Dr. Jo-Ann Episkenew Named Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient
- EFN Staff | February 17, 2015
The YWCA Regina Women of Distinction Awards is pleased to announce that Dr. Jo-Ann Episkenew has been chosen as the recipient of the 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award. Jo-Ann has had a distinguished career as a professor, academic administrator, and author; she currently serves as Director of the Indigenous Peoples’ Health Research Centre (IPHRC).
The Lifetime Achievement Award is conferred annually by a selection committee whose decision is based on four criteria: the recipient must be a woman of influence, a woman of exceptional accomplishment, a woman of exemplary character, and a woman of endurance.
“We are so excited and proud that Jo-Ann is accepting the Lifetime Achievement Award,” says Deanna Elias-Henry, Executive Director of YWCA Regina. “As someone who has persevered through significant life challenges, she exemplifies exactly what we are looking for in an award recipient. Jo-Ann will continue to be a model and inspiration for many women coming after her.”
Born in Manitoba in 1952 to a Scottish and Metis family, Jo-Ann Episkenew moved to Saskatchewan as a teenager, and lived in Prince Albert and Saskatoon before making Regina home. On leave from her position as Professor of English at the First Nations University of Canada since 2010, Jo-Ann is currently Director of the Indigenous Peoples’ Health Research Centre (IPHRC), a partnership between the University of Regina, University of Saskatchewan, and First Nations University.
In 1988, as a mature student and single mother of four, Jo-Ann began studies at the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College, where she completed a B.A. in 1991, an Honours Certificate in 1992, and a Master’s degree in 1994. In 2006, she was awarded a Ph.D. magna cum laude from the Institute for English and American Studies at Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University in Greifswald, Germany, which was established in 1450 and has one of the top English language programs in the country. She was the first Indigenous Canadian to receive a Ph.D. from a German university.
Jo-Ann’s 2009 book, Taking Back Our Spirits: Indigenous Literature, Public Policy, and Healing, won the Saskatchewan Book Award for Scholarly Writing in 2009 and the First Peoples Writing Award in 2010. The prestigious journal, Canadian Literature, awarded the prize for the best essay of 2013 to “Thinking Together: A Forum on Jo-Ann Episkenew’s Taking Back Our Spirits: Indigenous Literature, Public Policy and Healing.”
Jo-Ann’s research interests include Indigenous Literature as applied literatures, narrative medicine, narrative policy studies, and trauma studies. She is Co-Principal Investigator on several Operating Grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and Nominated Principal Investigator for a team awarded a Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation Health Research Group Grant. Her research primarily focuses on the role that arts can play in the health of Aboriginal youth; she is also involved in research that addresses respiratory health issues in First Nations communities.
Jo-Ann is strongly characterized by determination, humour, and her ability to rise to a challenge. She loves reading, the outdoors, and family. She and her husband, Clayton, who share their Regina home with granddaughter Paulina, together have a blended family of thirteen children and more than thirty grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Active in her community, Jo-Ann is a member of the Boards of Directors of the Aboriginal Health Research Network, the Lung Association of Saskatchewan, and the newly established Lung Health Institute of Canada, the University of Regina Press, and the Indigenous Literary Studies Association. She is also a member of the Regina Riel Métis Council.
In addition to directing IPHRC, Jo-Ann is an Associate Faculty in Kinesiology and Health Studies at the University of Regina and in the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy, and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology at the University of Saskatchewan.
Since 1981, YWCA Regina’s Women of Distinction Awards have celebrated women whose outstanding achievements contribute to the community and are an inspiration to others. Nominees in eleven award categories, in addition to Lifetime Achievement, will be introduced at a March 28 reception, and the awards presented at the 34th annual Gala on April 23rd. Nominations close on February 20. For more information about nominations or tickets, phone 306-525-2141 ext. 130.
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