Community-based research, Participatory action research, Storytelling, Water governance, Water security
Bio
Dacotah-Victoria Splichalova is a storyteller, water researcher, a surfer, fisherwoman, and photographer. A UBC Public Scholar and MITACS Graduate Scholar, Dacotah-Victoria is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Resources Management and Environment and Sustainability program at the University of British Columbia, she is supervised by Dr. Leila Harris.
Her research interests centre on storytelling coupled with people’s relations and lived experiences with water in the face of water (in)security. She explores these dimensions, namely elements beyond the quantity and quality of water that may include: culture, values, expression and identity through her engagement in community-arts-based methods i.e., storytelling, performance theatre, and participatory filmmaking as a means to encourage different responses to – and conversations around water (in)security. Collaborative aims of Dacotah-Victoria’s research include generating a broader discourse towards informing experiences of individual’s water use, access to water, well-being and promoting policy actions to address water (in)security across cultures, geographies, and scales.
In recent years, Dacotah-Victoria’s water work has taken her to Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua, South Africa, Australia, the United States, and Ireland. Prior to the pursuit of her Ph.D., Dacotah-Victoria completed a year-long sabbatical employed in Dublin as the Communications and Policy Officer for SWAN (Sustainable Water Network), the only water-focused organization in Ireland working at the national-level to protect and preserve Ireland’s heritage waterways.
Dacotah received her Masters of Science degree from Oregon State University working under the supervision of Dr. Aaron T. Wolf. Implementing the methodological approaches and research tools of community participatory action research, videography and storytelling, her MSc research examined water cooperation and water security across the Sixaola River Basin, an international transboundary river basin shared between Costa Rica, Panama and the indigenous communities of the Bríbrí, Naso, Cabecar, Brunca and Ngöbe residing there.
Dacotah-Victoria holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Oregon State University majoring in Philosophy, Writing, with concentrations on environmental philosophy, the philosophy of science and peace studies. During her BSc studies, she conducted her own research at The California Institute of Technology and at The Joan. B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice housed at the University of San Diego.
In addition to her academics and writing, Dacotah-Victoria is also a trained facilitator and mediator and is bilingual in Spanish and English.
Bronwyn began her Masters at IRES in September 2018. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Waterloo where her honours thesis focused on communicating about climate change impacts on local weather. Bronwyn’s research interests include science communication, risk perception and knowledge in the science-policy interface. She is currently working with Dr. Gunilla Öberg investigating messy topics in toxicology with the aim of improving the conduct and communication of science for regulation.
Ecosystem services, Environment, First Nations and Resource Management, Law, Management of biodiversity, Policy and Decision-making, Political ecology, Public policy and analysis, Resilience, Resource governance and management, Science-policy interface, Sustainability, Water governance, Water law
Bio
Martin is an associate professor of law at the University of Calgary, with several years of public service in environmental and natural resources law and policy. From 2007 to 2013, he was counsel with the federal Department of Justice, practising law in the legal services unit at Fisheries and Oceans Canada. During this period, he also spent time on secondment to the Legislative and Regulatory Affairs Division at Environment Canada. Martin holds a B. Sc. (Biology) and an LL.B., both from the University of Saskatchewan, and an LL.M. (specialization in environmental law) from the University of California at Berkeley. Martin’s PhD work considers the merits — or not — of regional land-use planning regimes.
Community-based research, Cultural ecosystem services, Environment
Bio
Joanne Nelson is a Ts’msyen woman who grew up in the northwestern BC communities of Port Edward and Prince Rupert where she gained a tremendous appreciation for nature, in particular the ocean environment. She is from Lax Kw’alaams on her mother’s side and Kitsumkalum on her father’s side. Her passions include traditional Ts’msyen art forms as well as paddle sports such as dragon boat and outrigger canoe. She is a PhD student with IRES and is looking forward to conducting meaningful research with First Nations communities that favour Indigenous Ways of Knowing and traditional knowledge. Joanne has lived on the unceded land of the Xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Skwxwu7mesh, and Tsleil-Waututh people on and off for over 30 years. Her research will focus on the knowledges and stories of urban Indigenous peoples in Metro Vancouver, unceded Coast Salish Territory, that can contribute to water governance. Methodologies will be those that centre Indigenous ways of knowing to meaningfully communicate Indigenous knowledges and stories.
Joanne’s academic background includes a Master’s of Public Health from the University of Washington and a Bachelor of Science from the University of British Columbia. Her career has been dedicated to Indigenous issues including public health in First Nations communities and support of Indigenous post-secondary students, experience that she hopes strengthen her community-based research.
Joanne’s research interests focus on urban Indigenous knowledges that focus on water knowledge and practices.
