Associate Professor in Indigenous Studies and Canada Research Chair in Syilx Okanagan Philosophy.

lax̌lax̌tkʷ – Jeannette Armstrong is Syilx Okanagan, and as an award-winning writer and activist, novelist and poet she has always sought to change deeply biased misconceptions related to Indigenous people. She is the recipient of the George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature.  Her research in Indigenous philosophies and Okanagan Syilx thought and environmental ethics coded into Syilx oral literatures has been recognized locally and globally. She collaborates with Salish speaking groups to re-establish Indigenous languages, historical relationships, food resource ceremonies through gatherings, trading and protections of water and land practices. She is a recipient of the Eco Trust USA Buffett Award in Indigenous Leadership and serves on Canada’s Aboriginal Traditional Knowledge Subcommittee of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC). A Lifetime Fellow of Okanagan College, she was also recently named to the Class of 2021 as a Fellow in the Royal Society of Canada.