Sarah Wright Cardinal

Background

Sarah Wright Cardinal is Bush Cree from treaty 8 territory, her late maternal grandparents Narcisse Cardinal and Agathe Desjarlais were recognized traditional practitioners in the Wood Buffalo region. Sarah is first generation born in hospital, speaking English, and raised away in the Sixties Scoop. She returned north in 2003 enjoying a decade reconnecting with relatives, community, and the land while engaging education and wellness projects across the Northwest Territories. She achieved a PhD in 2017 to uplift community led initiatives to redress genocidal policies such as the Indian Act Potlatch Ban that outlawed Indigenous health systems. She holds a Michael Smith Health Research BC scholar award (2024-29) for her program of research “Sharing Medicine Bundles & Pathways to Community Wellness: articulating nation-specific ceremonial, land-based wellness practices” informed by her CIHR project grant (2022-27) with Coast Salish, Cree, Dene, Métis, and Nuu-chah-nulth communities and knowledge keepers. She guides students on an approach to community wellness research Being a Helper where Invited (2021), enlivening oskâpêwis ceremonial helper role in holistic community-led projects. The work has grown to include urban organizations that serve diverse nations. She co-leads a CIHR & MSHRBC funded Strengthening Resilient and Equitable Public Health Systems - STEPS grant (2026-29) with Dr. Lisa Bourque-Bearskin, BC Indigenous Health Nursing Chair. Together with a team of traditional practitioners, Public Health leaders and scholars, they are engaging intergenerational knowledge transmission with three Indigenous community health and wellness sites to improve public health systems. Sarah’s work comes from her lived experience and twenty-five years in community centered education and research. She received the 2022 CUFA BC Ehor Boyanowsky Academic of the Year, held academic leadership roles such as President of Aurora College (2009-2012), and served as a reviewer and scientific officer on the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Indigenous Health Research committee. Sarah holds a lifelong commitment to improving self-determined pathways to health, wellness, and wellbeing. She teaches INGH 522: Indigenous Health Research Methodologies and is available for guest speaking, presentations for organizations and governments, visits and mentorship on topics such as Indigenous holistic health systems, ethics of Indigenous research, storied methodologies, cultural competencies in public health, and Indigenous child wellbeing/child welfare.

 

Select publications

Wright Cardinal, S., Cardinal Lennie, T. (2025). Our Ancestors are dancing. In Krill, S. R. & Skavinski, K. P. Eds. Bebias Into Ohndaa Ke: Queer Indigenous Knowledge for Land and Community. ARP Books.

Sharing Medicine Bundles students:

Kimberly Fairman (PhD, 2026). na'minipti'nit ᓇ'ᒥᓂᑉᑎ'ᓂᑦ: Discovering and honoring Inuit Research Method.

Kyra Willoughby (MA, 2025). Manidookewin: Exploring community wellness with Elders and knowledge keepers in Whitesand First Nation. https://dspace.library.uvic.ca/items/b095f550-dad7-415f-9428-abadf93af503

Tracy Underwood (PhD, 2024). ȽÁU, NOṈET SXEDQIṈEȽ - Healing House post (totem pole): Addressing Indigenous specific systemic racism with ancestral knowledge and matriarchal wisdom. https://dspace.library.uvic.ca/items/8b831506-9573-4ffe-911f-be2df3e39156