New Members Join Braiding Knowledges Canada’s Research Management Committee

Naluturuk (Nally) Rowan-Weetaluktuk is an Inuk living in Gatineau. His family from his father’s side comes from Inukjuak, Nunavik, but Nally grew up in Kuujjuaq, Iqaluit, and Montreal. Currently serving as a community engagement manager at Polar Knowledge Canada, his career involved working on or supporting projects that embody Indigenous self-determination in research. This has included Inuit place names mapping, the Qanuippitaa? National Inuit Health Survey and Nipivut, a Montreal Inuit community-based radio show.

With a love for the little flowers across Inuit Nunangat, Nally makes art combining photography and digital illustration as well as printmaking. He enjoys cycling, cross-country skiing, and the company of his cat Rye.

Carmen is of Saulteau First Nations from Moberly Lake, B.C.  She is passionate about the resilience and protection of our indigenous way of life by involving youth with elders. Carmen graduated from UBCO with an MSc in 2024. Her thesis project at UBCO focused on lichen abundance and restoration within the caribou homelands of NE BC. She is also part of a team that has helped avoid the extirpation of caribou herd in her territory. Carmen has created within her nation a native seed bank, an Indigenous guardian program, and an ethnobotany book.  She currently works as a consultant and proprietor of her family’s company, Mistahiya Contracting.

Dr. Shandin Pete (Salish/Diné) is from the Flathead Indian Reservation in Arlee, Montana, USA. He completed a M.S. in Geology and an Ed.D. in Curriculum and Instruction focusing on science education at the University of Montana. He is a geoscientific ethnographer, hydrogeologist and science educator with interest in Indigenous research methodologies, Indigenous astronomy, social-political tribal structures, culturally congruent instructional strategies, and Indigenous science philosophies. Most of his work in recent years has focused on understanding shifts in an Indigenous paradigm of research for science knowledge production. This work includes collaboration with tribal knowledge holders across Indigenous communities and academic scholars to examine traditions, customs, oral histories and knowledge systems and their intersection with geoscience. From 2008 to 2020, he served as faculty at Salish Kootenai College where he co-developed their Hydrology program and founded the Indigenous Research Center on its campus. He is currently serving as an assistant professor of teaching at the University of British Columbia in the Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences Department where he continues to advance understandings of Indigenous research methodologies from Salish philosophical commitments with an emphasis on environmental and geoscience disciplines.

Sara Anderson (she/her) comes from a mixed background of German Mennonite and Indigenous heritage. As the daughter of a Sixties Scoop survivor, her ongoing learning and reconnection journey has shaped her commitment to Indigenous self-determination, ethical research practices, and the responsibilities of settlers and institutions within Indigenous–settler relations.

Sara holds a Master of Arts from the School of Indigenous and Canadian Studies at Carleton University, alongside a Graduate Certificate in Indigenous Policy and Administration from Carleton’s School of Public Policy and Administration. Her academic and professional work is grounded in Indigenous policy and research ethics, with a particular focus on how institutions can support Indigenous leadership, data sovereignty, and community-driven knowledge systems.

She brings over a decade of experience across the non-profit, academic, and Crown corporation sectors. From 2015 to 2020, Sara worked at KAIROS Canada, where she supported national Indigenous education initiatives, including the KAIROS Blanket Exercise, contributing to large-scale public and institutional learning on colonial history and reconciliation. From 2020 to 2025, she served as Senior Manager, Indigenous Research in the Office of the Vice-President, Research & International at the University of Waterloo, where she led the development of Indigenous research policies, protocols, and institutional frameworks grounded in relational accountability and Indigenous priorities.

Sara currently works as an Indigenous Relations Specialist at Farm Credit Canada, supporting national Indigenous engagement, research, and data initiatives related to agriculture, food systems, and economic reconciliation.

Sara is committed to Indigenous research practices that shift decision-making power to Indigenous Nations and organizations, operationalize data sovereignty and consent, and hold institutions accountable for ethical, community-driven research across the full research lifecycle.

Vicki is an ecologist and a Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) from Wahta First Nation, Ontario. She has degrees from the University of Guelph (BSc), York University (MES), and University of Alberta (PhD) and is currently the Knowledge and Research Manager, Lands and Resources, Mushkegowuk Council. Mushkegowuk Council represents and serves seven Cree Nations in northern Ontario. Vicki has been immersed in protected areas management, research, and monitoring her entire life. She applies her expertise to supporting Indigenous conservation of lands, waters, and ocean: currently in northern Ontario, and previously in the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and coastal British Columbia. She began her career as a national park patrolperson (aka guardian), then in the 1990s she became the first woman Chief Park Warden (now called Resource Conservation Manager) in Canada at Ivvavik National Park located on the Beaufort Sea coast. She adopted the Arctic as her home from 1993 until 2021, living, working and travelling across the northernmost reaches of NWT and Nunavut. Exploring nature, especially wilderness areas, on foot, skis, snowmobile, boat, or kayak keeps her happy and healthy.

Shaun Stevenson is a faculty member in the University Studies program at Northern Lakes College in Treaty 8 territory, northern Alberta and an Adjunct Research Professor in the School of Canadian Studies at Carleton University. He grew up in southern Ontario and currently resides in Ottawa. Shaun received his PhD from the Department of English Language and Literature at Carleton University and his MA in Cultural Studies and Critical Theory and BA (Hons) in English and Indigenous Studies, from McMaster University. Shaun is a settler scholar whose research focuses on Indigenous land and water rights, law and policy, and settler/Indigenous relations. He previously worked as a Senior Policy Analyst in the Treaties and Aboriginal Government sector for the government of Canada and as a Project Director on a community-based research project with the Tahltan First Nation and the National Core for Neuroethics at UBC Hospital. Shaun has published on the ethics of community-based research, Indigenous water rights, literatures and reconciliation in Qualitative Inquiry, Decolonization, Settler Colonial Studies, Canadian Literature and Theory & Event, among others. In his spare time, he volunteers for Belong Ottawa, a community outreach organization in downtown Ottawa, plays tennis and spends as much time with dogs as he can.