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About Me

I am a Public Historian interested in historical and contemporary issues surrounding museums and heritage, repatriation, social memory and commemoration, cultural identity and issues of representation, usually in regards to Indigenous peoples in Canada. I am also interested in the history of Indigenous communities in Ontario and am currently researching the relationship between southwestern Ontario reserves and cities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

I have worked in the public history field for over 30 years, including at various museums across Canada such as the Museum of Ontario Archaeology (London), the Aylmer and District Museum, the Woodland Cultural Centre (Six Nations of the Grand River) and the Glenbow Museum (Calgary), in curatorial, interpretative, and collections management capacities. Locally, I have sat on various committees of Museum London, Fanshawe Pioneer Village, London Heritage Council, and the Museum of Ontario Archaeology. At the provincial level, I was a board member for the Ontario Heritage Trust (2018-21). Internationally, I sat on the Board of Directors of the National Council on Public History (2010-13), co-chaired its 2013 Annual Conference Program Committee, chaired its Professional Development Committee (2010-15), sat on the Curriculum and Training Committee (2018-21), and am now on the Program Committee for the 2022 annual conference to be held in Montreal. I have also acted as a consultant or contract researcher for organizations such as the JP Metras Museum at Western, the C.A.V. Barker Museum of Canadian Veterinary History at the University of Guelph, the Mississaugas of the Credit Nation, and Know History Historical Services. I am currently a member of the Ontario Museum Association’s Indigenous Collections Working Group, and with Prof. Shelley McKellar, I manage the Medical Artifact Collection at Western.

Recent Publications

(2016) With K. Jamieson. Dr. Oronhyatekha: Security, Justice, and Equality. Toronto: Dundurn Press.

(2019) With M.F. Dove. “Public Service or public service?: Public History in Canada.” What is Public History? Ed. P. Ashton, J. Lalzarliana and A. Trapeznik. Bloomsbury.

(2015) With K. Inwood. “Mixed Ancestry Aboriginal Populations in Canada, 1871-1901.” Mariage et métissage dans les sociétés coloniales, Amériques, Afrique et Iles de l’Océan Indien, XVIe-XXe siècles. ed. G. Brunet. Bern: Peter Lang, 207-24.

(2010) Collections and Objections: Aboriginal Material Culture in Southern Ontario. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Media Coverage

Social Media

@westernupubhist

Country Focus

Canada

Expertise by Geography

North America

Expertise by Chronology

19th century, 20th century

Expertise by Topic

Colonialism, Indigenous Peoples, Material Culture, Museums, Public History