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Vicki Kristman Co-investigator (WP8) Dr. Kristman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Sciences at Lakehead University and the Inaugural Director for a new Research Institute at Lakehead University: EPID@Work – Enhancing the Prevention of Injury and Disability@Work. She also holds appointments in the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, and the Institute for Work & Health in Toronto. She holds a doctoral degree in epidemiology from the University of Toronto and completed the CIHR Work Disability Prevention strategic training program as a postdoctoral fellow at the University Health Network in Toronto. In 2014, Dr. Kristman was awarded a prestigious CIHR New Investigator Award for her program of research on “Preventing Work Disability through Accommodation”. She is currently leading projects to identify factors associated with Indigenous work, health and safety, and to determine factors associated with supervisors’ support for providing work accommodations for workers with mental health disorders. Dr. Kristman is the Principal Investigator on an ongoing SSHRC Partnership Development Grant entitled “Understanding labour force participation, work productivity and disability in the Indigenous context: a partnership with the Nokiiwin Tribal Council. She will collaborate with Dr. Cullen and a PhD student to engage local Indigenous groups to build a local Indigenous Coastal Communities partnership. The partnership will develop a “two-eyed seeing” approach to 1) understand the burden of the problem of work disability in coastal communities; and 2) identify opportunities for the development of novel culturally-sensitive policies and practices to strengthen Indigenous workers and workplaces to increase labour force participation and productivity, and reduce work disability.

Robert Stephenson Co-Lead (IWP1), Advisory Committee member Dr. Robert Stephenson is a Research Scientist with the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (St. Andrews Biological Station, since 1984), and Visiting Research Professor at the University of New Brunswick (since 2010). From 2010-2016 he was Principal Investigator of the Canadian Fisheries Research Network – an NSERC-funded network that linked academics, industry and government in collaborative fisheries research across Canada. Stephenson has worked extensively on the ecology, assessment, and management of Atlantic herring, and more broadly on issues related to fisheries resource evaluation and Fisheries Management Science. Current research interests include development of integrated coastal management, implementation of the ecosystem approach in social-ecological systems, development of policies and strategies for full-spectrum sustainability of marine activities including the integration of ecological, economic, social/cultural and institutional aspects of management, and strategic foresighting in relation to the management of coastal activities and the viability of coastal communities in the context of ecosystem change.

Grenfell Campus, Memorial University Rachel Kelly Postdoctoral Fellow (IWP1) Dr Rachel Kelly is a Postdoctoral Fellow in FOCI’s IWP #1 , conducting research that will improve understanding and inform the potential use of ‘foresighting’ in the FOCI project. Rachel’s role in the project cements research linkages between Memorial University and the Centre for Marine Socioecology (CMS) and the Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) both in Tasmania, Australia. She is also heavily involved with developing and expanding the nascent FOCI HQP Caucus. Rachel is a marine socioecologist. Her most recent research has focused on the human dimensions of ocean sustainability, with a particular focus on improving global ocean literacy, connecting citizen science more actively with marine conservation initiatives, and engaging communities more meaningfully to secure marine space social licence. This work has involved collaborative research projects in and with the CMS, the World Maritime University in Sweden, the Australian National University in Canberra, iDiv in Germany, and other international groups. Currently, Rachel is working under the supervision of Asoc Prof Paul Foley and Dr Rob Stephenson (in FOCI) to assess linkages between the concepts foresighting and full-spectrum sustainability, to further the aims and objectives of the wider FOCI project working groups.

Memorial University Pedram Pouragasari Doctoral Student (WP7) More to come.

Mark Losier Co-investigator (IWP4) Marc Losier is an Assistant Professor of Photography in the Visual Arts program at the School of Fine Arts, Grenfell Campus, Memorial University. He is an artist and long-time educator. Losier’s work examines the ways in which communities form and define their cultural memory through oral histories, images, and iconography. Using photography and images, filmmaking, sound, objects, and installation, he provokes questions about the value of artworks and archival collections. Previous exhibitions include The Rooms (St. John’s), White Water Gallery (North Bay), FAAS 4 Biennial (Sudbury), Art Bar Projects Anna Leonowens Gallery (Halifax), Art in the Open (Charlottetown), and the Art Gallery of Mississauga. He holds a Master of Fine Arts in Documentary Media from the School of Image Arts, Ryerson University (Toronto, ON) and has previously taught at the San Francisco Art Institute, OCAD University and the School of Image Arts. At Grenfell, he teaches courses on photography and community-engaged art practices at the undergraduate and graduate level and is working to broaden conceptual lens-based pedagogy and student exhibition opportunities in Western Newfoundland. He is the founding director of PULP Gallery, the only student-run visual art exhibition space in the province.

Memorial University Sharon King-Campbell Research Assistant (IWP4) Sharon King-Campbell holds a BFA Theatre (Acting) and a MA English (Creative Thesis) from Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador, where she is now pursuing her PhD. Her research interests centre around feminist and community-led theatre and performance theory. Outside of academic pursuits, Sharon is an accomplished creator, theatre artist and storyteller who has worked for more than 15 years in the Newfoundland and Labrador theatre industry as a performer, director, producer and playwright. She is also an award-winning writer, and her first book of poetry, 'This Is How It Is,' was published by Breakwater Books in 2021. Sharon is a 2021 Vanier Scholar.

