Daniel Heath Justice, President (he/him)

‘siyo ginali. I’m an enrolled at-large citizen of the Cherokee Nation, a federally recognized Indigenous nation of over 468,000 citizens with reservation lands extending over nearly 7000 square miles in northeast Oklahoma. Through my late father, Jimmie J Justice, I’m a direct lineal descendant of Spears and Foreman Cherokee citizens and survivors of the Trail of Tears as well as Riley Cherokee Old Settlers who emigrated to Indian Territory before Removal, extended Traitor/Treaty Party relations, and intermarried white Shields, Crockett, and Bandy kin, among others. My late mother, Deanna Kathline (Fay) Justice, was of English, Jewish, and mixed European heritage. I was raised in the Rocky Mountain gold mining town of Victor, Colorado. Professionally, I work on unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm territory as Full Professor and Distinguished University Scholar in the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies and Department of English Languages and Literatures at UBC.
 
My work in Indigenous literary and cultural studies takes up questions and issues of nationhood, kinship, citizenship, and belonging, with increasing attention to the intersections between Indigenous literatures, speculative fiction, and other-than-human peoples. My most recent book is Allotment Stories: Indigenous Land Relations Under Settler Siege, co-edited with White Earth Ojibwe historian Jean M. O’Brien. Current and forthcoming projects include the twentieth anniversary Citizenship and Sovereignty edition of Our Fire Survives the Storm: A Cherokee Literary History (focusing on Cherokee citizen writers), a book-length cultural history of the “Cherokee Princess” phenomenon, and a young-adult fantasy novel.

I was one of the co-founders of ILSA in our inaugural gathering at UBC in 2013 and have been involved with the organization since then. I’m honoured to take up this role in preparation for the 2026 community gathering and to continue in service to an organization doing such meaningful work in the world.

Marie-Ève Bradette, President-Elect (elle)

Marie-Eve Bradette est professeure adjointe au département de littérature, théâtre et cinéma de l’Université Laval et titulaire de la Chaire de leadership en enseignement des littératures autochtones au Québec - Maurice-Lemire depuis juin 2022. Ses recherches actuelles abordent l'hétérolinguisme des littératures des Premiers Peuples au Québec comme modalité d’une histoire littéraire plurielle. Elle s'intéresse aussi à la représentation des femmes et des filles autochtones, aux violences genrées et la (re)signification des savoirs féminins, notamment dans la littérature des pensionnats. Ses travaux ont été publiés, entre autres, dans les revues Les Cahiers du CIÉRA, @nalyses, Captures et Voix plurielles. En 2025, elle a reçu le prix Herb Wyile pour son article "Le conflit des souverainetés linguistiques au Québec: perspectives critiques et littéraires autochtones" paru dans Studies in Canadian Literature/Études en littérature canadienne. Elle est l'autrice d'une chronique annuelle en études autochtones pour la revue Voix et images. Son ouvrage Langue(s) en portage: résurgence littéraire et langagière dans les littératures autochtones féminines est paru en 2024 aux Presses de l'Université de Montréal et a remporté le prix du meilleur livre 2025 de l'Association des professeur·es d'universités et de collèges canadiens (APFUCC). Elle a enfin co-dirigé l'ouvrage collectif Urbanités autochtones en création (avec Julie Graff, Gabrielle Marcoux et Alexia Pinto Ferretti) paru en 2025 aux Presses de l'Université de Montréal.

Joshua Whitehead, Early Career Representative (he/him)

Joshua Whitehead (he/him) is a Two-Spirit and Oji-Cree member of Peguis First Nation (Treaty 1). He is the author of full-metal indigiqueer, Jonny Appleseed, Making Love with the Land, and Indigiqueerness: a Conversation About Storyteling as well as the author of Love after the End: an Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction. Whitehead is an Assistant Professor and Research Excellence Chair at the University of Calgary where he is housed in the departments of English and International Indigenous Studies.

Krista Collier-Jarvis, Early Career Representative (nekm/she/her)

Dr. Krista Collier-Jarvis (Mi’kmaw) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Mount Saint Vincent University. Her doctoral research focused on an Indigenous-informed approach to the climate-contagion entanglement. She teaches American and Indigenous literatures and cultures, cli-fi, and film. Collier-Jarvis is a third-generation survivor of the Shubenacadie Residential School—a topic she takes up in her unpublished “A Micmac Memoir,” which was longlisted for the 2023 CBC Non-Fiction prize. Her academic work has been published in Global Indigenous Horror, Humanities, Canadian Jewish Studies, Scaffold, The Palgrave Handbook of the Zombie, and American Gothic Studies. She is the co-lead of the Two-Eyed Seeing program, and she also hosts “Centring Indigenous Voices,” which invites Indigenous authors to share their work and lived experiences.

Tenille Campbell, Outreach Coordinator (she/her)

Tenille K Campbell is a Dene/Métis author and photographer from English River First Nation, SK. She completed her MFA in Creative Writing from UBC and is enrolled in her PhD at the University of Saskatchewan. Her inaugural poetry book, #IndianLovePoems (Signature Editions, 2017) is an award-winning collection of poetry that focuses on Indigenous Erotica, using humour and storytelling to reclaim and explore ideas of Indigenous sexuality.

She is also the artist behind sweetmoon photography and the co-creator of tea&bannock. She currently resides in Saskatoon.

Alec Mahoney Graduate Student Representative (he/him)

"I am a master’s student in Literary Studies at Université Laval. My father is Mexican. My mother is an Ilnu from Mashteuiatsh. My thesis brings together research and fiction in the form of a novel.

The story follows a young man who wants to be a writer. After a conversation with a professor who takes an interest in his work, he begins to think about his Innu ancestry and travels north to Mashteuiatsh, a place that is supposed to be home, though he does not remember it.

The research turns to recent Indigenous francophone writing in Québec and to the idea of return. I look at what happens when a character goes back to a place or a community, and how that return shapes identity, belonging, and the sense of home."

Ryan Stearne, Treasurer

Bio coming soon.

Jasmine Rice, Communications Coordinator (She/her)

Jasmine Rice (she/her) is a PhD student at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) studying Language and Literacies Education. Her research focuses on language ideology in Indigenous language reclamation, inspired by her own language learning experiences of Kanien’kéha, the language of her paternal family’s community, Kahnawà:ke Mohawk Territory. Jasmine is an avid reader and enjoys engaging with the pedagogical offerings in Indigenous literatures in her work with the Indigenous Literary Studies Association and Dr. Jennifer Brant’s Indigenous Literatures Lab. Jasmine is also a passionate educator, teaching at the secondary level, as well as in OISE’s Masters of Teaching program.