Dr. Niiyokamigaabaw Deondre Smiles (Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe) is an adjunct professor at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Society (IRES) at the University of British Columbia. Their research centres on Indigenous cultural and political responses to anthropogenic climate & environmental change, with a particular focus on 'everyday' forms of resistance and resurgence. Dr. Smiles is the co-chair of the CAG's Indigenous Peoples' Working Group and the Indigenous Peoples' Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers (AAG). They live in Songhees and Esquimalt territories, now known as Victoria, BC. 

Lea Denieul Pinsky works with Kanien'kehá:ka  Land Defenders to make maps for various projects including but not limited to land dispossession, illegal waste dumping and locating unmarked graves of children having attended religious institutions in Quebec. She is particularly interested in repatriating state-sanctioned colonial materials and repurposing them as “counter-archives” to support Indigenous led investigations into State crimes.  After having completed her Ph.D at Concordia University in the Geography Department, she now works at the Institut National de la Recherche Scientique (INRS) as a postdoc.

Susan Elliott is a health geographer and University Research Chair in Health Geography at the University of Waterloo, Department of Geography and Environmental Management. She has an active research career, with 250+ publications related to global environment and (public) health. She has also supervised 50+ graduate students and post-doctoral fellows to completion. Elliott has undertaken a range of leadership roles including Director of the Institute of Environment and Health (McMaster), Senior Research Fellow in the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, Dean of Social Sciences (McMaster University) and Dean of Health Sciences (University of Waterloo). She sits on several boards including the Canadian Association for Global Health as well as CARTS (the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa). She is the founder and Co-editor in Chief of Wellbeing, Space & Society, as well as the Editor in Chief and medical geography editor for Social Science and Medicine. She has a commitment to impactful research in the area of global public health, and her research is characterized by strong science-policy bridging. See her lab website for more information.

Desmond Ofori Oklikah is an emerging scholar and a SSHRC Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Geography and Environment at Western University. His research integrates anti-racist feminist intersectionality, EDI frameworks, and social network analysis (SNA) to examine complex issues related to immigration, housing, wellbeing, and food insecurity. Through his work, Desmond seeks to center, document, and critically deconstruct the narratives and lived experiences of minoritized populations. His scholarship highlights urban inequalities and spatial injustices that shape the everyday life of minorities in Canada. Desmond’s research has been published in leading journals, including Canadian Geographies, Journal of International Migration and Integration, and Gender, Place and Culture. He has contributed to research initiatives at the University of Guelph, Western University, Toronto Metropolitan University (Bridging Divides), the Network for Economic and Social Trends (NEST), and advanced scholarship on marginalized identities.

Dr. Emmanuel Ackom’s work intersects energy transitions, bioenergy, climate action and urbanism with a special interest in marginalized societies.  He integrates academic scholarship with 11 years of international practitioner experience from the United Nations (UN) - where he was a Senior Scientist - to promote sustainable communities. He critically examines sustainability challenges and develops solutions that are distributive and fair. He believes in a concerted decolonization and indigenization effort that listens to and is guided by our Indigenous relatives. The CAG D&I Committee seems to hold great promise in this direction. He is an Adjunct Professor at the University of British Columbia.

Dr. Hosea Patrick is a transdisciplinary scholar specializing in environmental politics, governance, and political theory. He integrates participatory policy analysis with community-engaged research to address complex sustainability challenges. Currently, he is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Africa and Black Diaspora Studies at McMaster University, Canada, and a Research Associate at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. His work focuses on translating theory into practice, the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly 16 (justice), 13 (climate), and 2 and 6 (food and water security) for Black communities. Patrick has published over 55 peer-reviewed articles and co-edited three books. 

Chrishma Perera is a PhD student in the Department of Geography and Environment at Western University. Her doctoral research, conducted in collaboration with the Southwest Ontario Aboriginal Health Access Center (SOAHAC), focuses on Urban Indigenous Food Sovereignty in London, Ontario. She is co-supervised by Dr. Chantelle Richmond and Dr. Evan Bowness. Chrishma holds a Master’s degree in Geography from Virginia Tech, USA, and a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Her early research was inspired by the Vedda, the Indigenous Peoples of her home country, Sri Lanka, and continues to shape her commitment to advancing decolonial research approaches across both Canadian and Global South contexts.

PhD candidate in Rehabilitation Sciences at UBC, visiting Umeå University and supported by SSHRC funding, Astou holds a MSc in epidemiology from ULaval and has worked in research or healthcare in Canada, Senegal and France, including serving as a public health lead in contact tracing in Manitoba. Astou is actively involved in community initiatives and projects on life transitions, inequalities, and Afro-centric ways of knowing. Her doctoral project focuses on better understanding the complex migration flows of West-Central Africans in Metro Vancouver by exploring their experiences through a lens of hospitality, to inform the improvement of their settlement and retention in Metro Vancouver. 

Aishah Cader is a public policy professional with experience in urban planning and health policy. She works at the City of Toronto, most recently on regulating ride hailing services and short-term rental activity. She holds a Master of Public Health from Queen's University and is passionate about making cities successful and livable. In her spare time, she enjoys exploring urban parks, kayaking and birdwatching.

Dr Heather Castleden (she/her) is a Professor and the President’s Impact Chair in Transformative Governance for Planetary Health at the University of Victoria. She is a white settler scholar, trained as a human geographer, and has been doing community-based participatory research in solidarity with Indigenous Peoples for over two decades. She is a former Canada Research Chair, Fulbright Scholar, and is now an elected member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists. Heather is the co-director of the Archipelagos of Indigenous-led Resurgence for Planetary Health research program, scientific director of the HEC Lab, and co-host of the Indigenous Planetary Health podcast. 

Jaimy Fischer (Ph.D.) has training in GIScience, healthy cities, urban transportation and mobility, and community-engaged research. Within all these areas, she works to centre principles of equity and inclusion. As a Michif (Red River Métis) person and researcher, Jaimy has a strong passion for social justice and equitable mobility, and for decolonizing and Indigenizing practices within institutions and disciplines such as planning, education, and GIScience. Jaimy has extensive experience conducting and teaching GIS & sociospatial equity analyses, particularly in the context of urban planning and intervention research. Their PhD research investigated equity in spatial data and interventions aimed at supporting bicycling for transport, and current research focuses on transport reconciliation, equity in spatial accessibility to daily needs, and urban trails as pathways for Indigenous health and inclusion.