Heather Castleden
Heather Evelyn Castleden is a Canadian geographer. Since 2021, she has been an Impact Chair in Transformative Governance for Planetary Health at the University of Victoria. She was previously the Canada Research Chair in Reconciling Relations for Health, Environments, and Communities at Queen's University at Kingston.
Early life and education
Castleden was born in 1970. She completed her Bachelor of Arts degree in anthropology and native studies at the University of Manitoba and her Master of Education and PhD at the University of Alberta. Throughout her doctorate studies, Castleden worked with Huu-ay-aht First Nations for her thesis "As sacred as cedar and salmon: a collaborative study with Huu-ay-aht First Nation, British Columbia into understanding the meaning of 'resources' from an Indigenous worldview." She subsequently shared her research with the HFN Chief and Councilors to assist with treaty negotiations, federal court cases, and the HFN Land-use planning Team.Career
Dalhousie University
Following her PhD, Castleden became a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Victoria before accepting a tenure-track academic position at Dalhousie University. As an assistant professor at Dalhousie, Castleden became one of the co-principal investigators for the Atlantic Aboriginal Health Research Program where she worked alongside Miꞌkmaq communities in Nova Scotia to address environmental health and social justice issues. As such, Castleden was also the 2010 recipient of the Julian M. Szeicz Award from the Canadian Association of Geographers as an early career geographer who showed research achievement and career potential. She received the award in recognition of her contribution to the geography of environment, health, and Indigenous community-based research. Beyond her work with the AAHRP, Castleden was awarded a Network for End of Life Studies Interdisciplinary Capacity Enhancement New Investigator award for her project "Traditional Stories of Death and Dying: Developing a Tool Kit for Aboriginal Palliative Care." She also taught graduate courses on Indigenous Peoples, natural resource issues, and research methods.Due to her relationship with the Miꞌkmaq community, Castleden received two grants in 2012 to work alongside the Pictou Landing First Nation Women's Association in researching the effects of pulp waste at Boat Harbour on the population. She later received a New Investigator Salary Award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to support her research as a "promising new researcher."