JSGS researcher Ken Coates has been elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada—one of this country’s highest honours.
Coates, professor and Canada Research Chair in Regional Innovation, Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy, and director, International Centre for Northern Governance and Development, is one of Canada’s leading researchers on Indigenous affairs and a leading expert on northern innovation.
He has authored and co-authored numerous books, including Arctic Front: Defending Canada in the Far North, which won the Donner Prize winner for the best book on public policy in Canada. Coates has also written extensively on Aboriginal history, Indigenous-newcomer relations and post-secondary education. His first major work, Best Left as Indians, examined the history of the Yukon through the lens of Aboriginal-European contact. His subsequent work includes The Marshall Decision and Aboriginal Rights in the Maritimes, Land of the Midnight Sun: A History of the Yukon and a co-authored book called Treaty Peoples: Aboriginal People and the Future of Canada. He has published more than a dozen books with his regular co-author, Dr. W.R. Morrison, and has worked with Carin Holroyd on a series of projects related to science and technology in East Asia. His co-authored book, Campus Confidential, offered an accessible review of the accomplishments and challenges of the post-secondary system in Canada and is being followed up by a book aimed at high school students and their parents about post-graduate opportunities.
Raised in Whitehorse, Yukon, Coates has long-standing professional and personal interests in Aboriginal rights, northern development, northern Canadian history, science, technology and society. He has worked with Aboriginal peoples and organizations and with government agencies responsible for Indigenous affairs across Canada and in New Zealand and Australia. He assisted with Aboriginally-themed documentaries produced by Northern Native Broadcasting Yukon, assisted with land claims research and participated in a variety of national and international collaborations, including serving on the Research Advisory Committee of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. He is also the director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s research project on Aboriginal Peoples and the Natural Resource economy.
The University of Saskatchewan also congratulates Jeffrey McDonnell on being elected a fellow with the Royal Society of Canada. McDonnell, professor in the School of Environment and Sustainability and associate director of the Global Institute for Water Security, is internationally recognized in the field of watershed science, making contributions to the measurement, modelling and understanding of streamflow generation. His research has contributed to understanding the role of plants in the hydrological cycle and the application of stable isotopes to water tracing in the hydrosphere.