Editorial Team
Associate Professor Dr. Cathy Mattes, University of Winnipeg
Cathy Mattes (Michif) is a curator writer, and art history professor based out of Sprucewoods, Manitoba, Canada. Her curation, research and writing centers on dialogic and Indigenous knowledge-centered curatorial practice as strategies for care. Curatorial projects include Kwaata-nihtaawakihk (Co-curator Sherry Farrell Racette, Winnipeg Art Gallery, March 2022), Radical Stitch (Co-curators Sherry Farrell Racette and Michelle Lavallee, Mackenzie Art Gallery, April 2022), and Inheritance: Amy Malbeuf (March 2017, Kelowna Art Gallery). She has a PhD in Indigenous Studies from the University of Manitoba, and currently teaches at the University of Winnipeg in the History of Art and Curatorial Studies programs. Mattes has been beading since she was 20 years old, when she was first taught by her auntie Jean Baron Ward. Since then she has taught beading and moccasin-making in workshops, university courses, and around her kitchen table with family and friends.
Associate Professor Dr. Chantal Fiola, University of Winnipeg
Chantal Fiola is Michif (Red River Métis) with family from St. Laurent, St. Vital, Ste. Anne, and Ste. Geneviève, MB. Her ancestors Pierre “Bostonnais” Pangman Jr and Marie Wewejikabawik were among four Michif families who established the historic Métis community of St. Laurent. Chantal is a registered citizen of the Manitoba Métis Federation (MMF). Dr Fiola is the award-winning author of two books, including Returning to Ceremony: Spirituality in Manitoba Métis Communities. Currently, with funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Manitoba Research Alliance, she is Project Director on a research study titled, “Expressions of Métis Spirituality and Religion Across the Métis Homeland.” Dr Fiola is the Interim Associate Vice-President Indigenous at the University of Winnipeg where she is also Distinguished Indigenous Scholar’s Chair (2021-2024) and Associate Professor in the Urban and Inner-City Studies Department. She is a founding member of the Two-Spirit Michif Local of the MMF and is on the Board of Directors for Two-Spirit Manitoba which is preparing to host the first ever Two-Spirit Sundance. Chantal lives in Winnipeg with her wife and their daughter.
Assistant Professor Dr. Jennifer Markides, University of Calgary
Jennifer Markides, PhD, is a card-carrying member of the Métis Nation of Alberta, SSHRC Tier II Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Youth Wellbeing and Education, and an Assistant Professor in both the Werklund School of Education and the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Calgary. Her research and teaching focus on the holistic wellbeing of youth and Indigenous education. Critical pedagogy, arts creation, and ethical engagement are at the heart of her practices. She values relationship building and prioritizes listening in community-led projects, allowing her to be responsive to the immediate goals and long-term visions of Indigenous community partners. Jennifer was raised in unceded Wet’suwet’en territory in northern British Columbia and now resides in Treaty 7 territory in southern Alberta. Her Métis family names are McKay, Favel, Ballenden/Ballendine, Linklater, and McDermott/MacDermott, including Scrip records and connections to Red River. Like many Métis whose families migrated west, she engages in ongoing processes of learning, relationship-building, and honouring commitments of service to Métis people, communities, and organizations, through her academic work and personal life.
Assistant Professor Dr. Laura Forsythe, University of Winnipeg
Laura Forsythe, Ph.D. is a Michif Assistant Professor at the University of Winnipeg in the Faculty of Education. Forsythe's research focus is Métis-specific contributions to the academy, Métis inclusion efforts, Métis research methodologies, and educational sovereignty. With five co-edited collections, the Metis Awareness Mondays Series, and the Assistant editor role at the Canadian Journal of Native Studies, Forsythe has helped lift up Indigenous scholars' work for over a decade. She is also the elected Bison Local Chairperson of the Manitoba Metis Federation, the official democratic and self-governing political representation of the Red River Metis. Her kinship ties include the Huppe, Ward, Berard, Morin, Lavallee, and Cyr lines. Her ancestors worked for the Northwest and Hudson’s Bay Companies, fought in the Victory of Frog Plain, and owned Lot 31, the site of a contemporary Métis space called Pakan Town.
Assistant Teaching Professor Lindsay DuPré, University of Victoria
Lindsay DuPré is a Métis scholar, community organizer, mom and auntie. She was born and raised in Ontario on Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabe and Wendat territories with Red River Métis roots in Manitoba. Her Métis family names include Pruden, Norquay, Monkman, Morwick, Setter, and Spence. Her son Kîsik and partner Dallas are members of Waterhen Lake First Nation and their family currently lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Treaty 6 territory. Lindsay is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the School of Public Health and Social Policy at the University of Victoria and is completing a Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies at the University of British Columbia Okanagan. Her teaching and research interests include Indigenous health and education, digital and trauma-informed pedagogy, and Indigenous knowledge protection. Lindsay is on the Circle of Editors for the Pawaatahmik: Journal of Métis Thinkers and a co-founder of The Mamawi Project. She co-edited the text Research and Reconciliation: Unsettling ways of knowing through Indigenous relationships (2019).
Assistant Professor Dr. Lucy Fowler, University of Manitoba
Lucy Fowler, PhD, is a Two-Spirit Métis woman, born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba and an active member of the Two-Spirit Michif Local of the Manitoba Métis Federation. Her family were Sinclairs, Cummings, Prudens, some of whom took scrip in St Andrews and St Johns, and she also has other family and ancestors from Red River, Oxford House, Norway House, and Sioux Valley Dakota Nation, and settler family from Ireland and the Orkney Islands. Lucy is a community organizer, Chair of the Two-Spirit Michif Local of the Manitoba Métis Federation, and co-founder of the Mamawi Project, a grassroots Métis collective dedicated to virtual knowledge mobilization and creating kinship-building opportunities for Métis young people across the diaspora. She also serves on several boards, including the board of directors of Two-Spirit Manitoba and the White Buffalo Spiritual Society. Lucy is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba, with a research and teaching focus on Métis youth identity, Indigenous education, queer theory, hip-hop pedagogies, and youth cultures.