Golder Associates Ltd., teaming with the Seyem’ Qwantlen Business Group (Kwantlen First Nation), was retained by the Township of Langley to develop a model to predict the location of unrecorded archaeological sites on a 10,000 year-old landscape located in the Fraser River Valley, British Columbia. Conventional predictive modelling techniques are common practice however with the […]

Since the 1960s, the lands of several indigenous communities such as the Fort McKay Métis have been largely impacted by open mines and steam assisted gravity drainages (SAGDs). Such oil sands operations have disturbed large areas, changed geology, hydrogeology, hydrology, aquatic and terrestrial environment, and created a linear disturbance. This research project will map and […]

This work will address the gaps of previous studies undertaken for the Arctic by developing energy model framework that incorporates uncertainty in prices, technology performance and variations in renewable resources caused by climate change. Expected results of the research might be identifying cost-effective risk hedging strategies that account for multiple and overlapping uncertainties within the […]

Cross border political performance art and pedagogy are the focal point of my research—a topic more relevant and urgent than I could have anticipated with the Trump Administration’s proposed wall, immigration policies, and legislation which forcibly separates migrant families caught attempting to cross the Southern border as well as controversies surrounding Canada’s ‘Safe Third Country […]

Last year, the world’s leading health researchers found toxic pollution to be the greatest cause of disease and premature death in the world today. However, while the findings acknowledge that deaths caused by toxins to be most prevalent among marginalized groups, there is no mention of socio-historical structures in producing these toxic patterns. Through this […]

Northern Canada faces great changes from growing resource extraction and global warming, which make a timely understanding of baseline environmental conditions critical. In the Dawson Range, Yukon, naturally elevated concentrations of uranium and arsenic have recently been discovered in groundwater at levels that are susceptible to cause toxic effects in humans and wildlife. This region […]

In cities around the world, land is disputed between groups of people from different religious, socioeconomic, class, and ethnic backgrounds. These differences and contestations play out in the urban landscape by creating divided cities. Jerusalem is one of the most divided cities in the world, and has received little scholarly attention with regards to gendered […]

This research project is an exploration of the salient health benefits of participating in chant-based music experiences, ultimately to determine whether or not such music making can have perceived therapeutic impact. Merging the fields of music therapy and medical ethnomusicology, I will examine kirtan chanting as ‘sacred community music therapy’ and utilize a five-dimensions model […]

As whales recover from the past centuries of whaling and as global trade compels shipping traffic to increase, we expect negative whale-ship interactions such as fatal strikes and noise disturbance to become an increasingly serious issue. To develop cost-effective and broadly applicable methods of assessing the risks of ships to whale feeding grounds, I propose […]

Salmon populations in BC have declined substantially since the 1990’s. A US/Canada Coded Wire Tag (CWT) fishery monitoring program was implemented in the 1980s to help managers understand the status of salmon populations and to make informed management decisions. Currently, the submission rate of heads by the recreational and First Nations Food, Social, and Ceremonial […]

The Arctic Sustainable Energy Futures Toolkit will be a print and web-based guide for communities to follow when developing their comprehensive community energy plans. This step-by-step toolkit will transfer knowledge using best practices, resource guides, case studies, videos, worksheets, and templated pathways to help communities create and implement their energy visions. In addition, the Toolkit […]

Autonomous vehicle technologies and associated “smart” infrastructures are innovative technologies that can provide many benefits to transportation such as reducing traffic congestion and collisions, improving ridership experience by operating in a more on-demand application providing real-time updates to the rider, and reducing GHG emissions through integration of electric propulsion and route optimization technologies. This project […]