Aynur Kadir (Director)
Afifiliation(s)
Assistant Professor | Lifeways in Indigenous Asia
Aynur Kadir is an Indigenous Uyghur scholar, filmmaker, and curator with a research focus on the documentation, conservation, and revitalization of Indigenous cultures and languages. Her work bridges the gap between Indigenous studies in Canada and in Asia. Her research interests are in global indigeneity from the Uyghur in China to Coast Salish and Six Nations in Canada; transnational Indigenous diplomacy; and the safeguarding and revitalization of languages and cultural heritage through digital technology and collaborative initiatives. As the co-leader and co-founder of CoDHerS, she spearheads collaborative efforts to bridge digital media with Indigenous research and storytelling.
Colleen Laird (Co-Lead)
Affiliation(s)
Assistant Professor | Japanese Popular Culture
Dr. Colleen Laird is a scholar whose work focuses on the intersections of media, film, and gender studies, with particular attention to Japanese cinema and female directors. Her research explores the representation of gender in media and its impact on both cultural and social perceptions. As the co-leader of CoDHerS, she brings her expertise in media and film to the forefront of collaborative digital heritage preservation, fostering innovation in the use of digital media to document and share global heritage stories while advancing cross-cultural understanding.
Mark Turin (Research Associate)
Affiliation(s)
Associate Professor | Department of Anthropology
Mark Turin (PhD, Linguistics, Leiden University, 2006) is an anthropologist, linguist, occasional radio presenter, and an Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia. He is cross-appointed between the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies and the Department of Anthropology. Mark Turin writes and teaches on language reclamation, revitalization, documentation, and conservation; language mapping, policies, politics, and language rights; orality, archives, digital tools, and technology. Indigenous methodologies and decolonial practice inform and shape his teaching and research.
Pasang Yangjee Sherpa (Research Associate)
Affiliation(s)
Assistant Professor | Lifeways in Indigenous Asia
Dr. Pasang is a Sharwa anthropologist from Pharak in the southern part of the Mt. Everest region, Nepal. Her research, writing, and pedagogy focus on climate change and Indigeneity among Himalayan communities, exploring the question: “How do we live in the midst of dying?” She is currently involved in two collaborative projects. The first, Transnational Sherpas, investigates Sherpa identity today, exploring cultural appropriation, representation, migration, and the role of matriarchs in Sherpa society. The second project, with geographers Ritodhi Chakraborty and Costanza Rampini, seeks just pathways for sustainable futures in the Anthropocene. She has contributed to the sixth IPCC Assessment Report, advocating for the inclusion of Indigenous peoples and communities in global climate discussions.
Christina Laffin (Research Associate)
Affiliation(s)
Associate Professor | Premodern Japanese Literature and Culture
Dr. Christina Laffin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Asian Studies and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Advisor in the Office of the Vice-President, Research and Innovation at the University of British Columbia. She researches women’s writing, travel literature, and the processes of education and socialization in premodern Japan. She has worked on equity and knowledge sharing for an eight-year project on East Asian religions, collaborated with graduate students to produce videos on premodern Japan, and is currently leading a research cluster representing travel culture in early modern Japan through digital contextualization of a seventeenth-century manuscript.
Michael Hathaway (Research Associate)
Affiliation(s)
Simon Fraser University | Professor of Anthropology
Dr. Michael Hathaway is a Professor of Anthropology, an Associate Member of the School for International Studies, and the Director of SFU’s David Lam Centre for Asian Studies. A Guggenheim Fellow, his work has been supported by the Mellon Foundation, American Council of Learned Societies, Social Science Research Council, National Science Foundation, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and Toyota Foundation, among others. His research spans global environmentalism, the politics of Indigeneity, and more-than-human social worlds, with a focus on China and the global commodity chain of the matsutake mushroom.
Eylül Kara (Lab Manager & Research Assistant)
Affiliation(s)
BA Candidate | Department of Political Science
Eylul Kara is a Turkish undergraduate student, majoring in Honours Political Science with International Relations. Her research interests lie in transitional justice, the intersections of digitalization and humanities, and peace and conflict studies. Since 2022, Eylul Kara has worked at UBC’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs with the Transformative Memory Network, co-founded Glocal Inc., an educational initiative focused on decolonized, community-based curricula, and conducted research on expanding empathy to promote more inclusive energy policies in Canada. As Lab Manager at the Collaborative Digital Heritage Studio (CoDHerS), she oversees the studio’s operations, including developing and maintaining its website, managing equipment, and supporting sustainable digital heritage projects.
