Dr. Heather Howard
Michigan State University and the University of Toronto
Heather A. Howard-Bobiwash is an Assistant Professor of anthropology at Michigan State University and affiliated research faculty with the Centre for Indigenous Initiatives at the University of Toronto. She has worked with Indigenous community in Toronto for more than twenty years and is a co-founder (1995) and a continuing active member of First Story Toronto (formerly the Toronto Native Community History Project) with whom her research has focused on Indigenous women’s activism in urban community organizing, and community-based health and social service programs. She has also engaged in research for Tribal governments and communities in the United States for over a decade on projects involving health and social services delivery, community organizing, land and resource rights and use, tribal jurisdiction, and federal acknowledgement. Her current and recent research collaborations focus on urban Indigenous education leadership, heritage materials engagement, population health, chronic conditions and diabetes in particular. She is the co-editor of Keeping the Campfires Going: Native Women’s Activism in Urban Areas (University of Nebraska Press, 2009), Aboriginal Peoples in Canadian Cities (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2011), and Feminist Fields: Ethnographic Insights (Broadview/University of Toronto Press, 1999). Her research has also been published in American Indian Quarterly, the American Indian Culture and Research Journal, The Engaged Scholar, Human Organization, the Journal of Material Culture, and Medical Anthropology: Cross-Cultural Studies in Health and Illness.
