Professor Ann Dale, Principal Investigator, held her university's first Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Community Development at Royal Roads University, School of Environment and Sustainability from 2004-2014. A former Trudeau Fellow Alumna (2004), she is a Fellow of the World Academy of Arts and Science, chairs the Canadian Consortium for Sustainable Development Research (CCSDR), a Board Member of the World Fisheries Trust. and the founder of the National Environmental Treasure (the NET). Current research interests include governance, social capital and agency, biodiversity conservation, place-based and virtual sustainable communities. She is a recipient of the 2001 Policy Research Initiative Award for Outstanding Contribution to Public Policy for her book, At the edge: sustainable development in the 21st century. Professor Dale is actively experimenting with research dissemination and social media, and has recently launched HEADTalks.
Biographies
Biographies
Jenny Onyx (PhD) is Associate Professor in the School of Management at University Technology Sydney (UTS), former Head of School of Management and now Director of the Centre for Australian Community Organisations and their Management (CACOM) and Editor of Third Sector Review. She has over 30 years teaching and research experience in Universities and the community. She is particularly concerned with issues of social capital, sustainability and the Third Sector, and has published widely in the area, with over 100 publications. Her work on measuring social capital in particular has achieved international attention.
Teaching Areas: Community management, human resource management, research methods.
Research Interests:
career paths, cross-cultural communication, community and management development, women, social capital.
Nina-Marie Lister is Assistant Professor of Urban & Regional Planning at Ryerson Universityin Toronto. A Registered Professional Planner, Nina-Marie has worked for three levels of government and in the private sector as an ecological and landscape planner for the past 10 years, and she remains active in practice with ZAS Inc., a Toronto-based architectural and planning firm. She recently co-founded Terrassa Design Ltd., a creative studio practice focusing on landscape and urbanism.
Nina-Marie's research interests and publications explore the creative tension at the interface of culture and nature through ecological planning and design in urban ecosystems. Related areas of interest include cultural landscapes, sustainable communities, biodiversity conservation and adaptive planning and management. Her research has been published in various peer-reviewed journals, including Environmental Monitoring and Assessment and Hydrological Processes, as well as professional practice journals, including Canadian Architect, Perspectives, and Alternatives Journal.
Her planning work has been featured in several international design competitions, and recently exhibited at the Toronto Design Exchange and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Recent projects have included the Milton Eco-Tech Village Concept near Toronto, the Jack Pine Hill Education & Recreation Centre in North Bay, Ontario, and the Downsview Park International Design Competition (finalist) in Toronto. She currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Toronto Bay Initiative, and the Advisory Panel of Environmental Defence Canada.
Research Interests:
urban ecosystems, landscape & ecological design, biodiversity conservation, adaptive planning & management, ecological stewardship, ecological learning & literacy, culture/nature dualism, social & cultural ecology.
Teaching interests:
Landscape planning, ecological design, environmental planning, research design & methods, field ecology.
Philosophy of Teaching:
"Through passion and enthusiasm, to foster reciprocal learning, to stimulate and encourage rigourous, critical enquiry, and to embrace a diversity of perspectives."
I was born in London, England in 1969. After traveling extensively throughout the world with my family, all before the age of four, I settled in New Zealand until the age of ten; from ten until the age of maturity I lived in Ontario. I first came to the west coast in 1984 to visit my father and instantly fell in love with the topography. I currently live in Squamish, BC with my wife, Tami, and our dog, Scrappa.
In 1995 I received my undergrad, B.Sc., from Trent University with a double major in Biology and Environmental Resource Science. Since that time I have been working for consulting firms and NGOs in BC on issues including: habitat restoration, habitat assessment, habitat inventories, environmental impact assessments and toxicology. I am a registered professional biologist with the BC College of Applied Biology and I currently run my own consulting firm, called Tantalus Consulting, out of a front room in my house.
In addition to working as a biologist I am pursuing an MA with Royal Roads University and I have the privilege of being Professor Ann Dale’s research assistant for work on a social capital and sustainable community development research grant.
I am interested in looking at information management and management structures as a way of attaining sustainability goals within municipalities. I have been driven to this work by my constant surprise at the lack of integrated information which is readily accessible to all aspects of our society, be they manager, developer, first nations or local stakeholder. I would like to see our sustainability strategies move off the bookshelves and into our day to day actions.
A great deal of my and Tami’s spare time is devoted to rockclimbing. In the winter we focus on telemarking and cross country skiing. Our other great loves include cooking new foods and drinking wine.