Environmental Policy Institute At Grenfell Campus

On National Housing Day, November 22, 2022, the research team of “Quantifying Housing Needs in Western Newfoundland” project held a housing forum at the Center for Research and Innovation in Corner Brook from 1 PM to 3 PM as part of Grenfell Campus’s Research Week celebrations. At the event, the research team presented their findings to various housing stakeholders in the region and beyond.
The Quantifying Housing Needs in Western Newfoundland project was a collaboration between the Community Mental Health Initiative (CMHI), the Grenfell Campus of the Memorial University of Newfoundland, and Newfoundland and Labrador Housing (NL Housing) and was funded through the Reaching Home program of the Government of Canada.
The hybrid forum had over 40 participants joining both in-person and virtually. Participants included housing service providers, municipal governments, Indigenous organizations, health service providers, mental health service providers, not-for-profits, researchers, students, and other individuals.
After presenting their findings, the research team held four breakout sessions (3 groups in-person and 1 online) where participants were engaged in a discussion to gather their views towards influencing action and further research. In the course of the discussion, notes were recorded and shared with the entire group after the discussions. A report from these discussions will be provided on the project website, where the report and report summary can also be found.

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Our faculty and students are involved in a wide range of projects in our province. Here is one such project that Dr. Vodden, Dr. Hudson and two MAEP Students have been recently involved with in Cartwright Labrador!

Strengthening University-Community Connections in Sandwich Bay, Labrador - Rural Resilience Grenfell Campus Master of Arts in Environmental Policy (MAEP) graduate students Jacey Zohr and Sophie Buchholz along with supervisors Dr. Amy Hudson and Dr. Kelly Vodden recently travelled to the Inuit community of Cartwright, Labrador in NunatuKavut territory to discuss research needs and opportuni...

Dr. Rachel Webb Jekanowski received her PhD in Film and Moving Image Studies from Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec and held a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship at Memorial University’s St. John’s Campus. Her research and teaching are highly interdisciplinary, drawing on film and media studies, the environmental humanities, energy studies, cultural studies, and geography. Her current research project examines how art and design can be mobilized as forms of climate communication, particularly in response to local energy industries. Dr. Jekanowski is a member of the Low-Carbon Research Group housed at Trent University, Ontario and a co-editor of The Goose: A Journal of Arts, Environment, and Culture in Canada.

Dr. Roza Tchoukaleyska received her PhD in Geography from the University of Sheffield, UK, and held a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship at the City Institute, York University, Canada. Her research considers how urban space is governed, with attention to cultural landscapes, public space politics, and food identities. Her current research examines urban agrarian protests in France and Canada and the impact of international trade agreements on rural farming communities. Dr. Tchoukaleyska is part of the Memorial University ACE-Space network which focuses on the socio-economic dynamics of small- and medium-sized cities, and is the Director of the PhiLab Atlantic Hub. She teaching experiential learning community planning courses through the Grenfell Campus City Studio program, and is a Board Member of the Western Environment Centre in Corner Brook.

Gabriela Sabau holds a BA and a PhD in Economics from the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest. Before coming to Canada, Gabriela was an Assistant Professor of Economics at the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest and a member of a national research network for the sustainable reconstruction of Romania. Since 2003, she has been teaching Economics and Environmental Studies at Grenfell Campus, Memorial University of Newfoundland. In 2013 she was awarded the Grenfell Campus Teaching Award. Gabriela’s research interests are sustainability, sustainable development, fueled by scientific knowledge and value judgements; unjust un-economic growth; demand-side management of water resources; and sustainable management of fisheries, with a focus on small-scale fisheries. She is a member of the international research network “Too Big to Ignore”, dedicated to global revival of small-scale fisheries. In the last two years, Gabriela has led a committee for the development of a PhD in Transdisciplinary Sustainability program proposal.

Dr. Stephen Decker’s research specialty is Integrated Resource and Environmental Management (IREM) with a focus on the human dimensions of wildlife management. His particular focus on the human dimensions of wildlife management is especially relevant in Newfoundland and Labrador as provincial wildlife managers are faced with a number of contentious management issues which demand the formulation and effective application of integrated management responses. Some of the most prominent of these issues include, but are certainly not limited to, significant declines in caribou (Rangifer tarandus) populations in both the Newfoundland and Labrador portions of the province, several hundred vehicle – moose (Alces alces) collisions annually, the impact of hyper-abundant moose on native vegetation and the resulting cull of moose in Gros Morne and Terra Nova National Parks, and the range expansion and impacts of the eastern coyote (Canis latrans).

His doctoral research focused on exploring trends toward integrative approaches in wildlife management using caribou management in insular Newfoundland as a case study of such trends. He has also conducted research focused on the reintroduction of European Bison (Bison bonasus) in Germany and the Netherlands.

Dr. Camille Ouellet Dallaire received her PhD in Geography from McGill University, Montreal, Canada. Her pursuit of Geography developed critical and cross-scalar thinking that still supports her research today. While at McGill, she founded the Sustainability Research Symposium and studied global hydrology, ecosystem services and watershed management. Following her PhD, she worked as a policy analyst on the future of geoscience at the Geological Survey of Canada and as a senior impact assessment analyst for Natural Resources Canada. In these positions, her broad and interdisciplinary perspective advance her research on the science-policy interface in the context of sustainability. Her research explores the cumulative and intersectional impacts of natural resource exploitation on ecosystem services, interdisciplinary research integration, and large-scale modelling and analyses of sustainable watershed management. She is a Québecoise and a feminist.

Dr. Kelly Vodden is a Professor (Research), Environmental Studies, Grenfell Campus and Department of Geography, St. John’s Campus Memorial University. Dr. Vodden has been actively involved in community and regional development research, policy and practice in Canadian rural communities since 1995. Her research examines community involvement in planning and natural resource governance, regional development and multi-level, collaborative governance, adaptation to environmental change, and creating sustainable local economies.

Recent projects led by Dr. Vodden include the SSHRC-funded multi-province study Canadian regional development: a critical review of theory, practice and potentials (2010-2015) as well as the study Seeking innovative policy and governance solutions for sustainable drinking water systems in rural and small town Newfoundland and Labrador.

Dr. Garrett Richards has an interdisciplinary background in environmental studies and political science, and is broadly interested in knowledge mobilization for sustainability. He wants to understand how to take existing knowledge in universities and “move” it to where it can do the most good for society and the environment. How do we ensure produced knowledge about the environment will be useful and relevant? How might contemporary debates about energy and sustainability be better informed by expert knowledge? How (and where) can the policy-making process draw on academic research in order to arrive at more socially and ecologically sound decisions? In practice, this research examines partnerships between academia, government, and community, usually around issues of energy or climate change. Garrett is a board member for the NL branch of the Institute of Public Administration of Canada, the Internship Officer for the MAEP program, the Graduate Officer for the Transdisciplinary Sustainability PhD program, and the coordinator of the Environmental Policy Innovation Lab (a policy and research shop that engages with EPI’s external partners). Through a “flipped thesis” model, he is particularly interested to work with incoming students who are passionate about engaged research conducted in partnership with local organizations in NL – that is, who have more interest in addressing partner needs and doing high-impact work than in being attached to any specific research question.