Leora Gansworth

Dr. Gansworth received graduate training in the social science of human geography, earning a PhD from York University followed by a Provost’s postdoctoral fellowship at Osgoode Hall Law School. She has conducted community-based projects in service to Indigenous ecologies and Peoples for more than a decade and frequently draws on her fine arts background (writing) with graduate degrees in related fields.

Her principal community-based projects cultivate and investigate enabling conditions for the restoration of aquatic habitat and relationships with culturally significant species such as migratory fish. The context for this research is the intergenerational responsibility for Anishinabe-kwe to nurture and pass on a strong foundation for life-affirming practices that grow from mino-bimaadiziwin along with other Indigenous legal and intellectual traditions. Dr. Gansworth has taught in a variety of public and private settings and is keenly aware of the impact education has on current and future generations, as a descendant of those who survived Indian Residential Schools and other assimilative policy efforts in the US and Canada.

She is a band member of Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg and has ancestry connected to Onkwehonwe and Oglala Lakota nations.