CONFERENCE CHAIR & CONFERENCE ORGANIZING COMMITTEE MEMBER
Assistant Professor, Indigenous Learning, Lakehead University Indigenous Research Chair in Decolonial Futures
Lana Ray
Lana Ray, PhD is an Anishinaabe scholar and from Opwaaganasiniing (Red Rock Indian Band). Her Anishinaabe name is Waaskone Giizhigook and she is a member of the Muskellunge Clan. Dr. Ray is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Indigenous Learning at Lakehead University and Lakehead University's inaugural Indigenous Research Chair in Decolonial Futures. Dr. Ray has over a decade of experience working in the public and not-for profit sectors, including as the Director of Policy and Research at a provincial Indigenous organization. She recently received the emerging Indigenous scholar award at the International Conference on Qualitative Inquiry and is a past recipient of Lakehead University's teaching innovation award.
Dr. Ray's work seeks to advance Indigenous social, cultural and political realities through resurgent and decolonial praxis. She has worked toward this goal as the Principal Investigator on a number of CIHR funded projects, including The Waasegiizhig Nanaandawe'iyewigamig Mino-Bimaadiziwin Project: Cancer Prevention through Traditional Healing, "Investigating Food Sovereignty as a Best Practice Framework for Health Interventions in Rural and Urban Hubs in Northern Ontario," and "Educating for Equity: Building Culturally Safe Care through Indigenous Narratives." She has also been the co-investigator on two SSHRC funded research projects and the principal investigator on two provincial-wide projects which support meaningful indigenization of post-secondary education through enhanced Indigenous student transitions and Indigenous quality assurance.
She has published in several national and international peer reviewed journals including Social Science & Medicine, Global Health Promotion, AlterNative, The International Review of Qualitative Research, Canadian Women's Studies, Canadian Journal of Native Education and Urban Anthropology. Her research interests include Indigenous research methodology, Indigenous ways of knowing and storytelling, Indigenous food sovereignty and health, Indigenous eco-feminism, and Indigenization and reconciliation.
CONFERENCE ORGANIZING COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Céline Wick
Céline Wick is a Michif woman and a citizen of the Métis Nation of Ontario. She is a descendant of Bellerose, Lafontaine, Gladu and Villebrun family lines. Céline graduated from the Masters of Social Justice program in 2021 and will continue her studies at Lakehead this fall with a PhD in Health Sciences.
Alexandra Stargratt
Alexandra Stargratt is a woman of settler descent from Sudbury, Ontario. She graduated from Laurentian University with a BA in Law & Justice and Indigenous Studies and is now continuing her studies at Lakehead in the Masters of Social Justice Program.