Current Members
Ryan Bullock, PhD
Ryan is the Canada Research Chair in Human-Environment Interactions (Tier II), Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Studies and Sciences and Director of the Centre for Forest Interdisciplinary Research at The University of Winnipeg. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Environment and Sustainability Research Centre at Brock University. His research focuses on conflict and cross-cultural collaboration in multi-level environmental resource governance systems, policy and program analysis, and community-based research approaches. He works with northern and indigenous communities to investigate options for building community resilience. Ryan is lead editor of Growing Community Forests: Practice, Research and Advocacy in Canada (University of Manitoba Press, 2017), and he is lead author of Community Forestry: Local Values, Conflict and Forest Governance (Cambridge Press, 2012). His research has been recently published in international peer-reviewed journals such as Natural Resources Forum, Forest Policy and Economics, and Society and Natural Resources.
Alan Diduck, PhD
Alan is a Professor in the Department of Environmental Studies and Sciences at the University of Winnipeg and a member of the Centre for Forest Interdisciplinary Research. Prior to joining the University of Winnipeg, Alan was a lawyer and Executive Director of Community Legal Education Association, a social profit organization providing public legal education and information services. Alan’s research focuses on citizen involvement in environmental governance, the learning implications of involvement, and the consequences for social aspects of sustainability, such as equity, empowerment and capacity development. Alan’s work encompasses impact assessment, risk management, and institutional and policy analysis, and it includes involvement and learning at multiple societal levels, e.g., individuals, groups, organizations and communities.
Jonathan Luedee, PhD
Jonathan is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Environmental Studies and Sciences at the University of Winnipeg and a member of the Environment & Society Research Group (ESRG). In 2018, Jonathan completed a PhD in geography at the University of British Columbia where he conducted research on the environmental history of transboundary caribou management and conservation in the western Arctic (Alaska-Yukon). During his doctoral studies, Jonathan conducted archival research in Canada and the United States, and community-based research with the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation in Old Crow, Yukon. He has published book chapters on the historical ecology of Newfoundland’s nineteenth century inshore cod fisheries, and the social history of education in Confederation-era Newfoundland. He is a lead investigator on the Wising-Up Project, which seeks to raise awareness of northern issues and priorities and to incorporate these into educational curriculum at the post-secondary level. As a member of ESRG, he is excited about deepening his engagement with northern communities through his involvement with the C-LAND project.
Miranda Hamilton
Miranda is a Senior Research Assistant with the Environment and Society Research Group. She recently completed the fourth year of her Bachelor of Environmental Science Honours in Environmental Chemistry and her Bachelor of Business Administration at the University of Winnipeg. Miranda’s research with ESRG on the Community Pastures project has led to the completion of her Honours thesis, An Institutional Analysis of the Portage Community Pasture as a Common Property Resource.
Julia Antonyshyn
Julia is a Senior Research Assistant with the Environment and Society Research Group. She is completing a B.A. Honours at the University of Winnipeg, majoring in Environmental Studies in the Issues in Sustainability stream, and will be conducting her thesis research in the 2019-2020 academic year. Julia’s work with the ESRG currently focuses on the Climate Learning and Adaptation for Northern Development (C-LAND) project.
Bryanne Lamoureux
Bryanne is a Senior Research Assistant with the Environment and Society Research Group. She is currently in her fourth year at the University of Winnipeg, where she plans to complete a B.A. Honours in Environmental Studies in the Urban Environments stream, as well as a three-year B.A. in Sociology. Bryanne conducts general research with the ESRG, and looks forward to starting her thesis in the coming year.
Jana Micic
Jana is a Research Assistant with the Environment and Society Research Group, currently working on the project: A First Nation-University Partnership for Capacity Enhancement in Forest Land Governance. She is currently in her fourth year of study at the University of Winnipeg in the Environmental Studies department, where she plans to complete a B.A. Honours in the Issues in Sustainability stream.
Michael Kvern
Michael is a fourth-year student undertaking an B.A. Honours in Geography. Michael’s thesis aims to develop the foundations of a community energy plan for Churchill, Manitoba by providing energy consumption data and facilitating a vision and priorities to guide future energy planning. Michael is also researching the nexus of energy security and resilience, and how that can inform new regional scale definitions of energy security. In addition to his thesis project, Michael is a Research Assistant working jointly with the Environment and Society Research Group and Dr. Patricia Fitzpatrick of the University of Winnipeg’s Geography Department.
Kaya Lange
Kaya is a Mitacs Globalink Research Intern with the Environmental and Society Research Group. Kaya is from the Leuphana University Lueneburg in Germany, where she studies Environmental Science and Economics. Kaya’s work supports the ESRG on multiple projects, including the C-LAND project.
Affiliates
Melanie Zurba, PhD – Dalhousie University
Dr. Melanie Zurba joined the Environment and Society (EnSo) Collaborative Laboratory in July 2017. Dr. Zurba focuses on community-engaged research, environmental governance, collaboration and social change. Her PhD is in Natural Resources and Environmental Management from the Natural Resources Institute, University of Manitoba where she conducted her doctoral thesis on the collaborative governance of forestlands in northwestern Ontario. Through this thesis work she explored learning processes and outcomes relating to governance and the implications for social and structural reconciliation. Dr. Zurba’s broader research program has been geographically focused in Canada and Australia, but also spans the globe through her work on global policy frameworks that aim to support Indigenous rights, land tenure and leadership in environmental decision-making. Her work with the EnSo co-lab included research on renewable (bio)energy development, northern wellbeing, intergenerational decision-making, and adaptation in the face of climate change. Dr. Zurba has been an active member of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy (CEESP) and the Theme on Governance, Equity and Rights (TGER) since 2011.
ESRG Student Alumni
Geneva Cloutis, B.Sc. (May 2016 – April 2017)
Degree: B.Sc. (Honours) in Environmental Science (Global Environmental Systems)
Thesis: Towards an Indigenous-specific engagement process for environmental assessment in Manitoba
Ariane Dilay, B.Sc. (January 2017 to April 2018)
Degree: B.Sc. (Honours) in Environmental Science (Global Environmental Systems)
Savannah Eidse, B.Sc. (2016 – 2017)
Degree: B.Sc. in Environmental Science (Forest Policy and Management)
Thesis: A Comparative Policy Analysis of Community Forest Tenures in Canada: Lessons for Manitoba
Shannon Ganter, B.Sc. (December 2017 – April 2018)
Degree: B.Sc. (Honours) in Environmental Science (Global Environmental Systems)
Julia Lawler, B.Sc., M.Sc. (2014 – 2017)
Degree: M.Sc. (Bioscience, Technology, and Public Policy)
Thesis: Assessing Indigenous Control & Benefits through Manitoba’s Timber Allocation Program
Nicholas Palaschuk, B.Sc., M.Sc. (2015 – 2018)
Degree: M.Sc. (Bioscience, Technology, and Public Policy)
Yihang She (Summer 2018)
Yihang was a Mitacs Globalink Research Intern with the Environmental and Society Research Group. Yihang is from Nanjing University in China, majoring in Geographic Information Science. Yihang’s work with the ESRG focused on Forest-Community Innovation Networks.
