Maureen Reed (PHD ‘91) is an internationally renowned scholar whose research, academic service and teaching focus on the social dimensions of sustainability, gender relations and diversity, collaborative environmental governance, and community engagement. She has written or edited 11 books or monographs and more than 160 primary, peer-reviewed, publications. Four of her books are required texts for programs worldwide. Her community-engaged scholarship has twice been recognized for its impact by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
In 2007-08, she helped found the interdisciplinary graduate School of Environment and Sustainability (SENS) at the University of Saskatchewan. As Assistant Director, Academic, she has led the design of its four graduate programs, from which nearly 500 have graduated. In both her research and programming initiatives, she has established and nurtured longstanding relationships with community and Indigenous partners to ensure that both research and training programs engage and benefit communities directly.
Maureen holds a UNESCO Chair in Biocultural Diversity, Sustainability, Reconciliation and Renewal at the University of Saskatchewan. She has received many awards for her work, including the 2019 Canadian Association of Geographers Award for Scholarly Distinction in Geography; the 2017 University of Saskatchewan Distinguished Researcher Award; the 2016 YWCA-Saskatoon Women of Distinction Lifetime Achievement Award and the 2015 University of Saskatchewan Distinguished Graduate Supervisor Award. In 2019, the University of Saskatchewan conferred on Dr. Reed the title of Distinguished Professor (at the time, one of only three women at the university to hold this title since it was established in 1993). In 2020, she received the inaugural Students’ Choice for Outstanding Teacher in SENS.
Maureen heads the PROGRESS lab at the University of Saskatchewan, where PROGRESS stands for “PRactices Of Governance for Resilience, Environmental and Social Sustainability. She and her students explore and advance models of sustainability and collaborative governance with practitioners working in UNESCO Biosphere Regions (BRs), Model Forests (MFs), and forest-based and Indigenous communities. Though her work focuses on Canadian communities, Maureen has given over 55 invited talks and led teaching seminars around the world including, China, Japan, France, Peru, Sweden, and South Africa. Recently, she has served as Executive Producer of a two-season full-length documentary series on Canada’s biosphere reserves broadcast by TV Ontario and Knowledge Network and has served on a national steering committee for gender equity and diversity in Canada’s forest sector.