Early in Career Award: Dr. Chris Darimont, University of Victoria.

Dr. Darimont is an interdisciplinary conservation scientist who applies natural and social science tools to confront conservation problems that are both conceptually interesting and acutely applied. Although Dr. Dairmont and his fledgling lab group have broad scholarly interests, they maintain three primary research domains: i) landscape ecology at the marine-terrestrial interface, ii) conservation biology of harvest management, and iii) conservation ethics.  The wildlife and people of the central coast of British Columbia – an area popularly known as the Great Bear Rainforest – comprise a study system of particular interest.  While this geographic focus invokes a strong sense of place, the research is designed to have a global reach.

The Early in Career Award is sponsored by Scotiabank.

Ehor Boyanowsky Academic of the Year Award: Dr. Bruce Lanphear, Simon Fraser University.

Dr. Lanphear is currently principal investigator for a study examining fetal and early childhood exposures to prevalent environmental neurotoxins including lead, pesticides, mercury, alcohol, PCB’s and environmental tobacco smoke. A component of the study is the investigation of the contribution of residential hazards and residential injuries to children’s health. This project recently received funding to follow the original birth cohort, until the children are five years of age. This will allow follow-up for determining the efficacy of lead hazard controls on children’s blood lead levels and their risk for learning and behavioral problems. Dr. Lanphear has extensive experience conducting community-based trials, including lead poisoning prevention, epidemiology of asthma, prevention of exposure to tobacco smoke and measurement of lead and allergens in housing.

Paz Buttedahl Career Achievement Award: Dr. Antonia Mills, University of Northern British Columbia.

Dr Mills earned her BA from Radcliffe/Harvard, and her PhD from Harvard.  Her research interest include First Nations land claims, religion and law, and reincarnation beliefs and cases . Dr. Mills has conducted field work with the Beaver Indians since 1964.  Dr. Mills co-edited (with Richard Slobodin)  Amerindian Rebirth:  Reincarnation Belief Among North American Indians and Inuit (1994), and is the author of Eagle Down is Our Law:  Witsutit’en Feasts, Laws and Land Claims, published by UBC Press (1994).  This latter book is the result of her spending three years living in Witsuwit’en territory and serving as an expert witness and writing an expert opinion report for the Delgamuukw case. Her book, supported by a SSHRC Grant, “Hang On To These Words:  Johnny David’s Delgamuukw Testimony” was published by the University of Toronto Press (2005).  She has beeen awarded a Shastri Indo-Canadian Instituted Fellowship for “A Longitudian Study of Young Adults who were said to Remember a Previous Life.”  She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses and one on “Indigenous Perspectives on Reincarnation and Rebirth” (at both levels).  Dr. Mills has also published in a wide variety of journals such as Culture, B.C. Studies, and the Journal of Anthropological Research,and chapters in books.