Jeannette Armstrong, Associate Professor in Indigenous Studies, is Syilx Okanagan.

As an award-winning writer and activist, novelist, and poet she has always sought to change deeply biased misconceptions related to Indigenous people.

She holds the Canada Research Chair in Okanagan Indigenous Knowledge and Philosophy. She is the recipient of the George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature. Her research in Indigenous philosophies and Okanagan Syilx thought and environmental ethics coded into Syilx oral literatures has been recognized locally and globally. She collaborates with Salish speaking groups to re-establish Indigenous languages, historical relationships, food resource ceremonies through gatherings, trading and protections of water and land practices.

She is a recipient of the Eco Trust USA Buffett Award in Indigenous Leadership and serves on Canada’s Aboriginal Traditional Knowledge Subcommittee of Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife In Canada (COSEWIC).