raise my hands in deep appreciation to the Xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Səl̓ílwətaɬ, Skwxwú7mesh and

     Kʷikʷəƛ̓əm Nations for providing me with place to live, study, and teach. I acknowledge that I am an “uninvited guest” on their traditional, ancestral, unceded, and overlapping territories. My Nisga’a name is Noxs Ts’aawit (Mother of the Raven Warrior Chief named Ts’awit). My mother’s side of the family is from the House of Ni’isjoohl and I am a member of the Ganada (frog) clan in the village of Laxgalts’ap in the Nisga’a Nation. On my father’s side of the family, I am of settler ancestries (French and German). I have a Ph.D. in Education from the University of British Columbia (UBC). I am Co-Chair for Canada’s federal Tri-Agency Indigenous Research Leadership Circle, which actively is leading the implementation of a national policy directive for Indigenous research, leadership and self-determination. I am also the Inaugural Associate Director for the SFU Cassidy Centre for Educational Justice.

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During my pre-tenure years, I held faculty appointments in the Faculty of Education at SFU and the Department of Educational Studies at UBC. Since returning to SFU, I am focusing my decolonizing efforts in the Curriculum and Instruction: Equity Studies in Education Program and supporting the Indigenization of the faculty’s governance, programmatic, and course offerings with colleagues, and as a member of the Indigenous Education Reconciliation Council.

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My scholarship is informed by the Nisga’a Sayt-k’il̓hlw̓ o’osim̓ (Common Bowl) philosophy which guides my engagement of Indigenous methodologies to collaboratively support self-determination needs with Indigenous communities in British Columbia in three areas:
 

• Strengthening on-going matriarchal led processes to enhance B.C. First Nations control of BC First Nations research for self-determination purposes. 

• Nisga’a rematriation, language revitalization, educational governance and policy;

• Teaching and mentoring practices aimed at capacity-building in Indigenous communities, K-12 contexts, teacher education, and higher education in British Columbia;
   

My hereditary responsibilities intertwine with a number of on-going SSHRC supported research projects where I am a principal investigator to enhance Nisga’a rematriation, land based practices, and language revitalization. For example, I am the Principal Investigator for the “Raising Nisga’a Language, Sovereignty, and Land-Based Education Through Traditional Carving Knowledge” (project) with Co-applicant Wal'aks (Keane Tait) and seven collaborators in partnership with the Nisga’a Lisims Government and Laxgalts’ap Village Government. The project began in 2020 and is the first known study examining the philosophy and pedagogical practices of the Nisga’a carving tradition and rematriation as a form of knowledge production and transmission through Nisga’a led research methodologies that: (1) enabled the carving and raising of a new totem pole for the Wilp (House) of Laay on February 24, 2023; (2) set a historic international precedent for the first return of a totem pole from the United Kingdom to an Indigenous Nation on September 29, 2023. The project has also significantly amplified my leadership responsibilities and partnerships internationally, which has led to exceptional collaboration with international organizations, Indigenous Nations, museums and universities on several international and national knowledge mobilization projects.

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In the decolonizing realm, I engage visual methodologies as catalysts for decolonizing of systemic change between the university community and Indigenous communities. I produced 15 films as part of a film series with respected Coast Salish Knowledge Holders and leaders titled “Critical Understandings of Land and Water: Unsettling Place at Simon Fraser University”. The film series aims to examine the praxis of land-based education by providing an understanding of the implications of Indigenous rights and sovereignty on Coast Salish lands and waterways while disrupting the glorified settler narrative of Simon Fraser, the colonizer.

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My international activism, as a member of the United Nations (UN) Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Canada Working Group on Indigenous Land Based Education, has helped draw attention to the importance of land-based education. I am currently a member of the Museum of Anthropology Great Hall Renovations Indigenous Advisory Committee.

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In 2018, I received the Douglas College Distinguished Alumni Award, and in 2015, the 100 Top Alumni award in the Faculty of Education at UBC (2015), which cited my research as “groundbreaking and exhaustive” in terms of its impact with Indigenous youth and its influence in the areas of Indigenous K-12 teacher and higher education. In 2018, I received the Excellence in Scholarly Teaching Award in the SFU Faculty of Education. In 2023, I received the B.C. Historical Foundation Certificate of Merit with the N’isjoohl rematriation delegation team, which recognized our collective work in bringing our family’s memorial pole back to its rightful place in the Nisga’a Nation after being stolen for 94 years.