Our people
Our team reflects the diversity of Indigenous identities across Turtle Island and internationally as we identify as Indigenous peoples from: Turtle Mountain Ojibwethe; Kanaka ‘Ōiwi, Hawaii; Star Blanket Cree Nation, Treaty 4 Territory; Ubuntu, Southern Africa; Sakarchage, Mary, Turkmenistan; Métis Nation, Treaty 6 Territory.
Research and teaching faculty
Director, Graduate Advisor
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.
Associate Professor
Dr. Starblanket is an Associate Professor in the School of Indigenous Governance at the University of Victoria. She is Cree/Saulteaux and a member of the Star Blanket Cree Nation in Treaty 4. Dr. Starblanket’s writings address Indigenous-settler relations, Indigenous movements towards political transformation, and Indigenous feminisms. She is co-editor of NAIS, the journal of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association and her publications include Making Space for Indigenous Feminisms, 3rd ed. (2024, Fernwood Press), Storying Violence: Unravelling Colonial Narratives in the Stanley Trial (ARP Press, 2020), and Visions of the Heart: Issues Involving Indigenous Peoples in Canada, 5th and 6th eds. (OUP, 2019 & 2025).
Associate Professor
Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark is Turtle Mountain Ojibwe and an Associate Professor in Indigenous Governance. She is the Director of the Centre for Indigenous Research and Community-Led Engagement at the University of Victoria. She received her PhD in American Studies and her B.A in American Indian Studies from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
Her research interests include Indigenous law and governance and Indigenous politics in the United States and Canada. She is the co-editor of Centering Anishinaabeg Studies: Understanding the World Through Stories with Jill Doerfler and Niigaanwewidam Sinclair and is the co-author of the third and fourth edition of American Indian Politics and the American Political System with Dr. David E. Wilkins. Her research background includes collaborative work with Indigenous communities in the United States and Canada with the aim to advance the development and resurgence of Anishinaabe political structures and institutions that are informed and shaped by Anishinaabe philosophies, values, and teachings. She has also been awarded various SSHRC grants that entail projects examining Anishinaabe law and Governance, Community-Engaged research practices and Indigenous jurisdiction and infrastructure in the wake of extractive industry projects.
Assistant Professor
Dr. Tory čınus (Johnston) is a kwinaył/Coast Salish scholar of sound and music, guitarist, part-time lecturer and co-host of Sounds of Survivance, the global Indigenous music show at Seattle-based listener-powered radio station, KEXP. He received his PhD in Native American Studies at UC Davis in 2025. Dr. čınus's work explores sound and music through principles of Indigenous nationhood, the sensorial, and the technological through the (re)constitution of sound media and modalities of Indigenous Governance and self-determination.
Dr. čınus centers kwinaył/Coast Salish logics and case studies including the tribal canoe journey, intertribal music-making and audio production, and relational materialities as instrumentalities to demonstrate how the sounded and the governed aspects of Indigenous life are mutually constitutive along our past, present and future.
Assistant Professor
Dr. Michaela McGuire holds a PhD in Criminology from Simon Fraser University, and her work focuses on decolonization, racism, genocide, state crime, resurgence, Indigenous and Nation-based justice, and governance.
Dr. Michaela McGuires’ research involves an examination of injustice affecting Indigenous Peoples while also considering how to work towards healthier and more just futures. She is a citizen of the Haida Nation and much of her academic work has involved community and Nation-based research. Notable projects include research on the development of a self-determined Haida Tll Yahda (making things right or justice system) and consideration of identity displacement and belonging affecting the Haida Nation, within the framework of state crime. She is also a fellow with the Yellowhead Institute and frequently contributes to their publications.
