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Network Governance Team

The Common Ground Network Governance Team includes a Coordinating team and Team Leaders.
A strong group of Research Assistants supports the network.

Coordinating Team

Project Director

Partnership Coordinator

Financials Coordinator

Karen Foster

Moe Garahan

Dani Salas González

Karen Foster
Moe Garahan
Dani Salas Gonzal
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Team Leaders

Name

Project Role(s)

.

Annette Desmarais

Annette Desmarais

Pillar Lead, People and Land
University of Manitoba

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Ryan Katz-Rosene

Pillar Lead, People and Land
University of Ottawa

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Jennifer Jarman

Jennifer Jarman

Pillar Lead, Rural and Urban Canada
Lakehead University

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Karen Foster

Karen Foster

Project Director
Pillar Lead – Rural and Urban Canada
Dalhousie University

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Gregory Cameron

Gregory Cameron

Pillar Lead – Canada and the World
Dalhousie University

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Dr. Monika Korzun

Monika Korzun

Pillar Lead – Canada and the World
Lead – Evaluation Team
St. Thomas University

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Charles Levkoe

Charles Levkoe

Pillar Lead – People in/and The Food System
Lakehead University

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Kathleen Kevany

Kathleen Kevany

Pillar Lead – People in/and The Food System
Dalhousie University

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Sherry Pictou

Sherry Pictou

Lead – Atlantic Indigenous Circle
Mi’kmaq First Nation
Dalhousie University

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Brian Noble

Brian Noble

Supporting Role – Atlantic Indigenous Circle
Dalhousie University

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Constance MacIntosh

Constance MacIntosh

Supporting Role – Atlantic Indigenous Circle
Indigenous Circle Facilitator & Policy Analyst

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Research Assistants

Name

Project Role(s)

About
Our Work
Team
Members Only

Project Host:
Dalhousie University
Halifax, Nova Scotia

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© 2024 Common Ground Network. All rights reserved.

Karen Foster

Karen Foster

Karen.Foster@Dal.Ca

Dr. Karen Foster is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Dalhousie University and holds the Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Sustainable Rural Futures for Atlantic Canada. She is the Associate Dean of Research in Dalhousie’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Her current research focus is an Insight-funded study of occupational succession in rural Atlantic Canada, which includes many farms, fishers and food businesses. She is also a co-investigator on the Work-Life in Canada project and leads the rural families component of the national Reimagining Care/Work partnership grant.

Moe Garahan

Moe Garahan

moe@justfood.ca

Moe Garahan has been working on food and farming issues since 1995. Focused on community development and community economic development approaches, she has facilitated the establishment of many ongoing community and regional food initiatives, (including Just Food) while supporting provincial and coast-to-coast-to-coast food systems change (presently includes Sustain Ontario, Food Communities Network and Common Ground Network). Since 2004, she has been the Executive Director of Just Food, working with teams to integrate food access and food localism within the mixed urban and rural settings of the Algonquin/Ottawa region.

Dani Salas Gonzal

Dani Salas González

Daniel.Salas@dal.ca

Daniel Salas is a project manager supporting social research initiatives at Dalhousie University. He holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from Dalhousie University, where his dissertation explored the politics of value in agricultural communities in contemporary rural Cuba. He has also earned an MA in Cuban cultural processes from the University of the Arts of Cuba and a BA in Journalism from the University of Havana. Daniel lives in Kjipuktuk / Halifax, NS.

Annette Desmarais

Annette Desmarais

Annette Aurélie Desmarais (former farmer and PhD in Geography) was Canada Research Chair in Human Rights, Social Justice and Food Sovereignty (2013-2023) at the University of Manitoba where she is currently Professor Emerita. She gained international recognition for her work on food sovereignty and the politics of the transnational agrarian movement, Vía Campesina. Desmarais has co-edited three books on food sovereignty, edited a book on the National Farmers Union of Canada, and co-authored various academic contributions examining the gender dimensions of agriculture and rural social movements, including a major participatory study examining women farmers’ participation in Canadian agricultural policy. Since 2014, she began addressing the ‘land question’ in Canada by leading a team of researchers to investigate changing land tenure patterns on the prairies (www.landfoodsovereignty.ca). With years of experience in participatory action research, her key areas of research are agrarian change, food systems transformation, peasant and farmers’ movements, gender rural dynamics, and the land question. She is currently president of the National Farmers Foundation.

