Christopher Fletcher – project leader/principal investigator
Christopher (Chris) Fletcher began working with Inuit in Montreal in the 1990s when he was employed by the Module du Nord. After working at the MNQ he began doing community-based projects and research in Nunavik. He has spent long periods of time living with people in the communities and for many years enjoyed camping, fishing and hunting in the springtime on the Hudson Straits. Eventually he completed his studies in Medical Anthropology at the Université de Montréal and moved first to Halifax and then Edmonton to work in Universities there. He returned to Quebec in 2011 and now works in the Department of social and preventive medicine at Laval University in Quebec City. Chris is the Principal Investigator for the QS project and also works on the Qanuilirpitaa? Nunavik Health Survey.
Mylene Riva – project co-leader/co-principal investigator
Mylene Riva is Canada Research Chair in Housing, Community, and Health. She is an Assistant Professor at McGill University, jointly appointed in the Institute for Health and Social Policy and the Department of Geography. She holds a bachelor degree in Geography and a doctorate in Public Health and Health Promotion from Université de Montreal, and was a postdoctoral fellow in Health Geography at Durham University in the UK. Mylene has long been conducting research for and with Indigenous communities to assess the impacts of housing conditions on health. Most recently, she co-led the community component of the Qanuilirpitaa? Nunavik health survey and is the co-PI of the Qanuikkat Siqinirmiut health survey.
Marie-Claude Lyonnais – project coordinator/research assistant
Marie-Claude Lyonnais first started her career as a chiropractor in 2004 before switching to journalism in 2009. After a few years covering news for Radio-Canada all over New Brunswick and the Eastern Townships (Quebec), she decided to combine her two passions of health and communications, and complete a Master’s degree in community health at Université Laval. Her Master’s project brought her to Nunavik in 2016, where she studied the way Inuit use Facebook for health purposes. Since then, she’s been working with Inuit communities, in both North and South contexts. She is the community component lead research assistant of the Qanuilirpitaa health survey, a project that allowed her to travel to 10 Nunavik communities on board the CCGS Amundsen for data collection. She also coordinated a need-assessment study for southern Inuit with substance abuse problems and is currently the project coordinator of the Qanuikkat Siqinirmiut project. When she is not working, she loves being outdoors and enjoying life with her kids. One of her proudest life achievement is to have survived a January night in an igloo at the Pingualuit National Park.
Tina Pisuktie – SQIA executive director/liaison coordinator
I am an urban Inuk, born and raised in Montreal. For the last eleven years I have worked in a variety of positions that allowed me to contribute to the development of the urban indigenous community of Montreal. I have spent the past 6 years working specifically with the urban Inuit community. From 2013-2016, I was employed as a Caseworker for the Inuit Assistance Program at Chez Doris Woman’s Shelter Foundation. I worked with at risk and homeless Inuit women in the city to insure their access to health and social services. My time at Chez Doris provided me with invaluable insight and understanding of the emotional, physical and spiritual health of at risk and homeless Inuit in the city. From 2016-2017, I worked as a Student Life Animator for the Kativik School Board. My job was to provide support and referrals services to Inuit students attending College Montmorency while assisting them with their integration. I am a founding board member of the Southern Quebec Inuit Association where I now work as the Executive Director. I have a bachelor’s degree in Community, Public Affairs and Policy Studies, Concordia University and DEC in Communications.
I do the work that I do not for myself; but for the future generation.
Nathalie Boucher – consultant/methodology expert
Nathalie Boucher is an anthropologist specialized in urban public spaces. She has a Master’s degree in anthropology from Université Laval as well as a doctorate in urban studies from the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique – Centre Urbanisation Culture Société. For the past 15 years, she has been working on public spaces, especially aquatic public spaces, and their urban social life role. She studied Los Angeles parks and squares, Australian beaches and pools, Taiwan thermal baths, and Montreal (upcoming) public beaches. She founded and leads REsPIRE, an organization offering qualitative research services for urban issues.
Mathilde Lapointe – master student/research assistant
Proud Montrealer, Mathilde Lapointe obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from Université de Montréal in 2017. During her undergraduate studies, she directed a documentary, Nemushum (2016), which covers many themes related to the preservation and the valorization of Innu and Atikamekw medicines. Mathilde is currently doing her master’s degree at Université Laval, under the direction of Caroline Hervé and Bernard Roy, on the different pathways of healing taken by Inuit living in Montreal. Mathilde is also a research assistant for the Research Chair on Relations with Inuit Societies. As a member of the research team, she was fortunate to go to Puvirnituq (Nunavik) in December 2018 for the Inuit Women, Justice and Social Harmony project. She is the recipient of the CIÉRA mobility grant (2018-2019) for her master’s ethnographic field.
Ariane Benoît – postdocs researcher
Ai ! Arianeuvuga. Francemi pivunga. My name is Ariane. I moved to Montreal in August 2019. I am a researcher in anthropology graduated from Inalco University in Paris. From 2008 to 2010, I conducted research about Inuit culture and Canadian educative system, as part of a Master degree from La Sorbonne Nouvelle University-Paris III. From 2008 to 2013, I learnt inuktitut at Inalco University. As a PhD student, my research were focused on young children education. I studied how verbal and non verbal means of communication help the development of necessary social skills to become « inummarik », adult, « isumataq », mature and « silatujuq », wise. I had the chance to travel four times to Nunavik between 2012 and 2015. A part of the research was also dedicated to the study of interpersonal communication in medical services. The analysis of communicational practices between young children, their caregiver and the medical provider allowed me to understand better the importance of good interpersonal communication for children global health. Before coming to Montreal, I organised workshops about Inuit language and culture in several primary schools located in Créteil for Inuksuk association. This association aims at promoting Inuit culture in France. In QS project, I am involved in different tasks supporting the development of the project. But my first mission is to understand urban Inuit children’ health and well-being. I am specifically studying adoption situations, might it be traditional or through youth protection services.
Madeleine Pawloswski – master student/research assistant
Madeleine is a Master’s student in geography completing her thesis with Professors Mylene Riva and Nancy Ross at McGill. Her research interests draw from past work on Indigenous student success in the non-profit sector, and focus mainly on the relationship between Inuit student well-being and postsecondary retention for students moving from Nunavik to Montreal for CEGEP. As part of the QS project Madeleine will be assisting with community resources mapping. Madeleine previously completed her BA Joint Honours in Geography and International Development Studies at McGill in 2015, and was a 2015-2016 OceanPath Fellow.