Leslie King, PhD - School of Environment and Sustainability

Topics

• Protected areas and poverty reduction
• Sustainable healthy communities
• Arctic sustainability indicators
• Aboriginal resource management, traditional ecological knowledge
• Environmental governance, institutional dimensions of global environmental change

Leslie King has held a variety of senior academic positions, including vice-president academic at Vancouver Island University; founding dean of the Clayton H. Riddell Faculty of Environment, Earth, and Resources at the University of Manitoba; founding chair of the environmental program at the University of Northern British Columbia and chair of university's Northwest Region.

King is a graduate of the University of British Columbia and York University, one of Canada's first universities to establish a faculty of environmental studies. She earned a master of environmental studies degree at York before moving to the London School of Economics, where she completed her PhD in 1983. King was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to Zimbabwe in 1991-92 and has filled academic positions at Yale University, University of Pennsylvania, St. Lawrence University and the University of Vermont.

King has worked closely with communities and First Nations in Canada and the U.S. and is dedicated to exploring more effective models of environmental and aboriginal education. Her research focuses on environment and development in the Arctic, Africa and First Nations communities in Canada. Her research topics have included environmental governance, sustainable healthy communities, Arctic sustainability indicators, aboriginal resource management and the institutional dimensions of global environmental change.

King has served on a range of national and international environmental organizations and has demonstrated her commitment to interdisciplinary environmental research and programming, which has resulted in many invitations as a conference speaker. She has served on several boards including the Arctic Research Consortium of the U.S., the Lake Champlain Committee, Centre for Northern Studies, the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, International Polar Year, Alianza, and ROKPA Canada. In Vermont, she was instrumental in designing and implementing a marine science and education centre on Lake Champlain. She serves on the environmental advisory boards of Simon Fraser and Royal Roads universities and is the director of the Canadian Centre for Environmental Education.

Associations

• University of Victoria, adjunct professor
• Dartmouth College, adjunct professor
• University of Manitoba, adjunct professor
• Vancouver Island University, honorary research fellow
• Simon Fraser University, Faculty of Environment, advisory board
• University of the Arctic, council member
• Alianza, board member
• Arctic Research Consortium of the U.S., executive member of the board
• Canadian Association for Studies in Development
• Churchill Centre for Northern Studies
• Canadian Institute of Planners
• The Society for Conservation Biology
• Environmental Studies Association of Canada
• International Polar Year, executive member of the board
• ROKPA Canada and ROKPA International, board member
• Nanaimo Science and Sustainability Centre, advisory board member

Media queries for staff and faculty should be directed to Doug Ozeroff in Community Relations and Advancement, 250-391-2526. For other queries, contact Leslie King directly.