Cheyanne Armstrong (she/xe/they) (Research Associate)
Affiliation(s)
PhD Student, Socio-Cultural and Indigenous Anthropology
Cheyanne Brown Armstrong (née Connell) (she/xe/they) is a Queer Indigenous scholar and member of West Moberly First Nations (Dunne-Za Cree). They are a Doctoral Student in Socio-Cultural and Indigenous Anthropology at the University of British Columbia (UBC), UBC Public Scholar, and Canada Graduate Scholarship recipient. Currently, their research focuses on their own communities’ processes of Dunne-Za language reclamation and how Indigenous feminism intersects with these processors and the history of Dunne-Za language documentation, culture, and use. They ask: How has traditional language shaped and been shaped by the past and present sociocultural dynamics and experiences of Dunne-Za people in WMFN, and how is gender represented? Their PhD research focused on urban and diasporic Indigenous Ainu identity-making in transnational digital spaces, like Instagram and TikTok. They are a frequent collaborator on and advocate for Indigenous-Asian relations-related projects and initiatives, along with decolonization efforts in academia. They are also an artist and their practice is largely informed by their research interests.
Dr. Hannah Turner (she/her) (Research Associate)
Affiliation(s)
UBC School of Information | Assistant Professor
Dr. Hannah Turner (she/her) is a settler critical information studies scholar whose research examines how documentation, culture, and technology shape knowledge production. She teaches in the iSchool graduate program at UBC and the Informatics Minor, focusing on digital curation, museum practices, and decolonization. Her book, Cataloguing Culture (UBC Press, 2020), explores the history of classification and documentation in ethnographic museums, highlighting their colonial legacies. She has published on digital access, museum databases, and ethical collaborations with originating communities. Previously, she was a Lecturer in Museum Studies at the University of Leicester and an SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at SFU. She holds a PhD from the University of Toronto and serves on the board of the YVR Art Foundation.
Dr. Shana MacDonald (she/her) (Research Associate)
Affiliation(s)
University of Waterloo | Associate Professor
Dr. Shana MacDonald (she/her) is an interdisciplinary scholar specializing in feminist, queer, and anti-racist digital media, popular culture, and visual culture. An Associate Professor in Communication Arts, her research examines online activism, technology-facilitated gender-based violence, and digital disinformation. She co-directs the Feminist Think Tank and co-runs the online archive Feminists Do Media (@aesthetic.resistance). She currently holds a SSHRC Insight Grant (2020-2025) and is a series editor for Digital Feminist Resistance (Ohio State University Press). Her work has been published in Feminist Media Studies, Camera Obscura, and Feminist Media Histories. She is the lead editor of Networked Feminisms: Activist Assemblies and Digital Practices (2022) and has a forthcoming book on the aesthetics of Internet memes (Ohio State University Press, 2025). She is past-President of the Film and Media Association of Canada (2020-2022) and holds a PhD in Communication and Culture from York University.
Dr. Jennifer Roberts-Smith (she/her) (Research Associate)
Affiliation(s)
Brock University | Professor & Chair, Department of Dramatic Arts
Dr. Jennifer Roberts-Smith is an artist-researcher whose transdisciplinary work in performance, digital media, design, education, and social justice has been featured in theatres, exhibitions, and publications internationally. She explores how theatre fosters collaboration across differing perspectives to imagine better futures. She co-convenes the qCollaborative, an intersectional feminist design research lab focused on performance and technology, and co-directs Staging Better Futures/Mettre en scène de meilleurs avenirs, a cross-Canada partnership on equity in post-secondary theatre education funded by a $2.5M SSHRC Partnership Grant. Her recent projects have supported community-driven interventions into systemic racism in Nova Scotia, reconciliation in post-conflict Colombia, women’s prison reform, and accessible theatre education.
Dr. Min Fan (she/her) (Research Associate)
Affiliation(s)
Communication University of China | Professor
Dr. Min Fan is a tenure-track professor in the School of Animation and Digital Arts at the Communication University of China. Her research focuses on child-centered interaction design and digital media arts, with an emphasis on enhancing cultural learning, creativity, and well-being among children and youth. She is the principal investigator of multiple national grants that explore innovative design frameworks in this field and has published over 40 papers in top-tier HCI journals and conferences. Dr. Fan actively contributes to the academic community through leadership roles, including serving on the editorial board of the International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction and as the Full/Short Paper Chair for the 2025 International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC). She has also served as an Associate Chair for ACM SIGCHI for several years, further cementing her influence in human-computer interaction research.