Commisioner Ronald E. Ignace

Commissioner of Indigenous Languages

Stsmél̓qen, Ronald E. Ignace, is a member of the Secwépemc Nation in Interior British Columbia and Canada’s first-ever Indigenous Languages Commissioner. He was the elected chief of the Skeetchestn Indian Band for more than 30 years since the early 1980s. He also served as Chairman of the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council and president of its cultural society, where he initiated a broad program of research and reclamation on Secwépemc language and culture, including an innovative university partnership with Simon Fraser University (SFU).

He holds a B.A. and M.A. in Sociology from the University of British Columbia, and completed his PhD in Anthropology at SFU in 2008, with a dissertation on Secwépemc oral history. He has (co-)written numerous articles and book chapters on Secwépemc history, ethnobotany, language and culture, including the epic Secwépemc People, Land and Laws: Yerí7 re stsq̓ey̓s-kucw, a journey through 10,000 years of Secwépemc history.

From 2003-2005, he chaired the Ministerial Task Force on Aboriginal Languages and Cultures, and from 2016-2021, co-chaired the Assembly of First Nations’ Chiefs Committee on Languages, where he played an instrumental role in the development and passing of the Indigenous Languages Act, 2019.

Raised by his great-grandparents Sulyen and Edward Eneas, and despite being taken to Kamloops Indian Residential School for several years in his childhood, Ron is a fluent speaker of Secwepemctsín and has more than sixty years of practical experience in Secwépemc traditional skills on the land. With his wife Dr. Marianne Ignace, Ron was awarded the Governor General‘s Award for Innovation in 2019, for their decades of collaborative research involving Indigenous people and communities. He is also the first recipient of the 2024 Indspire Award specific to Language, which recognizes his decades-long leadership in the revitalization of Indigenous languages.

Prof. Carwyn Jones

FRSNZ, Head Lecturer, Māori Laws and Philosophy programme

Te Wānanga o Raukawa

Dr Carwyn Jones FRSNZ is from the Māori iwi (nation/people), Ngāti Kahungunu. He is the lead academic in the Māori Laws and Philosophy programme at Te Wānanga o Raukawa, a Māori tertiary education institute north of Wellington. He completed his PhD at the University of Victoria, British Columbia and he is a former President of the Māori Law Society. Prior to joining the Wānanga, Carwyn was an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at Victoria University of Wellington and he has worked in various roles at the Māori Land Court, Waitangi Tribunal, and Office of Treaty Settlements. He also served as a negotiator for his own community in the settlement of their historical claims against the Crown. His primary research interests relate to the Treaty of Waitangi, rights of Indigenous peoples, and Indigenous legal traditions, and he has published numerous articles on these topics.

Prof. Marie Battiste

Senior Mi'kmaw Professor Emeritus

University of Saskatchewan

Prof. Malcolm King

Scientific Director

Saskatchewan Centre for Patient Oriented Research, University of Saskatchewan

Professor Malcolm King is a citizen of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation (Ontario) and a health researcher at the University of Saskatchewan. Prof. King served as Scientific Director of the CIHR Institute of Aboriginal Peoples’ Health from 2009 to 2016, and is currently the Scientific Director of the Saskatchewan Centre for Patient-Oriented Research. His research is aimed at improving wellness and achieving health equity for First Nations, Métis and Inuit through strengths-based approaches that respect self-determination and privilege Indigenous ways of knowing. Honoured with a National Aboriginal Achievement Award in 1999, he was elected a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences in 2016 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2021.

