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. He completed his PhD 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 Université Laval in Quebec City. Christopher led the
community component of the Qanuilirpitaa? Nunavik health survey
and is the Principal Investigator for the QS project.
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 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
Tina Pisuktie is an urban Inuk, born and raised in Montreal. For the
last eleven years, she has been working in a variety of positions
that allowed her to contribute to the development of the urban
indigenous community of Montreal, and for the past 6 years she
worked specifically with the urban Inuit community. From 2013-2016,
Tina was employed as a Caseworker for the Inuit Assistance Program
at Chez Doris Women’s Shelter Foundation. She worked with at risk
and homeless Inuit women in the city to ensure their access to
health and social services, which provided her with invaluable
insight and understanding of the emotional, physical and spiritual
health of at risk and homeless Inuit in the city. From 2016-2017,
Tina worked as a Student Life Animator for the Kativik School Board,
where she provided support and referrals services to Inuit students
attending College Montmorency while assisting them with their
integration. She is a founding board member of the Southern Quebec
Inuit Association, where she now works as the Executive Director.
Tina has a DEC in Communications and a Bachelor’s degree in
Community, Public Affairs and Policy Studies from Concordia
University (Montréal).
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 completed her Bachelor’s degree at Université de
Montréal (Montréal, 2017) and her Master’s degree at Université
Laval (Québec, 2021), both in Anthropology. Her master’s study in
critical medical anthropology focuses on urban Inuit’s perspectives
of their health and well-being, as well as their capacity to
maintain or restore them in Montreal. Since 2018, Mathilde has been
working with Inuit in Nunavik (Puvirnituq, Kuujjuaq) as well as in
urban settings, in Southern Québec. She is a research assistant at
the research centre of the Centre hospitalier universitaire de
Québec (CHUQ) and for the Research Chair on Relations with Inuit
Societies (Sentinelle Nord, Université Laval). She is also a teacher
assistant for different Indigenous health and wellbeing courses, at
Université Laval. Mathilde is a research assistant and, with
Marie-Claude Lyonnais, one of the project coordinators for the
Qanuikkat Siqinirmiut health survey.
Ariane Benoît – Postdoctoral Researcher
Ariane Benoit is an anthropologist graduated from Inalco University.
Her research focuses on interactional practices in educational and
health institutions, and also on the place and the effects of
interpersonal relationships on health, well-being and education.
From 2008 to 2013, she followed a course about Inuit language
offered by Michèle Therrien (1945-2017) at Inalco University. She
also organised workshops about Inuit language and culture in primary
schools in Créteil (France) for the Inuksuk association. Within the
QS project, she works in collaboration with the members of the team
at every step of the research. She is also conducting a project
about the place of culture in fostered children’ health and
well-being in urban settings. During her free time, she practices
artistic and well-being activities, such as singing, dancing, poetry
and meditation.
Alisha Tukkiapik – Community Coordinator
Originally from Kuujjuaq, Alisha lived for a decade in
Kuujjuaraapik, where she worked as a community social worker for 7
years. She is the first Inuk woman to run in the provincial
election, when in 2018 she sought to represent the Ungava region for
Québec Solidaire. Alisha studied at John Abbott from 2015 to 2017,
and she is also enrolled in Nunavik Sivunitsavut for 2021. She has
lived in the South since 2019. Her main goal is to be a certified
and registered social worker, and to pursue her political activities
in the future. Alisha’s main interests are social justice, Inuit
rights, politics, psychology and mental health services. She speaks
English, French and Inuktitut.
Richard Budgell – Senior Advisor
Richard Budgell is a Labrador Inuk who was appointed a Professor of
Practice in the Department of Family Medicine at McGill University
in 2020. He had a background of more than 30 years as a public
servant with the Government of Canada, including in the health field
for close to 15 years. From 1994 to 2003, he led the Aboriginal Head
Start in Urban and Northern Communities program, an early
intervention program for preschool-age First Nations, Métis and
Inuit children and their families which became very popular
throughout Inuit Nunangat. He worked on self-government initiatives
with Nunavik institutions in the early 2000s and in 2015 became the
executive director of the Quebec regional office of the First
Nations and Inuit Health Branch of Health Canada. As a proud member
of the community, Richard is excited to join the QS team and
continue to work to improve the lives of southern and urban Inuit in
Quebec!
Morgen Bertheussen – Research Assistant
Morgen is currently finishing her master’s in Geography at McGill University under the supervision of Mylene Riva. She completed her BA Honours in Ecological Determinants of Health in December 2019 at McGill’s School of Environment with a minor in geography. Morgen’s research interests revolve around different conceptualizations of health and well-being, and how these are taken into account in quantitative studies. During her MA, Morgen is grounding quantitative work in qualitative findings through the operationalization the IQI model of Inuit health and well-being. She has been involved in QS since June 2021, to help with the creation and the administration of the health survey.
