AIM-HI Network Team

Assistant Professor - Department of Anthropology, Athabasca University

Dr. Janelle Marie Baker's research is on sakâwiyiniwak (Northern Bush Cree) experiences with wild food contamination resulting from the oil sands industry in the Treaty No. 8 region of northern Alberta. Her academic work is inspired from doing applied research as a traditional land use consultant for First Nations in the region since 2006. She continues to be involved in community-based environmental monitoring projects with Aboriginal communities in Alberta’s oil sands region and is also working on new research that celebrates traditional foods and boreal forest identities. Dr. Baker's specializations include ethnography of contamination, environmental and ecological anthropology, ethnobiology and ethnoecology, post-humanism and the anthropocene, anthropology of food, community-based research methods, political ecology, and ethnographic writing. 

Associate Professor, Departments of Medicine and Community Health Sciences, University of Calgary

Dr. Barnabe is a Metis rheumatologist, Associate Professor of Medicine and Community Health Sciences at the University of Calgary, and a CIHR New Investigator and CIHR Foundation Scheme awardee through the Institute of Aboriginal Peoples' Health (2015-2020). She is a former Executive Member of the Indigenous Physicians Association of Canada, provides clinical care to 4 Indigenous communities in southern Alberta, and has served as the Faculty Chair for the Group for Research with Indigenous Peoples (GRIP) in the O'Brien Institute for Public Health since 2012. GRIP is a thriving network of researchers, students, FNMI organization representatives, FNMI community members and government representatives connected to catalyze and conduct Indigenous health research that exemplifies community engagement principles.

Associate Professor, Department of Family Medicine, University of Calgary

Dr. Crowshoe is a Piikani Nation band member, a First Nations physician and an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Calgary. He provides clinical service to the urban Indigenous population of Calgary at the Elbow River Healing Lodge, an AHS primary health service model that he developed. He has contributed to health services policy and programs, focusing on primary care service innovations for Indigenous people and has provided input on Indigenous health issues at provincial and national levels within key governmental, health and research organizations.  As an Indigenous health researcher, he has experience leading provincial, national and international research teams focusing on primary care, public health and health education.  Within the Cumming School of Medicine, he has concentrated on building policy and programming for effective recruitment of Indigenous students into medicine as well as teaching of all medical learners on Indigenous health.  He has provided similar Indigenous health education input at the national level to the Association of Faculties of Medicine, the College of Family Physicians of Canada and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.

Associate Professor of Public Health – AIHS Translational Chair- University of Lethbridge

Dr. Cheryl Currie is an Associate Professor of Public Health and Alberta Innovates Translational Research Chair in Aboriginal Health & Wellbeing at the University of Lethbridge. Dr. Currie has settler heritage and 15 years lived experience working with urban and rural Indigenous communities. She has mentored Indigenous learners in undergraduate, medial, nursing, and graduate programs. Her research examines the upstream determinants of Indigenous health, strength and resilience

Assistant Professor – Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary

Dr. Karlee Fellner is Cree/Métis from central Alberta. She is a grateful visitor on the traditional territories of the Siksika, Piikani, and Kainai Blackfoot Nations, the T'suu Tina, and the Stoney Nakoda peoples. In 2007, Karlee completed her B.A. with Cooperative Work Experience in Psychology at the University of Alberta. She then went on to receive her M.Ed. in Counselling Psychology from the University of Alberta in 2009, and Ph.D. in Counselling Psychology from the University of British Columbia in 2016. Karlee joined the Werklund School of Education as an Assistant Professor in Indigenous Education Counselling Psychology at the University of Calgary in 2013. Karlee has been working with diverse clients in counselling and assessment since 2007, prior to which she was working in inpatient psychiatric facilities. She has independently designed and taught courses in counselling and psychology at numerous universities and a private First Nations college, and has published book chapters and research articles in the fields of psychology, health, and social work. Karlee is also an instructor in the Aboriginal Focusing-Oriented Therapy & Complex Trauma certificate program offered through the Justice Institute of British Columbia.

Assistant Professor- Community Health Sciences, University of Calgary

Dr. Rita Isabel Henderson is a models of care scientist of settler background and faculty member in the Department of Family Medicine and Department of Community Health Sciences. Trained in anthropology, she brings a qualitative social science perspective to clinical and population health research. Recent collaborations have included research around health professional education for Indigenous health equity, youth suicide prevention, and best practices for the prevention and treatment opioid misuse in Indigenous contexts.

Assistant Professor - University of Saskatchewan

Dr. Henry is Metis from Prince Albert, SK and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Calgary. He has published in the areas of Indigenous research methodologies, linkage between fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and street gangs, youth mental health with a focus on suicide and child welfare, and Indigenous masculinities. His teaching areas include anti/decolonial studies that integrate critical theories of oppression and the impacts of settler colonialism and its relationship to Indigenous wellbeing and justice. Henry utilizes relational accountability in his research projects, building ethical research partnerships with Indigenous community partners. Working closely with community partners, he published a collection of narratives from his Ph.D. research titled Brighter Days Ahead (2014). Robert has also published in the areas of masculinity, Indigenous health, youth subcultures, and criminal justice.

Assistant Professor- Department of Anthropology and Archeology, University of Calgary

Dr. Leason is an Indigenous Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, with a focus on maternal health in Indigenous Communities. She is newly recruited to the University and will contribute to the team as a mentor to students and be a mentee as a New Investigator.

Current Projects -

1. Planning and Dissemination: First Nations Health Authority (FNHA)- Maternal Child health practitioners engagement research.

2. First Nations Health Authority: Maternity Experiences Survey. Creating culturally and contextually relevant data.

3. Secwepemcw injury surveillance and prevention program: community based research and data- evaluation and delivery.

4. BC Provincial Health Office: Indigenous women’s health report. Focus: maternal child and reproductive health chapter.

5. FNHA: Interior Region in partnership with Interior Health- Tobacco and cannabis reduction and cessation:  joint workplan and policy development.

6. WHO: Delphi expert panel. Developing international mat child health indicators.

7. EKJUT: Indigenous maternal child nutrition in Adivasi populations in India.

Assistant Professor - Department of Psychology, University of Calgary

Dr. Murry is an Indigenous Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, and an industrial organizational psychologist who focuses on First Nations communities. He is newly recruited to the University and will contribute to the team as a mentor to students and be a mentee as a New Investigator.

Full Professor- Department of Sociology, University of Calgary

Dr. Cora Voyageur is a Dene woman and a member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, and a Full Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Calgary. Voyageur holds experience in network leadership from the prior Alberta ACADRE and NEAHR Centres, and is recognized for research with FNMI women and her achievements in developing FNMI women leadership programs. Her research interests explore the Aboriginal experience in Canada including: leadership employment, community and economic development, women’s issues, and health. She is has published 40 academic papers and has written more than 30 commissioned research reports. She is the author of the books, Firekeepers of the 21st Century: Women Chiefs in Canada and My Heroes have always been Indians: Contributions of Alberta’s Indigenous Peoples. She is co-editor of Hidden in Plain Sight: Contributions of Aboriginal Peoples to Canadian Identity and Culture, Volumes I and II.