Research Unit

• Policy and Ecosystem Restoration in Fisheries (PERF)

Biography

Dr. Mimi E. Lam is a Research Associate at the UBC Fisheries Centre in the Policy and Ecosystem Restoration in Fisheries research group and an Associate of the UBC Centre for the Study of Human Evolution, Cognition, and Culture.  She researches the human dimensions of fisheries, articulating socio-economic and cultural values in science and policy as an application of her theoretical research in the evolution of human cognition and behaviour.  As an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of New Mexico, Department of Biology, she collaborates with indigenous colleagues to research human learning and knowledge transfer in culturally responsive curricular design, traditional ecological knowledge, and sense of place.

Mimi serves on both academic and community organizations, locally and internationally.  She is identifying pathways to connect western and indigenous science as Ecological Society of America (ESA) Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) Section Chair, ESA Education and Human Resources Committee Diversity Representative, and an Inner Circle member of the SEED Graduate Institute Language of Spirit Dialogues.  Active in cultural revitalization initiatives, she is a contributing member of the Indigenous Education Institute International Advisory Council, American Indian & Alaska Native Climate Change Working Group, and Vancouver Chinatown Society Heritage Building Association.  She is profiled in the ESA Focus on Ecologists series for her efforts to enhance diversity in ecology.

A Senior Fellow of the Environmental Leadership Program, Mimi explores sustainability of social-ecological systems in issues of conservation, environmental justice, and social equity by participating in the Global Ecological Integrity Group and Natural History Network.  With a Marine Conservation Initiative grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, she is co-editing a Special Feature for Ecology and Society, entitled The Privilege to Fish.  She is currently collaborating with an interdisciplinary research team investigating how to value the human dimensions of fisheries through a UBC Martha Piper Research Fund grant and contributing to a UBC Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies project exploring the historical reconstruction of the Salish Sea, with an aim to design future policies capable of restoring the local marine ecosystem and adjacent human communities through natural and social sciences research and public engagement.