Ryan Katz-Rosene

Ryan Katz-Rosene is an Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa, based in the School of Political Studies and affiliated with the Institute of Environment. His research focuses on a range of climate policy debates, examining their political economic, ecological, and discursive dimensions. His interests in sustainable agriculture largely revolve around questions of meat, livestock, protein foods, and their interrelations with land use and climate change. His work in this area has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as World Development, Nature Communications Earth Environment, and Canadian Food Studies. He served as the principal investigator on a project examining the Future of Sustainable Protein and co-edited (with Dr. Sarah Martin) Green Meat? Sustaining Eaters, Animals, and the Planet (McGill-Queen’s, 2020). He is the former President of the Environmental Studies Association of Canada and a co-host and developer of the Ecopolitics Podcast.

Jennifer Jarman

Jennifer Jarman

jjarman@lakeheadu.ca

Jennifer Jarman is a Full Professor, Assistant Dean of Lakehead University’s Social Sciences and Humanities Faculty, and Chair of Lakehead’s Interdisciplinary  Department.  A sociologist with a deep interest in problems and issues arising from social inequality, she writes, teaches, and researches in the areas of work, economy, poverty, and their intersections with law.  She has written and edited numerous books and articles, the latest of which is The Right to be Rural, (co-edited with Karen Foster and published by the University of Alberta Press).  She is also a Board Member of The Sharing Place, Orillia’s food bank.  She holds a PhD in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University.

Gregory Cameron

Gregory Cameron

gregory.cameron@dal.ca

Greg Cameron received his doctorate from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London in 2002. Prior to joining Dalhousie’s Faculty of Agriculture in 2006, he taught political science at the University of Asmara, Eritrea in northeast Africa for over 4 years, from 2002-2006. During the late 1980s and a good part of the 1990s, he worked and researched in Tanzania.

His research interests include rural policy, co-operatives, food security, the developmental state, and democratization transitions in the Global South. He is also interested in global trends in trade and governance practices, and in the Canadian context, the prospects for more localized and community controlled food systems.

Dr. Monika Korzun

Monika Korzun

mkorzun@stu.ca

Dr. Monika Korzun is an Assistant Professor in the Environment and Society program at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Before joining St. Thomas University, Dr. Korzun completed two postdoctoral fellowships, one at Dalhousie University where she focused on social sustainability in the agri-food industry and one at Saint Paul University where she explored the relationship between food security and collaborative food systems governance. Dr. Korzun holds a PhD in Rural Studies from University of Guelph, an MA in Development Studies from York University, and an Honour BA in Sociology from University of Toronto. In addition to working in academia, Dr. Korzun has several years of experience working in the private and not-for-profit sectors, including Food Secure Canada and the Food Communities Network.

Charles Levkoe

Charles Levkoe

clevkoe@lakeheadu.ca

Charles Levkoe is the Canada Research Chair in Equitable and Sustainable Food Systems, a Member of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada, Director of the Sustainable Food Systems Lab, and a Professor in the Department of Health Sciences at Lakehead University. His community-engaged research uses a food systems lens to better understand the importance of, and connections between social justice, ecological regeneration, regional economies, and active democratic engagement. Working with scholars and practitioners across Canada, Indigenous Territories, and around the world, Dr. Levkoe studies the evolution of intersectoral networks building more equitable and sustainable futures. https://foodsystems.lakeheadu.ca/

Kathleen Kevany

Kathleen Kevany

kkevany@dal.ca

Dr. Kathleen Kevany is a social psychologist and specializes in systems analysis for individual and shared well-being. She is a leading authority on food systems to support human, animal, and planetary health and she has co-edited the world’s definitive guide on actions for sustainable diets. As a certified Psychotherapist, for over a decade she ran her own counselling and consulting firm, the Decentralization Intelligence Agency. Kathleen is a Professor with Dalhousie’s Faculty of Agriculture where she advances the global Sustainable Development Goals and Canada’s calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. She is a geek for the creative and courageous social and applied sciences, and she leverages the most promising strategies to aid in adapting to, while focusing on reversing, global warming and accelerating the adoption of life patterns that protect well-being, prioritize equity, and position the rights of future generations at the forefront.

