Research seminar - Dr. Catherine Febria

The SES Department Seminar Series is please to host Dr. Catherine Febria on February 8th, 2024 for a talk entitled "One informs the other: Advancing freshwater stewardship, species at risk conservation and more through ethical and equitable research partnerships in the Great Lakes Basin". 
 

The SES Dept seminar committee warmly invites you to join in person in Alex 265 at 10 am, where light refreshments (including morning coffee!)  will be served. The talk will also be held hybrid via Teams (E-mail for link).

Dr. Catherine Febria (she/her/siya) is an Assistant Professor in the Dept of Integrative Biology and Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research at the University of Windsor where she holds a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Freshwater Restoration Ecology. She completed her PhD in Ecology and Evolution at the University of Toronto where she studied the ecosystem ecology of intermittent headwater streams. She completed a MSc at Simon Fraser University where she studied the biogeochemistry of Mackenzie River lakes in the Northwest Territories, and an honours BSc in Environmental Science from the University of Toronto Scarborough. She held a postdoctoral role at the University of Maryland’s Chesapeake Biological Laboratory (2010-2013), and from 2013-2018 she directed CAREX, an agricultural stream restoration program at the University of Canterbury with Professors Angus McIntosh and Jon Harding. She returned to Turtle Island/North America in 2019 to launch the Healthy Headwaters Lab, a mission-led, values-driven lab which uses science to connect land, water and people. Her team conducts a diversity of ecosystem-based research that encompasses water quality, benthic invertebrate and riparian plant biodiversity in tandem with local knowledge systems and policy at local, national and global scales. She serves as: co-Director of the GLIER Organic Analysis & Nutrients Laboratory (a University research facility), the Associate Director of FishCAST (an federally-funded graduate student training program), a nominated Expert with IPBES< the UN-supported science-policy platform on biodiversity and has been Co-Chair of the International Science Advisory Panel for New Zealand’s Biological Heritage National Science Challenge since 2020. Last year she was awarded the inaugural Large Lakes Champion award from the International Association of Great Lakes Research in part for centering ethical and equitable partnerships with Indigenous Lands and Peoples, and advancing equity diversity and inclusion in all aspects of her research, teaching and service.

You can learn more about Dr. Febria's work on her website.

Abstract

At a time when the world finds itself in a polycrisis of global climate change, biodiversity loss and threats to peace and intergenerational justice, I will offer perspectives on a more relational approach to science. In the current UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030), the science is clear that the most effective solutions are those that are guided and led by Indigenous Peoples and local communities. In this seminar I will share how my research team and our science approach has been intentionally rooted and by a relational process of co-creation and knowledge co-production. Through my lab’s Farm and Freshwater Ecology Research Network and the Ode’imin Indigenous Knowledge Circle, we have generated a diversity of projects that all share a process of community-up co-design and harmonization of diverse knowledge sources to address knowledge gaps and advance freshwater restoration research across southwestern Ontario, the most settled and worked landscape in the Great Lakes Basin. Student-led projects include invertebrate species at risk translocations and conservation, assessments of best management practices in agricultural landscapes, the development of community-led, ecosystem process-based freshwater restoration science and more. Connecting the dots from local to global, I share how these connected efforts helped shape UWindsor’s National Urban Park Hub, the designation of a UN Regional Centre for Expertise on Sustainability, and involvement in the UN-supported biodiversity science-policy interface IPBES. I share insights into trade-offs and co-benefits as well as examples of creative partnerships and allyship which together have helped advance freshwater restoration efforts and mentorship of the next generation.