Our people
Our team reflects the diversity of Indigenous identities across Turtle Island and internationally as we identify as Indigenous peoples from: Coast Salish, Vancouver Island; Mi’kmaq, east coast; Turtle Mountain Ojibwethe and Ubuntu, Southern Africa.
Research and teaching faculty
Program Director
Devi Dee Mucina is an Indigenous Ubuntu from the Ngoni and Shona people of southern Africa. He received his PhD from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, department of Sociology and Equity Studies, University of Toronto.
His academic interests are Indigenous African philosophies, decolonizing Indigenous masculinities, Indigenous fathering and other-fathering, and using Ubuntu oralities and disability studies to understand the social memory of Indigenous children.
Associate Professor
Assistant Professor
Dawn Smith is Nuu-chah-nulth from Ehattesaht, but grew up in W̱SÁNEĆ (Tsawout). She received her EdD in Educational Leadership and Policy from the Faculty of Education and the University of British Columbia.
Her research focus is in Nuu-chah-nulth self-determination, feminism, strict laws of nature and medicines and decolonization. Dr. Smith has the forthcoming publication “Decolonising our futures: Neo-colonial Criminal Injustice and the Mass Imprisonment of Indigenous Women”. She is also the author of “Indigenous Communities in Canada: Nuu-chah-nulth, Beech Street Books”; “Narratives of Memory, Migration, and Xenophobia” in the European Union and Canada; Chapter 2 “I-witness Holocaust Field School Experiences, Indigenous Peoples, and Reconciliation in Canada”; and co-authored “Building Transdisciplinary Relationship through Multidirectional Memory Work and Education.”
Associate Professor
She is principal investigator of the SSHRC-funded Prairie Relationality Network, co-author of Storying Violence: Unravelling Colonial Narratives in the Stanley Trial (ARP: 2020), and co-editor of Visions of the Heart: Issues Involving Indigenous Peoples in Canada (OUP: 2019). Gina’s research focuses on Indigenous political life and takes up questions relating to decolonization, gender, Indigenous feminism, treaty implementation, and relationality.
Professor
Dr. Aikau is an interdisciplinary scholar with training in American Studies and Sociology and teaching experience in Political Science, Indigenous Politics, Native Hawaiian Politics, and Pacific Islands Studies. Her research focus is contemporary Native Hawaiian Identity and Politics; Indigenous Resurgence and Climate Change in the Pacific; Indigenous Environmental Justice; Native Feminist Theory; American Race Relations and Food Sovereignty.
Cross-listed faculty
Associate Vice-President Indigenous; Associate Professor (School of Social Work)
Qwul’sih’yah’maht (Robina Thomas) is a member of Lyackson Coast Salish First Nation. She holds a BSW, MSW, and a PhD in Indigenous Governance. Robina is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work and is the Executive Director, Indigenous Academic and Community Engagement.
