Research Chair in Biocolloids and Surfaces. She works in the area of particle-surface interactions with applications in the protection of water resources, plastic pollution as well as the discovery of natural antimicrobials.

Dr. Armstrong is a historical ecologist and archaeologist specializing in ancient human land-use and landscape archaeology. She is an assistant professor in Indigenous Studies at Simon Fraser University and director of the Historical and Ethnoecological Research Lab.

Joel Grant (Métis Nation of Alberta, Region 3, Treaty 7) lived at the First Peoples’ House (FPH) at McGill University while pursuing a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering. Joel’s Master’s research examined the effects of freeze-thaw cycling (such as that observed in the climate of southern Quebec) and UV irradiation on the fragmentation of bulk plastics into microplastics and nanoplastics.

Dr. Andrea Reid is a citizen of the Nisga’a Nation and a new Assistant Professor with the University of British Columbia’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries. She is helping to launch and lead the Centre for Indigenous Fisheries, working to build a national and international hub for the study and protection of culturally significant fish and fisheries. Her research program adopts highly interdisciplinary and applied approaches to improving our understanding of the complex interrelationships between fish, people and place. Reid’s PhD in Biology (Governor General’s Gold Medal; Carleton University ’20) centered on multiple stressor effects on Pacific salmon, using tools and insights from Western and Indigenous sciences in tandem. Reid is a cofounder of Riparia, a Canadian charity that connects diverse young women with science on the water to grow the next generation of water protectors. She is also a National Geographic Explorer and a Fellow of The Explorers Club.