Meet our Research Group
Marie Louise Aastrup
Born on the small island of Funen, Denmark, Marie Louise came to Canada first as an undergraduate exchange student at Waterloo University, and later, after finishing a M.Sc. in Sustainable Resource Management at the Technical University of Munich, to pursue her PhD research at Memorial University. Marie Louise is a cultural and environmental geographer whose work spans conservation, social science, sustainable tourism, and housing studies. She joined the Storytelling lab in 2018 working as a research assistant on the “Health and social welfare institutionalization, urbanization and homelessness in Nuuk, Greenland” project.
Marie Louise’s research interests include political ecology, protected area and natural resource management, equity, and human – animal interactions.
Gillian Gertrude Davis
Gillian is completing her undergraduate degree in Geography with a minor in German at Memorial University and hopes to pursue her Masters in the future. She is currently working as a research assistant for Dr. Julia Christensen. During her undergrad she has developed an interest in conservation and resource management. She is looking forward to continuing to learn from Dr. Christensen and the rest of her team.
Dana Feltham
Dana Feltham (MLIS, MBA) is a social development specialist with expertise in socio-economic analysis and vulnerable communities. Dana has managed environmental assessment and consultation processes in northern and remote communities. In addition to her research activities, Dana works as a policy analyst with a focus on social development for vulnerable and marginalized populations.
Arielle Frenette
Arielle Frenette is a PhD student from Québec City. She is a true geography enthusiast, a passion that comes from a love for people, nature, and landscapes. After a field seminar in Nunavik, she became particularly fond of the Arctic territories and Inuit communities.
In research, Arielle values decolonizing, feminist and interdisciplinary methods addressing mainstream narratives and systemic social inequalities. Her research mainly addresses how territorial representations can be contradictory and lead to conflicting discourses that can greatly impact local communities’ well-being. Her projects focus more specifically on the environmental discourses on a global scale and how they influence the everyday life in Inuit local communities, with the creation of national parks or imposition of hunting quotas for example
Christina Goldhar
Christina is a settler-Canadian of Jewish and mixed European heritage, born and raised in Toronto. She is the mother of two bright, beautiful (and small) children, whose resilience and endless wondering of the world around them provide her with inspiration as she pursues her doctoral studies in geography. Through her PhD and her work as a Project Coordinator for the ‘At Home in the North’ partnership, Christina is working towards the development of a northern-centered approach to housing insecurity and homelessness in the Canadian north, that ultimately achieves self-determination in northern housing. Her research interests include the intersections between critical development studies and critical northern geography, and questions concerning governmentality, settler-colonialism, Indigenous rights and self-determination.
She is a previous Forskningsingenjör (Research Engineer) at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm and a former resident of Nain, Nunatsiavut where she worked as the Director of Policy and Planning for the Secretariat of the Nunatsiavut Government. She is a Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholar 2020, recipient of a J.A. Bombardier Canada Graduate Doctoral Scholarship and is a former recipient of the Arctic Inspiration Prize, awarded for a housing action plan developed in partnership with colleagues at the Nunatsiavut Government.
Stacy Langdon
Stacy Langdon offers administrative support and budget monitoring to Dr. Christensen. Her background in Northern Municipal Government offers unique experience and knowledge when it comes to assisting Dr. Christensen with various administrative tasks related to her research. Throughout her career she has worked as both as Community Economic Development Officer and Assistant Director of Finance in Cape Dorset, Nunavut.
Veronica Madsen
Veronica Madsen is a member of the Metepengiag Mi’Kmaq Nation, New Brunswick. She is married and has three adult children. The first fourteen years of her married life was lived in Denmark near her husband’s family. In 2004 her family decided to move to New Brunswick to be close to Veronica’s side of the family. A work opportunity brought them to Newfoundland and Labrador in 2006 where the family has called home ever since. It is here at Memorial University where Veronica acquired her BA and is continuing her education with a MA in Geography.
It was at Memorial University where she discovered the Aboriginal Resource office which is a place of support for Aboriginal students. It is here where she began to get a better understanding of her culture. She is an active member of the Mawita'jik Drum group where she has been able to explore another avenue of creativity.
Her interest lies in community-led housing initiatives in northern Indigenous communities. She is looking forward to working with Fort Good Hope in assessing housing needs, potential gaps in supports geared towards housing as a space and home as a place.
Gilly McNaughton
A lifelong non-Indigenous resident of the Northwest Territories, Gilly was among the disproportionate number of northern students who do not finish high school, finding herself as a young adult with a grade ten education. After spending several years in the north as an outreach worker in homeless shelters for women and survivors of domestic violence and promoting youth mental health programming and suicide intervention programs, she went south - as northerners often must, to pursue a post-secondary education. First completing a natural resources diploma and then a Bachelor of Science, with the support of an Ocean Frontier Institute fellowship she is now completing a Master of Science (Geography) at Memorial University researching the cultural valuation of fish with the Innu of Nitassinan. Her collaborative and community-driven work is investigating fisheries valuation in a culturally relevant context in order to inform the development of an Innu fisheries management strategy.
