Project team

Dr. Michelle L. Dion (Principal Investigator) is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at McMaster University. She has published on the political economy of social policy and the politics of sexuality in Latin America as well as methodology and gender issues in the political science community and discipline.

Dr. Chelsea Gabel (Co-Principal Investigator) holds a Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Well-Being, Community-Engagement and Innovation and is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health, Aging and Society and the Indigenous Studies Program at McMaster University. She is involved in a number of research collaborations across Canada that integrate her expertise in Indigenous health and well-being, community-based participatory research, photovoice, digital technology, and intervention research.

Dr. Claudia Diaz Rios holds a PhD in political science from McMaster University. She is currently a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at the Ontario Institute for Studies on Education, University of Toronto. Dr. Diaz Rios studies the globalization of education policy and its effects on social inequality.

Kelsey Leonard is a PhD candidate in Comparative Public Policy in the Department of Political Science at McMaster University where she focuses on Indigenous water security and its climatic, territorial, and governance underpinnings. She is McMaster University’s Philomathia Trillium Scholar in Water Policy. She holds an A.B. in Sociology and Anthropology with honors from Harvard University, a MSc in Water Science, Policy and Management from the University of Oxford, and a J.D. from Duquesne University. Kelsey is an enrolled citizen of the Shinnecock Indian Nation.

With research assistance and consultation by:

Ben Manshanden has completed a MA in International Relations from McMaster University and a BA in International Political Economy from Brock University. His research interests include critical international relations, global political economy, globalization and international economics (specifically trade & finance). Ben is a non-indigenous scholar from a settler background.

Marrissa Mathews is Omushkegowuk Cree and a PhD student in Political Science at McMaster University in the Comparative Public Policy stream. She completed her MA in Political Science at York University and her undergraduate degree at Lakehead University in Political Science Pre-Law. Her research interests are respectability politics within an Indigenous context, Indigenous resistances and resurgences, anarchist theory, decolonial education practices and critical education pedagogy.

Sydney Oakes completed her undergraduate degree at Trent University in Politics and Indigenous Studies and her master’s degree at McMaster University in the Public Policy and Administration Program, where her major research paper focused on mitigating research inequities for First Nation communities. Previously, Sydney has worked as a Policy Analyst and member of the Research and Ethics Committee for the Six Nations Elected Council, a Fellow in the Ontario Legislative Internship Programme at Queen’s Park, and Owner of Political Consulting Solutions. Currently, Sydney is the Senior Advisor to the Chief Operating Officer and Provincial Government Relations lead for Chiefs of Ontario, which is the official advocacy organization representing all 133 First Nations communities in Ontario.