2026 Technoscience Salon Series: Dr. Jessica Kolopenuk & Dr. Ricky W. Smith

The 2025-26 Technoscience Salon Series :: Ethical Grounds is excited to host Dr. Jessica Kolopenuk (University of Alberta) and Dr. Ricky W. Smith (George Mason University).

As part of this years series "Ethical Grounds," we are exploring how Indigenous Science is taking the lead in developing methods of Indigenous research suited to data and computationally-driven research conditions, shifting environmental regulations and needs, and transforming scientific policies, protocols, and practices.

Dr. Jessica Kolopenuk (Ininiw/Cree, Peguis First Nation) is an Associate Professor and the Alberta Health Services Research Chair in Indigenous Health at the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry. Her research and policy leadership advance Indigenous governance, data sovereignty, and self-determination in science, health, and genomics. Drawing on critical Indigenous theory, her work interrogates how power operates through scientific and health research, while creating pathways for Indigenous peoples to lead and transform these fields. Dr. Kolopenuk co-founded the Indigenous Science, Technology, and Society (Indigenous STS) research and training program and the Summer internship for INdigenous peoples in Genomics Canada (SING Canada).

Dr. Ricky W. Smith is a biocultural anthropologist working at the intersections of genomics and Science and Technology Studies (STS). He completed his Ph.D. in 2017 at the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to joining the faculty at Geroge Mason University, he completed a three year postdoctoral fellowship with the Neukom Institute for Computational Science and the Department of Anthropology at Dartmouth College. In addition to working within the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Mason, he is affiliated with the Women and Gender Studies program and is the director of the Science and Society Research Hub within the Center for Social Science Research.

This event is hosted by the Technoscience Research Unit. The Technoscience Research Unit is an Indigenous-led home for critical and creative research on the politics of technoscience at the University of Toronto. The TRU draws together social justice approaches to Science and Technology Studies from across the university with an emphasis on Indigenous, feminist, queer, environmental, anti-racist and anti-colonial scholarship.

Learn more at: https://www.technoscienceresearchunit.org/salon

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Host or Publisher Technoscience Research Unit