Gilly’s research interests include decolonial approaches to knowledge generation, dissemination and validation, engagement spaces between humans and animals, land-based learning and research, human-nature interactions and all things northern. In her spare time, she volunteers to co-chair a Northwest Territories based organization that supports northern youth leadership through land-based activities.
Miranda Nadine Monosky
Miranda is a non-Indigenous MA student in MUN's Geography department. She was born and raised in British Columbia, living on Stó:lō and Chi’yaqtel territory for most of her life before moving to St. John’s for her graduate program. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Geography from the University of the Fraser Valley. During her undergraduate studies, she developed an interest in geographical inequalities, waste studies, and decolonial research methodologies. Following these interests, she completed an honours research project that focused on municipal waste management in Chilliwack, BC and how residents perceived the risks associated with the local landfill and land use planning, focusing specifically on the voices of Chi'yaqtel First Nation band members.
Now, as a Master’s student, she is pursuing research that examines mine closure and remediation in Northern Canada, the legacies of which have had pronounced impacts on remote Northern and Indigenous communities. She is interested in the strategies that mine companies use to engage with Indigenous communities and how (or whether) Indigenous Knowledge is used in the development of mine closure plans. She is also working in Nunavik to understand how regional and provincial authorities are regulating mine closure to ensure Inuit voices are present in mine closure planning. Miranda is supervised by Dr. Arn Keeling but works in the storytelling lab and benefits from the expertise and guidance of Dr. Christensen and her fellow labmates.
Outside of her research, Miranda has been working on several projects including a co-authored book chapter on Northern remediation policies, a co-authored report on mine closure planning in impact assessments for the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, and an industry-sponsored internship in Montreal to complete additional work for her research partners in Nunavik.
Camellia Penney
Camellia recently completed her undergraduate degree in Geography at Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN). During her years as an undergraduate student, she spent a lot of time focusing on and researching patterns of im/migration; specifically, issues surrounding newcomer experiences in Atlantic Canada. When thinking about her next steps after undergrad studies, Camellia reached out to Dr. Christensen with hopes of pursuing research related to her passion for Arctic Geographies. She is currently working with Dr. Christensen and another professor from MUN Geography on a research project exploring international migrant housing experiences in northern, rural and remote communities in Canada. Camellia is preparing to begin a master’s program in Geography pending formal acceptance to her institution of choice.
Outside of her studies and research, Camellia also volunteers with the World University Service of Canada (WUSC) Local Committee at Memorial. They have been successful in implementing the Student Refugee Program on their campus, hoping to introduce their first student to life in Newfoundland and studies at MUN in the 2020/2021 academic year.
Aimee Pugsley
Aimee was born and raised in Kent, United Kingdom. The time spent with family in the north-east of England was and remains most loved, and it was to this part of the country that Aimee returned when undertaking her Bachelor of Arts degree in Geography at the University of Durham, graduating with a first-class honours in 2019. She is fortunate to have developed an intrigue for the world and its people through travel to and volunteering encounters in Canada, Iceland, Norway, and Tanzania. Through research experiences at the Northern Studies Centre in Churchill, Manitoba, Aimee developed an appreciation of Canada’s North, the responsibility involved with research in the region, and a keenness to explore and learn further.
She is now excited to be furthering her education and interest in critical northern research, with a Master of Arts in Geography at Memorial University. For her MA research Aimee is working with the community of Fort Good Hope, NWT, in their development of a self-governed response to the housing insecurity and homelessness that presents as a major threat to the wellbeing of many communities in the Canadian North.
Aimee’s research interests lie in decolonising approaches to northern geography, Indigenous self-government, social determinants of health and wellbeing, and policy and governance.
Sarah-Mae Rahal
Raised in Orangeville, Ontario, Sarah-Mae is a proud aunt, sister, daughter, student and researcher. Growing up with mixed settler-Indigenous ancestry, with a Moroccan-Jewish mother and a Maratimer father, has informed a lot of her personal and professional journeys.
In 2018 she completed her Bachelor of Arts at York University with specialized honours in Political Science and a minor in Indigenous Studies. She has interned in Israel for a government agency that aids refugees and asylum seekers from North Africa and the Middle East. She has also worked for the federal government in Ottawa as a summer student in Indigenous Consultation.
She is now in the works of her Master of Arts (Geography) at Memorial University. Her research is centred around housing insecurity and dimensions of homelessness in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador. This project is working closely with the community of Happy Valley-Goose Bay and Indigenous governments of the region, responding to local research needs.
Sarah-Mae’s research interests include: housing policy, Indigenous health and well-being, northern development and decolonizing research methods.