The ACUNS community

Who is ACUNS?

ACUNS is made up of member universities. These institutions are based across Canada and are represented in our work by individual scholars who have a research focus on the Canadian North. Their approaches come from a broad range of disciplines and research traditions. All of these representatives of member institutions make up our council.

Our work is led day-to-day by a board of directors. These directors are academics and postgraduate students in the field of Northern Studies, who have taken a particularly interest in the business of the association.

The priorities and activities of ACUNS is determined by its Annual General Meeting, which is open to all members and takes place in the autumn.

Land Acknowledgment

The Association of Canadian Universities for Northern Studies (ACUNS) respectfully acknowledges that our office is located on the traditional territories of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people. We recognize their enduring relationship with this land and honour the enduring presence and contributions of Indigenous Peoples across Ontario and Canada.

We are committed to fostering respectful relationships and advancing reconciliation through awareness, education, and action.

Our Team

Board of Directors

President

Heather Nicol, Trent University

Heather Nicol is the Director of the School for the Study of Canada and a Professor in the School for the Environment at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. Her research is focused on exploring the dynamics that structure the political geography of the circumpolar North, with a specific focus on the North American Arctic and Canada-US relations. She is currently exploring both the history of circumpolar geopolitics, security and borders in relation to globalization and post-global paradigms. Heather is a member of the Academic Leadership Team at the University of the Arctic (UArctic), and also sits on the International Advisory Board of Polar Research and Policy Initiative (PRPI) and serves as its Canada Lead. She was the 2015-16 Visiting Fulbright Chair to the University of Washington, at the Centre for Canadian Studies and the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, and the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies.

Secretary-Treasurer

Robert Bailey, Ontario Tech University

Bob Bailey received his Ph.D. from Western University in 1987 and was a faculty member at Western for more than 20 years (1987-2009), followed by a term as Provost at Cape Breton University (2009-2014), and Associate Provost and Provost at Ontario Tech University (2015-2019). He is now is back to the best job in the world…teaching and research as a Full Professor in the Faculty of Science at Ontario Tech. For more than 30 years, Bob and his students have worked with academic, government, and industry collaborators to help design and execute programs for biomonitoring and bioassessment of freshwater ecosystems, including streams in the Yukon River Basin exposed to placer gold mining. He joined ACUNS as a Council member representing Western University in the late 1990s and later served on the Board, eventually as President from 2007-2011. He returned to ACUNS in 2023 to serve as a Council member for new member institution Ontario Tech University.

Director

Laura Brown, University of Toronto Mississauga

Professor Laura Brown is a physical scientist in the Department of Geography, Geomatics and Environment, University of Toronto Mississauga, and graduate faculty in the Department of Geography and Planning, University of Toronto. Professor Brown holds both a B.Sc. and M.Sc. from York University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Waterloo. Professor Brown’s research uses numerical modelling, remote sensing, and ground-based field studies to improve the understanding of the linkages between climate and the cryosphere. Projects over the past 20 years of Arctic research include numerical modelling of lake ice, remote sensing of snow and ice, basin scale hydrologic modelling, and hydrology and microclimatology of Arctic wetlands. Recent work has mainly focused on improving the detection of freshwater ice from space and using thermodynamic modelling to better understand the response of ice cover to climatic forcing. Professor Brown is also the Chair of the Arctic Working Group at the University of Toronto, and the Treasurer of the Canadian Geophysical Union.

Director

Amanda Graham, Yukon University

Amanda Graham was the first graduate of Yukon College’s Northern Studies Diploma. She embarked on a Masters in Northern History at Lakehead in 1991. In 1992, while still working on her thesis, she joined Yukon College as the second managing editor of The Northern Review, the first Canadian multidisciplinary journal of the arts and social sciences of the North published north of 60. She served as Chair of Social Sciences and Humanities for two terms between 1994 and 1998. She became a senior editor of the Review in 2002. Graham, along with colleague Dr. Ernie Prokopchuk, initiated Yukon University’s well-received ResearChats in 2014. The weekly informal meetings were advertised and popularized by Graham’s “chattoons.” The meetings were discontinued in 2021 due to the pandemic but have been revived in Fall 2023. Current research interests include the history of university development in the Canadian North, history of northern research practice, ethics and conduct, and related matters.

Director

Chris Paci,

Aurora College

Chris joined Aurora College in 2024 as Vice President Research based in Yellowknife. Previous to that he worked in the Ontario College system as a Dean, Associate Dean and Chair. Chris has taught and developed curriculum (course and program development) at both colleges and universities. Chris has previously worked in the north for the territorial government, as a business owner (Deep Consulting Inc), executive assistant to the Chiefs of the Yellowknives Dene, manager of lands and environment for the Dene Nation, and as an advisor to the Arctic Athabaskan Council. Chris has numerous publications. His oldest children both live and work in the Northwest Territories. In addition to his role on the Board of the Association of Canadian Universities for Northern Studies (Finance Committee), he is Vice President of the Yellowknife Ski Club, Director on Cross Country Northwest Territories and the Sport North Federation. Chris holds an interdisciplinary Phd from the University of Manitoba (2000), Masters from Carleton University (1995), and undergraduate degree from University of Winnipeg (1993).

Vice-President

Francis Lévesque, Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue

Francis Lévesque is professor at the School of Indigenous Studies at the Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT). An anthropologist, he is interested in historical, political and ethical human-animal relationships. Since 2000, he has worked with Canadian Inuit on several research projects which concern, among other things, the slaughter of Inuit dogs in the Eastern Arctic in the 1950s-1960s, dog-Inuit relations in three contemporary communities (Kuujjuaq in Nunavik as well as Iqaluit and Ikaluktutiak in Nunavut), the history of environmental research in Eastern Ungava Bay, Inuit post-secondary education, the impacts of mining development on northern communities, as well as the integration of Inuit knowledge (Inuit qaujimajatuqangit) into government structures in Nunavut. He has made more than twenty trips to the Arctic including Iqaluit, Kuujjuaq, Ikaluktutiak, Yellowknife, Nuuk (Greenland) and Fairbanks (Alaska). The research that he has had the chance to conduct in this region has led him to meet extraordinary people and to stay in places that are very important to him. As a professor at the School of Indigenous Studies at UQAT, he works with Indigenous people daily on the development of university programs that meet their needs. In his research, he works from a similar perspective, which could bring added value to ACUNS.

Director

Andrew Medeiros,

Dalhousie University

Professor Andrew Medeiros, School for Resource and Environmental Studies, College of Sustainability at Dalhousie University, is an expert in freshwater ecology, biogeochemical processes, and Arctic environments. His research focuses on the use of biological, hydrological, and geochemical indicators to examine responses to environmental change in northern ecosystems; past, present, and future. This is applied through the examination of gradients of ecological condition (e.g., climate change, ecological sustainability, anthropogenic disturbance) over large spatial and temporal scales. His research on the evolution of northern ecosystems over the past 10,000 years allows for predictions and modeling of future responses to environmental change.