Dr. Sheila Blackstock

Dr. Sheila Blackstock is a Gitxsan nursing scholar and Associate Professor in the Nursing Faculty at the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC). She has over 32 years of nursing experience ranging from acute care to rural health, Indigenous and occupational health nursing.

Dr. Blackstock has developed and delivered an interdisciplinary indigenous health course and an Indigenous nursing practice course for Thompson Rivers University. She is a Board of Director for the First Nations Health Authority, and the inaugural Indigenous faculty representative on the board of the Canadian Nurses Association. She was appointed by the Minister of Health to the provincial In Plain Sight task force where she is working to change health care legislation, and to enact cultural safety and humility for Indigenous Peoples at points of care.

Her research and scholarship focus on using a decolonizing approach to improving Indigenous holistic health and the empowerment of nurses, and nurse leaders to improve the quality of nursing practice work environments. She uses an organizational context to explore the role of oppression embedded within organizational workplace structures, processes, policies. The effects of oppression on nursing leadership, new graduate nurses, students are linked to the creation of fertile work environments where experiences of incivility and bullying are more apt to occur. The findings of her research arm health care administrators with the information to change organizational structures, processes, and policies to improve the quality of nursing practice environments for nursing leaders and nurses.

(Photo credit: Michele Yong, Manager, Communications content Thompson Rivers University)

Dr. Daniel Sims

Born and raised in Prince George, Dr. Daniel Sims is a proud member of the Tsay Keh Dene First Nation. He is an Associate Professor of First Nations Studies as well as in the Faculty of Indigenous Studies, Social Sciences and Humanities at University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC). His research focuses on northern British Columbia and he has worked extensively with not only his own community, but also the related communities of Kwadacha and McLeod Lake.

Currently he is working on two books through the University of Alberta Press on the impacts of the W.A.C. Bennett Dam and Williston Lake reservoir on all three communities. As if that was not enough, he is also working on a research project, titled "A Forgotten Land: Development in the Finlay-Parsnip Watershed of Northern British Columbia, 1860-1956," that examines numerous proposed developments in the Finlay-Parsnip watershed through the lens of concepts of wilderness, development, and colonialism.

In addition to these activities, Dr. Sims also works as a consultant and/or researcher for hire and has given numerous public talks and workshops on topics ranging from reconciliation, Indigenization, and the history of colonialism in British Columbia and Canada.

(Photo credit: UNBC Communications)