Economics

Personal Statement and positionality

I am a PhD Student studying on the unceded territory of the lək̓ʷəŋən speaking peoples at the University of Victoria (Victoria, BC). I am a settler originally from Treaty 1 territory (Winnipeg, MB), who has lived and worked on and off in Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in territory (Dawson City, YT) since 2013.

Research Focus

My research focuses on the economies of Arctic and sub-Arctic North America. I work in the fields of development, environmental and labour economics.  My technical expertise lies in quantitative applied micro-econometrics and causal inference.

I am supervised by Dr. Rob Gillezeau (University of Victoria, BC) and Dr. Maggie Jones (Emory University, GA), who have expertise in Indigenous economics, economic history, labour economics, and public policy. 

Topics of interest

  • The interaction between labour markets and traditional economic activity
  • Climate change economics
  • Infrastructure changes
  • Community effects of resource extraction
  • Food prices and food security
  • Economic impacts on community health
  • Seasonal labour dynamics

Current projects

Labour market shocks and traditional economic activity in the Northwest Territories

This project investigates the impacts of labour demand shocks on traditional economic activity in the form of hunting, trapping, fishing, wild plant gathering and the creation of arts and crafts. It uses data from the Canadian Census and the Northwest Territories Community Survey. A Bartik style instrumental variable approach is used in a repeated cross section analysis to determine the causal impact of exogeneous labour demand on each of these areas of traditional economic activity.

Climate change, industry employment and traditional economic activity in Arctic and sub-Arctic  North America

This project seeks to understand how the short term weather variation and long run climate change impacts labour markets and traditional economic activity. Estimates of how weather and climate have impacted employment in different industries and the traditional economy in the past are paired with future climate models to project what impacts climate may have in the future. The study region is the Canadian Territories and Alaska.