Our people

(Kanaka Maoli) Lisa Kahaleole Hall is the director of Indigenous Studies at UVic. She received an MA and PhD in Ethnic Studies from the University of California at Berkeley. She graduated with a BA cum laude in Women’s Studies from Yale University. Her research and teaching interests include the intersections of race, colonialism, and indigeneity with gender and sexuality.

(Cherokee Nation) Jeff Ganohalidoh Corntassel received his PhD in Political Science from the University of Arizona in 1998. Corntassel’s research and teaching interests focus on “Everyday Acts of Resurgence” and the intersections between Indigenous internationalism, community resurgence, climate change, gender, and community well-being.

(nuučaańuł) Rachel yacaaʔał George received her PhD in Indigenous Governance from the University of Victoria. She specializes in Indigenous politics—particularly on Indigenous conceptions of justice and their intersections with projects of reconciliation. Her current areas of research include coastal Indigenous governance, relationality, resurgence, and storytelling.

(Abenaki) Christine received her Ph.D. and M.A in Kinesiology from Western University. Her recent scholarship has mainly focused on the legal and political rights of Indigenous peoples in settler colonial Canada, particularly in hosting the Olympic Games and other mega-sporting events on unceded Indigenous territories.

(Kwakwaka'wakw/Snuneymuxw) Mick is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Indigenous Governance at the University of Victoria.  His work focuses on revitalizing Indigenous fatherhood and family-based resurgence.

W̱SÁNEĆ Matriarch Tracy Underwood PhD candidate, Assistant Teaching Professor in Indigenous Studies. Tracy upholds daily her Matriarchal duties of protecting and preserving Children, Land, Language and Culture of her people. Tracy is an expert in land-based learning, history, storytelling, ethics and care for children, families and communities. She can discuss issues of land occupancy, the doctrine of discovery and how ongoing land dispossession negatively impacts herself and her husband, her eight children and ten grandchildren in their daily lives. As a part of her PhD ȽÁU, NOṈET SXEDQIṈEȽ framework, Tracy does a presentation that is called “JÁEȽNOṈET”.

Clinton Kuzio is Cree and a member of Fisher River Cree Nation (he reminds us that band membership is not equal to ethnicity, hence the mention of both). He grew up in Cranberry Portage where his parents, Vangie and Cliff, taught him how to hunt, fish and trap as a child and also gave him a curiosity about settlers, teaching him how to borrow from settler culture without becoming assimilated. This led to becoming a teacher and lawyer, working primarily in colonial institutions and learning how settler-colonial society and whiteness needs to be navigated cautiously. Clint’s focus is on justice from a Cree perspective, identity and anti-racism. He works towards these in his committee work with the BC Human Rights Tribunal, his job with the Victoria Cool Aid Society, and in facilitating anti-racism workshops in his free time. He does all this with the support of his partner in crime, Dr. Ilka Thiessen and their Golden Retriever, Finn.

(Haida Nation)