The Indigenous Environmental Health Risk Assessment Lab
The Indigenous Environmental Health Risk Assessment Lab
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News

New Publications from the IEHRA Team

Dr. Diana Lewis has been the lead author on two new publications released this year. The paper titled “Confronting epistemic blinders in impact assessment and environmental health risk assessment processes” was published in Risk Analysis last month and calls for government and industry to “remove their epistemic blinders to recognize the need for multiple approaches, knowledges, and value systems to reflect and measure the cultural, social, and ecological consequences of development on Indigenous Peoples.” The paper is accessible at this link (https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.70073 ).

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Unveiling “The Relationships We Carry” Mural by artist Mike Cywink in the Hutt Building, University of Guelph

After visioning sessions with the IndigenERA Lab and staff, faculty, and students from the University of Guelph Geography Department, Mike Cywink (@thunderdayvisions), an Ojibway artist from Whitefish River First Nation, brought our vision together in a three-part mural titled “The Relationships We Carry.”

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IndigenERA Lab: Official Launch

In March of 2025, we opened our doors to the University of Guelph community and beyond for the official IndigenERA Lab launch! Joined by community partners, research collaborators, academic colleagues, research staff, friends, family, and the President of UofG, Dr. Rene Van Acker, we shared in ceremony, good food, and research discussions. The lab’s mural, titled “The Relationships We Carry,” was officially unveiled. IndigenERA Students presented their IHERA research and work. Thank you to our friends from across Turtle Island who helped make this such a special day, by attending the event both in-person and virtually!

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Dr. Diana Lewis successful in securing five-year CIHR grant (BAICM Project)

Dr. Diana Lewis has been awarded a 3-million-dollar CIHR grant for the project titled “Building the Autonomy of Indigenous Communities to Make their Data Work for Decision-Making” or BAICM. BAICM builds upon the success of, and relationships strengthened, throughout the CIHR research project, “Developing an Indigenous Value-Based Approach to Environmental Health Risk Assessment” (IEHRA). Our community partners, Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Fort Chipewyan Métis Nation, and Mikisew Cree First Nation, and Oneida Nation of the Thames, have worked to create community research advisory committees, develop locally specific environmental health risk assessment models, and implement community-led health surveys to collect baseline health data that reflects local values as well as culture and relationships to land. 

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CORE Wellness Day

On December 4, 2023, the IndigenERA lab held a CORE (Code of Relational Ethics) Retreat Day with our lab members. The day involved discussing and implementing the lab's CORE themes: learn, create, grow, strengthen, align, challenge, and relate.

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