Our team primarily works out of the Socio-Ecological Landscapes Lab in the David Turpin Building at the University of Victoria. Fieldwork for our different projects is conducted across the Canadian Arctic as well as in the vicinity of Squamish, BC.
Noémie Boulanger-Lapointe
PhD, Assistant Professor
Small plant lover, passionate about the multitudes of ways in which we learn about the world and use this knowledge to support environmental stewardship and social justice.
Megan Francisco
MSc
Megan began in the SEL Lab with the Indigenous Knowledge of Berries in the NWT project, coordinating Indigenous, government, and university partners to analyze, visualize, and report on the health and status of berries across the NWT. Now in graduate school, she will be building on this work in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, amplifying community knowledge and quantifying berry use by wildlife
Lee Johnson
MSc
Lee is an MSc student investigating current and historical alpine ecosystem change in the southwest Coast Mountains through repeat photography. His work, situated in Garibaldi (Nch’ḵay̓) Provincial Park, seeks to identify and understand mountain communities and ecosystems most vulnerable to landscape and climate change.
Xena Greco
MSc
Xena is a MSc student examining the impact of climate on alpine vegetation. As part of the Alpine Horizons project, she will be revisiting field plots throughout the southwest Coast Mountains to assess changes in plant species abundance and community composition. They share a distinct love for plants, snow, and glaciers alike.
Colleen Dawson
Project Manager
Colleen is the project manager for the Alpine Horizons project. With a background in alpine ecology, as project manager she works with partner organizations to coordinate research in the southwest Coast Mountains.
Erin Grogan
Honours Student
Erin is a Biology student with a minor in Environmental Studies, currently researching alpine plant communities on Vancouver Island. Her work focuses on how subalpine and alpine plant ecosystems are shifting in response to climate change.
Previous members
Karl Hare
MSc
Karl works with communities across the Northwest Territories to map traditonal knowledge of berry picking sites. He uses this information to model the impact of climate change on Northern food security and ecological systems. This geospatial data can be used to protect harvest locations and better inform development.
Côme Beauquier
Graduate internship
Côme is a French student passionate about mountain nature and sports, working on the Garibaldi Park project. He is mapping areas of the park and particularly trying to learn more about the transition between the forest and alpine zones.
Ross Drew
Valerie Kuehne Undergraduate Research Award student
Ross is a geography student studying car-free development and its impacts on the built environment. He is working with community partners to map negative externalities of traffic intensity such as congestion, air pollution, and noise pollution.
Liz McCleary
Work Study and Valerie Kuehne Undergraduate Research Award student
Liz is a Geomatics student at Uvic and is co-creating a Community Dashboard for berry data across Inuit Nunangat. This summer, they focused on building an access map based on discussions with the Squamish Nation around access to culturally important species under the supervision of Dr. Noemie Boulanger-Lapointe.
Riley Watts
Work Study Student
Riley is a Geography student and is co-creating the Berry Project Community Dashboard with Liz to make data entry and visualization more accessible and user-friendly. They are also completing their Honours thesis on Indigenous engagement on the Thames River.
Bronte Bell
Honours Student
Bronte is currently pursuing a Geography degree with Honours. Her thesis in the Socio-ecological Landscape Lab focuses on creating a species distribution model of herbivore abundance in Iceland. Additionally, she works for Natural Resources Canada in the Deforestation Monitoring Lab.
Michaela Meil
Honours Student
Michaela is a Geography student with a minor in Indigenous Studies. She is currently working on her thesis in the Socio-ecological Landscape Lab focusing on the availability and distribution of nakàl (Cloudberry) harvesting sites in Gwich’in Territory. Additionally, she works as a GIS Research Assistant at the Centre for Global Studies.