Our people

(Kanaka Maoli) Lisa Kahaleole Hall is the director of Indigenous Studies at UVic. She received an MA and PhD in Ethnic Studies from the University of California at Berkeley. She graduated with a BA cum laude in Women’s Studies from Yale University. Her research and teaching interests include the intersections of race, colonialism, and indigeneity with gender and sexuality.

(Cherokee Nation) Jeff Ganohalidoh Corntassel received his PhD in Political Science from the University of Arizona in 1998. He is currently Associate Director of the Centre for Indigenous Research and Community-Led Engagement (CIRCLE). Jeff’s research and teaching interests focus on “Everyday Acts of Resurgence” and the intersections between Indigenous internationalism, community resurgence, climate change, gender, and community well-being.

(Abenaki) Christine received her Ph.D. and M.A in Kinesiology from Western University. Her recent scholarship has mainly focused on the legal and political rights of Indigenous peoples in settler colonial Canada, particularly in hosting the Olympic Games and other mega-sporting events on unceded Indigenous territories.

(Kwakwaka'wakw/Snuneymuxw) Mick is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Indigenous Governance at the University of Victoria.  His work focuses on revitalizing Indigenous fatherhood and family-based resurgence.

W̱SÁNEĆ Matriarch Tracy Underwood PhD candidate, Assistant Teaching Professor in Indigenous Studies. Tracy upholds daily her Matriarchal duties of protecting and preserving Children, Land, Language and Culture of her people. Tracy is an expert in land-based learning, history, storytelling, ethics and care for children, families and communities. She can discuss issues of land occupancy, the doctrine of discovery and how ongoing land dispossession negatively impacts herself and her husband, her eight children and ten grandchildren in their daily lives. As a part of her PhD ȽÁU, NOṈET SXEDQIṈEȽ framework, Tracy does a presentation that is called “JÁEȽNOṈET”.

Minoway Sinclair (Saulteaux/Cree) is an Anishinaabe community facilitator, decolonial consultant and educator. Minoway is Rainbow Trout Fish Clan and first-degree Midewiwin, born and raised in Tkaronto on the shores of Niigaanii Gichigami. Their father is from St Peters Indian Settlement, formerly Peguis’ settlement in Treaty 1 territory, Manitoba, and their mother is a first-generation Settler and intergenerational Jewish holocaust survivor.

(Haida Nation)