President and Program Chair: Sara Davidson Sara Florence Davidson (sgaan jaadgu san glans) is a Haida/Settler Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University. She completed her PhD in Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia, and her research centres Indigenous pedagogies, literacies, and stories. With her father, she is the co-author of Potlatch as Pedagogy: Learning through Ceremony and the Sk’ad’a Stories, a picture book series which is based on family stories and highlights Indigenous pedagogies and intergenerational learning. http://saraflorence.ca
Co-Vice President and Program Chair: Jennifer MacDonald Jennifer MacDonald is a settler-Canadian and PhD candidate of Curriculum and Learning at the University of Calgary in the Werklund School of Education. Her research focuses on ethical relationality and how students make meaning with kinship relations through outdoor learning experiences. As a non-Indigenous educator, she is committed to modelling how all learners can dialogue with topics of truth and reconciliation to understand themselves, and to interact with others, in ways that challenge colonial logics. She is currently a sessional instructor of Indigenous Education and facilitates land-based learning opportunities for undergraduate students.
2nd Vice-President/Communications: Jackson Pind Dr. Jackson Pind is a mixed Settler (Finish, Danish, Irish) and Anishinaabe Postdoctoral Fellow in Indigenous Education with family ancestry from Alderville First Nation. He has earned a BA and MA in History at Laurentian University in Sudbury. He completed his PhD in Education at Queen's University in the fall of 2021 with the topic: "Indian Day Schools in Michi Saagiig Anishinaabeg Territory, 1899-1978." His research is interested in the history of Indigenous education and responding to the climate crisis through Anishinaabe worldviews. In 2020, he helped publish Spirit of the Grassroots People:Seeking Justice for Indigenous Survivors of Canada's Colonial Educationwith Indian Residential and Day School survivor, Raymond Mason.
Co-Secretary-Treasurer: Rebecca Stroud Stasel Dr. Rebecca Stroud Stasel has mixed heritage including anglo and franco settlers, and Métis. Her doctoral interdisciplinary research explored teachers living and working in the borderlands in overseas teaching and leadership assignments. Her research interests include policy and leadership, decolonizing education, comparative global studies, and Indigenous ways of knowing and learning. While overseas on a social work project, Rebecca noted some similarities regarding the effects of colonization on Indigenous peoples, prompting her to explore interdisciplinary scholarship. Rebecca writes poetry and short works of fiction, and she enjoys spending time outdoors and traveling.
Co-Secretary-Treasurer: Sharla Mskokii-Kwe Peltier Dr. Sharla Mskokii Peltier received an Interdisciplinary Phd in Human Studies at Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario in 2016 and is currently an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education, University of Alberta. Mskokii Kwe is a member of the Loon Clan at Mnjikaning (Rama) First Nation in Ontario and works to stimulate and support grass-roots development of culture and Anishinaabemowin reclamation initiatives. Mskokii Kwe has 25 years of extensive experience within the education, social, and health sectors in First Nations and urban contexts. She demonstrates professional and personal commitment to community-based Aboriginal research in education that honors the voices of children, youth, families, Elders, and educators. She is very community-minded and her relationships within the Aboriginal community and professional milieu are well-developed and maintained in the Great Lakes region of Ontario and Alberta. Mskokii Kwe’s research and teaching experience is rich with community land-based learning approaches and applications for community and post secondary learning. She is dedicated to reconciliation and believes that education about Aboriginal perspectives, histories, cultures and languages is key to building respectful relationships and for healing our relationship with Aki (Land) and each other. Ecological systems theory and Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing provide knowledge systems for understanding and working toward social transformation and reconciliation. The positive impacts of relationship-building, communication, and the creation of a kind, respectful and inclusive environment in the academy are key for making space for Indigenous scholars and culture-based language, thought and pedagogical approaches.