Associate Professor of Geography Tyler McCreary, Ph.D., received a Community Engaged Research Partnership Award. This award recognizes tenured faculty who are interested in collaborating with community members to create relevant and impactful research.

This award, given for the first time in 2024, is a part of the Institutional Challenge Grant Program. It is funded by the William T. Grant Foundation, Doris Duke Foundation, and Spencer Foundation.
Dr. McCreary’s planned project is a collaboration with the Office of the Wet’suwet’en in British Columbia, Canada. This office advocates for the indigenous Wet’suwet’en people to Canadian governmental organizations.
Dr. McCreary has worked with the Wet’suwet’en community on various projects in the last decade, including research projects about pipeline development, public education, and regional planning. His book, Indigenous Legalities, Pipeline Viscosities addresses Wet’suwet’en resistance to pipeline development. This new project is centered around forest management and preservation of Wet’suwet’en land.
Currently, logging companies pose a threat to watershed health in Wet’suwet’en land. Dr. McCreary is interested in ensuring the natural resource technicians in the Office of the Wet’suwet’en have the data they need to address this issue. With the Community Engaged Research Partnership Award, he will help the office to attain the training and technology to use Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS).
“The power of capacity building holds a deeper context for the communities that participate in UAS training,” Dr. McCreary said. “It is not simply a skill, but a tool with which Indigenous communities can fight for land rights and title.”
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