Memorial University Emily Reid-Musson Postdoctoral Fellow (WP2) Emily Reid-Musson is an interdisciplinary work and labour researcher with training in human geography (PhD, 2017, Geography, University of Toronto) and public/occupational health (Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Public Health and Health Systems, University of Waterloo, 2017-2019). Her research focuses on workers’ experiences in non-standard workplaces, including migrant, mobile, and self-employed forms of work, with a particular emphasis on Canadian agriculture, and more recently, Atlantic Canada fisheries. Another area of focus is labour policy and regulation, including workplace health and safety. She is a qualitative researcher and contributes to social and geographical theory, particularly feminist geography and political economy. Her research has been published in human geography and labour and employment journals, including Environment and Planning A and New Technology, Work, and Employment. With Dr. Joel Finnis and Dr. Barb Neis, she is currently conducting OFI research on the ways small-scale fish harvesters use and interpret weather information to manage weather hazards in their work at sea. Their research article was recently published in Applied Geography, “Bridging fragmented knowledge between forecasting and fishing communities: Co-managed decisions on weather delays in Nova Scotia's lobster season openings” ( https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2021.102478 )

Robert Chafe Collaborator (IWP4) Robert Chafe is a St. John’s based playwright and has worked in theatre, dance, opera, radio, fiction and film. His stage plays have been seen in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and in the United States, and include Oil and Water, Tempting Providence, Afterimage, Under Wraps, Between Breaths, and The Colony of Unrequited Dreams (adapted from the novel by Wayne Johnston.) He has been shortlisted twice for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama and he won the award for Afterimage in 2010. He has been guest instructor at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, and The National Theatre School of Canada. In 2018 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Memorial University of Newfoundland. He is the playwright and Artistic Director of Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland. Mr. Chafe’s roles in the FOCI’s IWP4 will be to gather original stories related to the collapse of the fishery, the impact of offshore oil development, and the effects of climate change from people living in coastal communities in the province and work with Neis to place them in conversation with FOCI and OFI themes and research findings. Chafe will develop the stories and conversation into a play for which original music - informed both by his text and the rich traditional music from these specific regions of the province will be commissioned by composer Randolph Peter.

Carissa Brown Co-investigator (WP2) Dr. Carissa Brown is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at Memorial University and has 18 years experience conducting experimental and observational studies in Canadian forest ecosystems. C. Brown is the lead of the Northern EDGE Lab, where her research group focuses on the impact of climate change on plant species across their distributions. She does this primarily in forest ecosystems, studying both understory plant and tree populations and communities, typically at the edge of their range. She combines field experimentation and observational studies to answer questions related to biodiversity and land-use change, disturbance, abiotic characteristics, and biotic interactions, analyzing these data using tools such as mixed-effect modeling, Bayesian approaches, and multivariate statistics. Her ongoing research programs include a large-scale field experiment distributed across Newfoundland testing the ability of native temperate tree species of eastern North America to expand their distributions into boreal forest stands under climate change. Previous research in Canada’s subarctic treeline has involved propagating and planting out tree seedlings across a natural field experiment. Her research funding and collaborations span Federal (NSERC, Parks Canada), Provincial (Research and Development Corporation of Newfoundland and Labrador), and international (International Arctic Science Committee) bodies. She has published 21 peer-reviewed scientific articles in journals ranging from Canadian Journal of Forest Research to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. C. Brown’s research has been featured in the journals Nature and Science, and she has been a guest on regional CBC radio programs as well as the national science program ‘Quirks and Quarks’.

Grenfell Campus, Memorial University Sara Langer-Smith Research Assistant (WP7) To learn more about Sara Langer - Rural Resilience

Memorial University Yousra Abdelhady Master's Student (WP1) Yousra is pursuing another master’s degree in Ocean and Naval Architecture Engineering at Memorial University. Her thesis focuses on the Safety of Fishing Vessels, specifically on the effect of length to breadth ratio on dynamic stability. She is a Naval Architect with over a decade of international experience in the shipbuilding industry. She has worked in Canada, Netherlands, and Egypt, covering various aspects of naval architecture, project management, production, and modelling. Her top competencies are multitasking, ship stability and weight distribution. She holds a bachelor and master’s degrees in Naval Architecture from Alexandria University in Egypt, as well as a PMP certification and a train of trainer credential. She is also a Techwomen fellow, and a registered Professional Engineer in British Columbia and Alberta. Besides her technical expertise, she is also an active volunteer for SNAME, serving as an Alternate Functional Vice President for Knowledge management and the social media and Events Chair for SNAME Canadian Atlantic Section. She is also part of the communication team of Maritech conference 2024. Moreover, she has mentored and facilitated various hands-on workshops for different age groups.

Memorial University Pierrette Janes-Bourque Master's Student (WP2) Pierrette Janes (she/her) is a Master’s of Science in Geography student at Memorial University’s campus in St. John’s, NL, and is co-supervised by Dr. Carissa Brown and Dr. Joel Finnis. Pierrette is from the beautiful, nature-filled province of New Brunswick where she spent most of her childhood exploring local forests. After completing her Bachelor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Leadership from the University of New Brunswick, Pierrette’s interest in forests led her to a position as Stewardship Coordinator for the Nature Trust of New Brunswick, working closely with local conservationists to protect, monitor and restore some of New Brunswick’s unique natural spaces. Pierrette’s research with FOCI will focus on climate smart trees and urban forests as a potential nature-based climate solutions in coastal communities in Newfoundland.