Adaptation, Climate change, Energy, Energy policy, Environment, Improved air quality and clean energy, Policy and Decision-making, Sustainability, Technology
Bio
Imranul Laskar is a PhD student in the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia. His research focuses on global shipping emissions, and investigating the air quality, health and climate impacts, and air pollution exposure injustice of shipping for future climate change and air quality policy decision making. His works includes conducting policy analysis to mitigate in-use methane emissions (methane slip) from the use of natural gas as a marine fuel. Imranul was previously affiliated with the University of Alberta where he completed an MSc in Environmental Engineering and held several research and leadership positions in adsorption-based air pollution control modeling and exposure assessment, waste management, and sustainability. With a background in chemical engineering, he has also worked with municipalities, environmental consulting, and petrochemical industries on air quality analysis, environmental site assessments, wastewater treatment, and zero liquid discharge systems.
Community-based research, Data science, Economic evaluation/analysis, Environment, Public policy and analysis, Sustainability
Bio
Neha is a PhD candidate at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES) at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Her doctoral research attempts to understand the socio-economic, policy and industrial dynamics that mediate repair and reuse within a zero waste and circular economy context. Her doctoral work at IRES is supervised by Professor Milind Kandlikar.
Neha has worked for over a decade at the nexus of economic and public policy research and data analytics with international research organizations and corporations in India. Prior to starting her PhD program, she worked with World Resources Institute (WRI) on developing a resilient growth strategy for Karnataka based on a comprehensive regional economic analysis. In the past, she has worked on building and implementing econometric models across research and analytics divisions of various organizations. She has also been involved in research projects at some of the Indian academic institutes and public policy think-tanks on issues of urban livelihoods and governance.
In Vancouver, parallel to her research, Neha has been engaged in a project to develop a regional pathway for transition to a circular economy through collaboration between government, communities, and enterprises. She has also conducted quantitative and qualitative studies with the city’s transit agencies and the local government for advancing sustainable transportation in the region.
Neha holds a Master’s degree in Economics from Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune. Her Master’s thesis was a survey-based study on designing a social security scheme for domestic workers in Pune. She completed her Honours Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Hindu College, University of Delhi.
Justin Ritchie is an Adjunct Professor at the University of British Columbia’s Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability. His work on climate change and energy technologies, policies and economics has been published in an array of peer-reviewed journals that include Environmental Research Letters, Energy, Energy Economics, and beyond.
Community-based research, Gender, Human right to water, Participatory action research, Water governance, Water security
Bio
Evelyn Arriagada is a Ph.D. student at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (UBC), supervised by Professor Leila Harris. At UBC, she is a member of EDGES Research Collaborative (Environment and Development: Gender, Equity and Sustainability).
Her research interests include subjective experiences of environmental suffering, collective action, and political linkages, and gender-environment relationships in territorial conflicts. Her PhD thesis will be focused on women’s activism in water struggles in Chile. Following a Feminist Political Ecology approach, she wants to understand potential shifts in personal identities, gender dynamics, and relationships with water that women experiment through the process of becoming activists. Her Ph.D. program is supported by the Chilean Commission of Science and Technology by its scholarship program “Becas Chile”, as well as a supplementary scholarship from the Diego Portales University (Chile).
Evelyn is an anthropologist and MA in social sciences, both from the Universidad of Chile and also MA in Political and Social Sciences, from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Spain). Before joining IRES, she has worked as an Assistant Professor and Academic Coordinator at the Sociology Department of the Diego Portales University. Since 2016, she has led the Territorial and Environmental Inequalities Research Programme in the Observatory of Social Inequalities at that university, in which she has researched, taught, and worked with non-academic organizations about different environmental conflicts in Chile.
Jackie Lerner is an impact assessment specialist based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Jackie has been an environmental consulting professional for over 20 years. Her experience includes environmental and social impact assessment of major resource developments across Canada and internationally: primarily mining, oil and gas, and infrastructure projects. Jackie holds a PhD from the Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability at UBC. Her academic research focuses on methodologies for creating future development scenarios in cumulative effects assessment as well as practicable approaches for incorporating gender-based analysis into impact assessment. She is also broadly interested in innovation in assessment processes, and how the processes themselves might be improved as tools for public participation in decision-making. Jackie has presented evidence to the Senate Standing Committee on Energy and the Environment in their review of Canada’s Impact Assessment Act and serves on the practitioner’s focus group assisting British Columbia’s Environmental Assessment Office in developing guidance to support the new provincial Environmental Assessment Act.
Dr. Lucy Rodina has over 10 years of experience leading policy research, analysis, and development related to water resilience and environmental sustainability, including federal government experience at Infrastructure Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada in strategic and evidence-based policy. Dr. Rodina is a leading expert on water resilience, having published some of the first comprehensive studies in this area. She holds a PhD from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in environmental sustainability, and is an Adjunct Professor at UBC’s Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability. In her government role, she has worked on policy and program design, including strategic planning for investments in water infrastructure and natural infrastructure, and the creation of the Canada Water Agency. Her research areas of work include water policy, climate change adaptation, environment and sustainability, policy innovation, and data-driven policy. Dr. Rodina has given numerous conference and invited talks, and has published on a range of topics in academic journals and other media, including peer-reviewed articles on water resilience, environmental justice, water as a human right, access to water for marginalized communities, and transformative change in social-ecological systems.
