About the Hosts

Michele A Sam

Michele A Sam is Ktunaxa ʔaqⱡsmaknik—her father’s heritage is Haudenosaunee and Italian with no claims to community, and she honours her fathers’ people by following her mothers’ lineage as is custom. Michele has familial ties across all 6 Ktunaxa/Ksanka communities and is an “official band member” of ʔaq̓am. Michele returned home to the Ktunaxa homelands, as a 60s scoop kid having been adopted and raised in Southern Ontario, by a Dutch Catholic immigrant family to Canada.

Michele’s lifework is guided by principles of: Nation Rebuilding, Good Governance, Restoration of Peoplehood, Cultural Continuity, (Re) Attachment to Lands and Waterscapes, Intellectual Sovereignty and Cognitive Justice, according to place based Indigenous Peoples’ ways of being, doing and knowing. Michele has earned graduate and undergraduate degrees focused upon Indigenous Peoples’ place based re-attachment to landscapes and waterways. She has published on the role of research in: Indigenous Peoples’ Self-development; as a mechanism of Intractable Conflict and Strategic Regional Competition. She has been consulting and advising for the past 25 years. Her business focuses upon supporting ‘useful research’ and ‘grounded engagement’ between Indigenous and non-Indigenous entities. When not working, she can be found outside.

Amanda Sheedy

Based in Tio'tia:ke (Montreal) on the unceded territory of the Kanyen'kehà:ka (aka Mohawk) with her family, Amanda has supported grassroots community engagement and planning for over 20 years. She is skilled at designing and facilitating processes to help people think together and develop solutions, including across sectors. Her work with Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island spans more than 10 years, supporting Indigenous food sovereignty projects and Indigenous-led planning on food, health, research and conservation. She has worked with Inuit, Métis and First Nations to create food action plans, policy proposals, land use plans and more.