Erin Alexiuk is a senior PhD candidate in the School of Environment, Resources, and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo. Since joining WISIR as a Research Associate in 2014, Erin has played an instrumental role supporting the incubation of several early-phase social innovations. Throughout her graduate career, Erin has worked with visionary leaders to help operationalize innovative ideas, catalyze change, and realize impact. While at WISIR, she has applied her academic background in complex systems thinking and social innovation to long-term projects with two ground-breaking Indigenous organizations: the Centre for First Nations Governance and Turtle Island Institute.
She holds a Masters degree in Environmental Studies from the University of Waterloo and a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science from the University of British Columbia. Prior to her graduate research, Erin travelled to Ellesmere Island, Nunavut to participate in the International Tundra Experiment, worked on the boreal caribou consultation process for Environment Canada’s recovery strategy, and studied intercultural approaches to resource management on Haida Gwaii with the Haida Gwaii Higher Education Society. This work gave Erin first hand experience into the challenges toward achieving intercultural understanding and fostered her interest in studying Indigenous-settler relationships in Canada.