Sherry Pictou

Sherry Pictou

Dr. Sherry Pictou is a Mi’kmaw woman from L’sɨtkuk (water cuts through high rocks) known as Bear River First Nation, Nova Scotia where she lived most of her life. She is an accomplished Associate Professor in the Faculties of Law and Management at Dalhousie University. Holding a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair (CRC) position in Indigenous Governance, Dr. Pictou is highly revered in academia and beyond.

With an extensive background in community, she also served as an Assistant Professor in the Women’s Studies Department at Mount Saint Vincent University with a focus on Indigenous Feminism (2017-2020). Currently, she holds the title of Honorary District Chief for the Confederacy of Mainland Mi’kmaq (CMM). Her leadership roles also include being a former chief for her community and the former Co-Chair of the World Forum of Fisher Peoples.

Dr. Pictou’s contributions extend beyond academia; she served on the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Task Force on Indigenous and Local Knowledge. Recognized for her significant achievements, she was awarded a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Governance (2021–2026).

Her research focus addresses the under-representation of Indigenous women in governance and decision-making processes, particularly in the context of natural resources as evidenced by “Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (2019).” By collaborating with Indigenous women, her work generates a gender-based analysis from an Indigenous perspective, contributing to Indigenous and non-Indigenous governance practices. Her research builds on a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Engage Grant with KAIROS which was entitled “Building Indigenous–academic–not-for-profit relations for mobilizing research knowledge on the gendered impacts of resource extraction in Indigenous communities in Canada” and involved a digital storytelling project to be hosted on the Mother Earth and Resource Extraction Hub and a final report about a gathering of Wolastoqiyik and Mi’kmaq Grandmothers and Land Defenders and their insights on resource extraction’s impacts on gender.

Brian Noble

Brian Noble

Brian Noble is an Associate Professor in Dalhousie University’s Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, located in the unsurrendered territories of the Mi’kmaw People. He has collaborated extensively with Canadian First Nations peoples and activists on practices of decolonization in settler state / Indigenous peoples’ relations for the last two decades, addressing matters ranging from Indigenous knowledges and intellectual and cultural property rights to relations with the Canadian state and international regimes of law. He has worked in partnership with Piikani Blackfoot, Secwepemc, Kwakwka’awakw, and Mi’kmaq communities. As a settler Canadian anthropologist of European descent, his aim is to engage deeply and respectfully with Indigenous peoples, in their lands, by their understandings, histories, practices, their laws and territorial authority, so as to learn, as peoples, how best to live well together, and to co-create livable futures. This demands a continual reflecting upon and reconfiguring of our own ways of relating — that is also to take up the action of decolonizing ourselves.

His current anthropological research addresses issues of our present etho-ecological moment, and the sociopolitical conditions allowing for redress of political relations between First Nations and Canada within that milieu, the rise of Indigenous law, and the processes both animating and empowering Indigenous land, resource, and knowledge rights in rapidly shifting state and global arenas, and in response to local and worldwide environmental crises. He also works in the anthropology of science and techniques, alternative economies, and on diverse practices of human/animal human/non-human relationality.

Constance MacIntosh

Constance MacIntosh

Constance MacIntosh is a Professor of Law at the Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University. She has long worked in health law and policy, with a particular focus on Indigenous food and water security, and Indigenous health governance. Along with having directed Dalhousie’s Health Justice Institute and served as Acting Director for the MacEachen Institute for Public Policy and Governance, she has worked on various expert policy bodies on both regional and national levels.