Mary Kelly

MRM (Planning)

During my undergraduate education at Dalhousie University in Miꞌkmaꞌki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi'kmaq People, I was welcomed into Dr. Melanie Zurba's Community Engaged Colab, a research group focused on supporting communities through collaborative research. The Colab steered my passions towards collaborative environmental management, particularly in reimaging systems to support Indigenous self-determination and sovereignty.

I am honoured to be part of the XLAP research as part of my thesis through the Master's of Resource and Environmental Management Program at Simon Fraser University. My research focuses on how First Nations are exerting self-determination through heritage policies and related stewardship initiatives and the responses from local municipalities. As a settler working on this project, I am deeply grateful and privileged to part of this work as I continue to learn from our Indigenous partners.