I am the daughter of Margerie Friedel (nee Cunningham) and Clifford Friedel of Duffield, AB. Descended from Nehiyaw speaking Métis people, I remain closely connected to the traditional, ancestral territory of my Ancestors, Manitow Sâkâhikan [Lac St. Anne in central Alberta]. As a matter of courtship, my grandfather Montrose Cunningham skated across this lake in winter to visit my grandmother, Lily LaRocque. Located in the North Saskatchewan watershed, Manitow Sâkâhikan is marked by a long history of fishing, buffalo hunts, and summer gatherings. This remains an important place for Nehiyaw-Métis and other Indigenous peoples today.

I acknowledge myself as a guest in Coast Salish territory, and offer many thanks for the opportunity to live and work on UBC's Vancouver campus - the traditional, ancestral lands of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ speaking xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam - People of the River Grass).

My educational journey includes completion of an undergraduate Degree w/ Distinction in Commerce at the University of Alberta (Faculty of Business, 1996). While studying for that, I also worked as an administrator of college-level business programs for First Nation, Métis and Inuit women. The experience of working in Indigenous higher education prompted completion of a new Masters program in First Nations Education at the University of Alberta (Department of Educational Policy Studies, 1999). My thesis, focused on Aboriginal parental involvement in an urban public school, deals with how issues of power and conflict, related to a legacy of internal colonialism, creates barriers to the meaningful involvement of parents.

The outcomes of my Masters study led me to wonder how, in the context of Canada's unjust history and colonial present, young people attending public schools might come to know who they are in ways that Indigenous parents and Elders are calling for. Thus, I made the decision to pursue a PhD in Indigenous Peoples Education, also at the University of Alberta (Department of Educational Policy Studies, 2009). My PhD research, supported by a SSHRC doctoral fellowship, focuses on urban Indigenous youth identity and experience in the context of non-formal programming in the realm of outdoor education and place-based learning.

Upon completion of my PhD studies, I took up my current position as an Assistant Professor in Indigenous Education in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy at UBC. Outside of the university context, in October 2010 I was appointed to the Board of Governors of Rupertsland Institute, a Métis Nation of Alberta affiliate (and sat as Chair of the Board of Governors from Feb 2012 to Jan 2013). In May 2011, I was appointed as a Council Member of the Indigenous Leadership and Management Program at the Banff Centre.

Among other things, my research interests include First Nation and Métis experience in the realm of work and learning, decolonizing research at the intersection of health and education, Nehiyaw-Métis oral histories, and Indigenous-focused outdoor/land/place-based education. As part of this latter interest, I have engaged with community-based partners in the Lower Mainland of BC, and Haida Gwaii, to create meaningful academic service learning experiences for UBC graduate students.

In extending upon earlier research, I am in the process of leading (as Principal Investigator) a community-based project focused on Indigenous youth leadership in the area of unintentional injury prevention. This three-year study (2013-16), supported by a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Open Operating Grant, is situated in Alberta (the Edmonton region).

I am interested in pursuing inquiry via means of Indigenous methodologies, community-based participatory research, qualitative case studies, visual research methods, oral hi(stories), and critical race theory in qualitative research.