Empowering Indigenous Futures: A Health Research Presentation Series

Jorden Hendry

Presentation title:
Pathways to Indigenous Health and Wellness: Addressing Indigenous-Specific Racism in Public Health

Date:
Monday, April 13, 2026

About:
Jorden Hendry is Ts’msyen and a member of the Gitindo’o tribe from Lax Kw’alaams, with Scottish ancestry. She is a PhD Candidate at University of British Columbia (UBC) School of Population and Public Health and an Instructor at University of the Fraser Valley (UFV) in Indigenous Studies. As a researcher with the Unlearning & Undoing Indigenous-Specific Racism Lab she collaborates with the Office of the Provincial Health Officer, Provincial Health Services Authority, and BC Centre for Disease Control. She is also a research partner with the Cedar Project, an Indigenous-led longitudinal study examining health and wellbeing among Indigenous people who use drugs. She has taught courses at UBC, UFV, and University of Victoria. 

Jorden’s Indigenous thought leadership is widely recognized across provincial and academic institutions. Jorden serves as an advisory member for BC’s Anti-Racism Act Action Plan and sits on the Education Program Committee for BC College of Nurses and Midwives. She served on the UBC Senate, and contributed to Indigenous curriculum and mentorship initiatives at UBC, including work with the Centre for Excellence in Indigenous Health. Her work has been recognized through the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship and as a Killam Laureate.

Research Interests: Her research examines Indigenous-specific racism as a determinant of health and how public health systems can become safer and more accountable to First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Peoples. Her work develops applied tools that enable public health to identify and respond to Indigenous-specific racism. This includes building the conceptual and methodological foundation for a provincial racism measurement tool intended for integration into population health reporting.

Dr. Wayne Inuglak Clark

Presentation title:
Rights Holders, Knowledge Holders: Rebuilding Health Systems Through Indigenous Governance

Date:
Monday, April 20, 2026

About:
Wayne Inuglak Clark, EdD, MBA, MA, is an Inuk-Canadian health systems researcher and academic leader whose work focuses on Indigenous-governed health systems transformation. He is assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Alberta and executive director of the Wâpanachakos Indigenous Health Program within the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry. From 2024 to 2025, he served as visiting assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Centre for Indigenous Health Research. Prior to his academic appointments, he served as director of Indigenous patient services at the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority from 2013 to 2020 and held leadership roles in national Indigenous health organizations, including the National Aboriginal Health Organization.

With more than 17 years of experience spanning Indigenous health leadership, academic research, and health system administration, Dr. Clark’s work advances Inuit- and distinctions-based governance models in population health research, clinical trial design, and implementation science. His research integrates community-defined priorities, Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, and Indigenous data sovereignty into the development of population health infrastructure and health system innovation.

Dr. Clark contributes to teaching and curriculum development in Indigenous health and population health systems. At the University of Alberta, he designed pre-clerkship modules on anti-Indigenous racism and cultural safety for the undergraduate medical program and helped develop clerkship rotations integrating Indigenous health within clinical training, including surgery, psychiatry, and obstetrics and gynecology. He has also developed a social accountability elective focused on land-based education in partnership with a First Nations community.

His current work includes Indigenous-led clinical trials, research examining the mental health benefits of traditional food systems, and global comparative collaborations with other circumpolar Indigenous partners. His areas of expertise include Indigenous health systems governance, Indigenous data sovereignty and research governance, Indigenous-led clinical and population health research, implementation science, and Indigenous medical education.

Dr. Chenoa Cassidy-Matthews

Presentation title:
Relational Futures for Public Health Equity

Date:
Monday, April 27, 2026

About:
Dr. Chenoa Cassidy-Matthews is an anishininewak–mixed settler from the Barkman family in Sachigo Lake First Nation, with French and Scottish ancestry. She holds a PhD in Population and Public Health and works as a Population Health Epidemiologist with the Indigenous Health Research Unit at the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute.

Her research advances Indigenous health equity through relational, community-led, and data-informed approaches to public health and health systems transformation. Her research supports Indigenous wellbeing in the context of public health emergencies; access to healthcare; and food sovereignty, including the role of food systems in wellness, resilience, and institutional change.

Dr. Cassidy-Matthews is a co-investigator on multiple research projects spanning global health, gender and sexual health equity, youth engagement in research, and pandemic preparedness. Her work emphasizes partnership, reciprocity, and research that translates into meaningful systems change. She leads the inaugural Indigenous Advisory Committee for the Canadian Emergency Department Research Network, supporting Indigenous data governance and inclusion in research, leadership, and practice in emergency care.

Dr. Cassidy-Matthews has designed and taught undergraduate and graduate courses in global Indigenous health, Indigenous land stewardship, and Indigenous pandemic response at Simon Fraser University and the Native Education College in Vancouver, including fully online courses during the pandemic.

Outside of her professional roles, she plays an active role in her community as a Board Director for Indigenous Women Outdoors, a local Indigenous-led non-profit that supports Indigenous women* in the Sea-to-Sky Region in connecting with each other and the land through mountain sports and movement.

Dr. Jeffrey Reading

Presentation title:
Optimizing Indigenous Health and Wellbeing

Date:
Tuesday, April 28, 2026

About:
Professor Jeffrey Reading is passionate about global Indigenous population and public health knowledge and ways of knowing, governed by Indigenous communities’ relevant health issues, in British Columbia, across Canada and around the world. He obtained Master of Science (1991) and Doctor of Philosophy (1994) in Community Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine University of Toronto, now the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.

Jeff served as the founding Scientific Director of the Institute of Indigenous Peoples’ Health at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research from 2000 to 2008.

In 2016, Dr. Reading was appointed the Inaugural British Columbia First Nations Health Authority Chair in Heart Health and Wellness based at St. Paul’s Hospital department of Cardiology and the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University, renewed in 2021 for 5 years to 2026.

Jeff received numerous distinctions, named to the Order of Canada, for “ground-breaking contributions to Indigenous health research and for his leadership in bringing Indigenous perspectives to scientific and health institutions”.