Prof. Tahu Kukutai

FRSNZ, Co-Director and Professor

Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga and University of Waikato

Tahu Kukutai FRSNZ (Ngāti Tiipa, Ngāti Māhanga, Ngāti Kinohaku, Te Aupōuri) is Co-Director of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, Aotearoa’s only Māori Centre of Research Excellence, and Professor of Demography at The University of Waikato. Tahu specialises in Māori and Indigenous demographic research and data sovereignty. She has undertaken research for numerous tribes, Māori communities, and Government agencies, and provided strategic advice across a range of sectors. Tahu is a founding member of both the Māori Data Sovereignty Network Te Mana Raraunga and the Global Indigenous Data Alliance, and is a founding Trustee of Pūhoro STEMM Academy. Recent books include Indigenous data sovereignty: Toward an agenda (ANU Press), Indigenous data sovereignty and policy (Routledge), and The Oxford handbook of Indigenous sociology (Oxford University Press). 

Ray Lovett

Associate Director

Yardhura Walani Centre at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University (ANU)

Ray Lovett is an Ngiyampaa/Wongaibon Social Epidemiologist from Australia. Improving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health has been the purpose of Ray Lovett’s work and research for over two decades. He is the Director of Mayi Kuwayu: The national study of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander wellbeing that follows thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to examine how culture is linked to improved health and how the processes of settler-colonisation harm health and wellbeing. He is the Associate Director of the Yardhura Walani Centre at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University (ANU).

Prof. Leonie Pihama

FRSNZ, Associate Professor

University of Waikato

Leonie Pihama (Te Ātawa, Waikato, Taranaki) is a preeminent scholar of kaupapa Māori and mana wahine. Her body of work encompasses three decades of intentional research in the areas of kaupapa Māori, mana wahine, inter-generational trauma, healing and whānau well-being. She has been an important figure in establishing these areas as legitimate and exciting ways to pursue knowledge and to include kaupapa Māori and mātauranga Māori in the wider research arena. She has been an outstanding voice for drawing on te reo Māori, tikanga and mātauranga Māori as a source of theories, methodologies, inspiration and solutions. Her theoretical work on kaupapa Māori has helped lay the foundations for what has become a vibrant Māori approach to research across many disciplines and fields. Her body of work on inter-generational trauma and healing has stretched from exploring healing strategies, definitions and framing of issues such as sexual violence and strategies for whānau well-being. Pihama has a strong community focus in her research with collaborations with Māori social service providers and her impact is in their application of her research, the capacity of which she has developed and mentored. Leonie has directed a number of research institutes including the International Research Institute for Māori and Indigenous Education (IRI, University of Auckland) and Te Matapunenga o Te Kotahi (Te Kotahi Research Institute, University of Waikato).

Prof. Jaris Swidrovich

Assistant Professor

Teaching Stream, and Indigenous Engagement Lead, University of Toronto

Dr. Jaris Swidrovich (he/they) is an Assistant Professor and Indigenous Engagement Lead in the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Toronto and is the founder and chair of the Indigenous Pharmacy Professionals of Canada. He is a queer, Two Spirit, Saulteaux and Ukrainian pharmacist from Yellow Quill First Nation.  

He received a Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy from the University of Saskatchewan, a post-baccalaureate Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Toronto, and a PhD in education from the University of Saskatchewan. His primary areas of research and practice include pain, HIV/AIDS, substance use disorders, 2SLGBTQ+ health, and Indigenous health. 

Dr. Swidrovich is the first and only Indigenous faculty member in pharmacy in North America and has been recognized with several awards and honours, including the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal for service to the community and the National Patient Care Achievement Award from the Canadian Pharmacists Association.

Prof. Frank Deer

President of the RSC College

Royal Society of Canada

Frank Deer is Professor, Canada Research Chair, and Associate Dean in the Faculty of Education of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Frank is Kanienkeha’ka from Kahnawake, a community that lies just south of Tiotia’ke in the eastern region of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Frank earned a PhD in Educational Administration from the University of Saskatchewan. Frank has previously served as a classroom teacher in Northern Manitoba and in the city of Winnipeg.

Frank studies Indigenous education and Indigenous religious and spiritual orientations. Frank is working with the College and the Royal Society of Canada on initiatives associated with Indigenous engagement and inclusive excellence.