Kelsey Miller

I began my academic career spending time and seeking guidance within the areas of Indigenous Studies, Literature and Biology. I have been very fortunate to be able to learn from amazing mentors along my journey, including Alex McKay, Anishinaabe knowledge holder and culture keeper from Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug Nation, and Lee Maracle an author and scholar from the Sto:loh Nation with Coast Salish and Cree relations. I am so grateful to these teachers and many others for their lessons that helped set me on the path I walk today. I brought their teachings with me as I learned how to become a boundary spanner building relations across the cultures, languages and geographies of Canada while working as the director of Science Rendezvous, a non-profit dedicated to connecting people and science across the country. I served in this role for seven years before pivoting to research the wonderfully reciprocal relationships between people and seaweed.

While completing my master’s at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, I learned from mentors including Stan Rodriguez, Iipay language keeper and community leader, and Jaytuk Steinruck, a harvester and knowledge holder from the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation. Together, we co-developed the TIDES (Tribal Intertidal Digital Ecological Surveys) Project, which has since grown to include six Indigenous nations along the coast of California (Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation, Pulikla Tribe of Yurok People, Kashia Band of Pomo Indians, Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, and Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel). This partnership network spans a large latitudinal gradient of socio-ecological contexts and leverages 3D habitat mapping with place-based knowledges to better understand the full picture of how socio-political and environmental changes show up on the seascape.

With guidance from these community partners, I decided to pursue a PhD to continue supporting and growing this work. I sought a program and mentor that would be supportive of pushing academic boundaries both in research and policy regarding Indigenous data sovereignty and knowledge co-production. I found that home at SFU with Anne Salomon and have continued to be able to co-develop research that responds to and is driven by community priorities while upholding Indigenous values and knowledge systems. Our collaborative work is currently focused on understanding how Indigenous stewardship practices within the California rocky intertidal affects food sovereignty and resilience of these important social-ecological systems.