Canadian Studies Announcements

In This Issue:

Program News

• New Hildebrand Fellow Jessica Jiang studies historical interactions between Indigenous and Chinese communities in the Pacific Northwest

• Reminder: Register to vote before April 22!

Upcoming Events

• Generating Sustainable Indigenous AI

Other Events

• Holloway Poetry Series: Cecily Nicholson

PROGRAM NEWS

New Hildebrand Fellow Jessica Jiang Studies Historical Interactions Between Indigenous and Chinese Communities in the Pacific Northwest

The Canadian Studies Program is pleased to announce Jessica Jiang as a recipient of an Edward E. Hildebrand Graduate Research Fellowship for Summer 2025.

Jessica is a PhD candidate in the Department of Ethnic Studies, with a designated emphasis in women, gender, and sexuality studies. Her research takes up the late-nineteenth-century Pacific Northwest borderlands as a site where Indigenous dispossession and Chinese exclusion emerged as intertwined processes through the building up of the Canada-US border. Examining encounters between Chinese migrants and Indigenous nations in the aftermath of the US Chinese Exclusion Act, her dissertation considers how seemingly minor instances of contact or border crossing had transnational policy implications, while the closing of the border in turn had intimate consequences for Indigenous and Chinese borderlands residents. Her Hildebrand Fellowship will provide support for her to conduct archival research in Victoria, Vancouver, and the British Columbia interior.

Jessica holds a BA in ethnic studies from Brown University. Her work has been published in Kalfou: A Journal of Comparative and Relational Ethnic Studies.

Reminder: Register to Vote Before April 22!

Canadian citizens resident abroad are eligible to vote by mail in the upcoming federal elections on April 28! To qualify, you must be over 18 years of age and have lived in Canada at some point in your life.

To receive a ballot from Elections Canada, Canadians abroad must apply in advance to be added to the International Register of Electors. Click here to register by April 22. If you have previously been added to the Register, you will automatically receive a ballot at the mailing address on file with Elections Canada.

For more information, visit www.elections.ca or contact the Consulate General of Canada – Consular Services at sfran@international.gc.ca or (415) 834-3180.

Vector image of Canadians with flags by Freepik.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Generating Sustainable Indigenous AI

Friday, April 11 | 4:00 pm | UC Berkeley | RSVP

Michael Running Wolf and Caroline Running Wolf, co-founders of First Languages AI Reality (FLAIR) will discuss their work to revitalize endangered Indigenous languages through artificial intelligence (AI) and immersive technology. The project is housed at Mila, Canada’s foremost AI research institute. FLAIR partners with multiple Indigenous communities across the Americas to drive the next chapter in Indigenous language reclamation. In addition, the project envisions a future where Indigenous people attain technological sovereignty while addressing data ownership issues and systemic barriers to Indigenous AI. Their work researching an automatic speech recognition system for highly polysynthetic languages has been recognized with multiple awards, including the 2024-25 The Tech for Global Good award and the Patrick J. McGovern AI for Humanity Prize.

About the Speakers

Michael Running Wolf (Northern Cheyenne and Lakota) was raised in a rural prairie village in Montana with intermittent water and electricity. Naturally, he has a Master of Science in computer science, was an engineer at Amazon’s Alexa, and former faculty at Northeastern University. Michael is an AI ethicist who envisions an Indigenous future where Indigenous communities, alongside reclaiming their languages, attain technological sovereignty while addressing data ownership and systemic barriers to Indigenous AI. He co-founded and is Board President of IndigiGenius, a nonprofit in the USA dedicated to increasing the representation of Indigenous people in computer science. Among other awards, Michael has received an MIT Solve Fellowship, the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, and the Centri Tech Social Justice Innovation Award. He is currently pursuing his PhD at McGill University.

Caroline Running Wolf, née Old Coyote (Crow) is a language activist and XR producer dedicated to supporting Indigenous languages and data sovereignty. Caroline serves on multiple advisory boards where she champions the inclusion of Indigenous knowledges. As co-author of the Indigenous Protocol and Artificial Intelligence Position Paper and in speaking engagements, Caroline is an advocate for Indigenous data sovereignty, data justice, and AI ethics. She co-founded and serves as treasurer of IndigiGenius. Her PhD research at the University of British Columbia partners with Kwakwaka’wakw communities and explores applications of immersive technologies (AR/VR/XR) and artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance Indigenous language and culture reclamation.

This event is cosponsored by the Language Revitalization Working Group.

If you require an accommodation to participate in this event, please let us know with as much advance notice as possible.

OTHER EVENTS

Holloway Poetry Series: Cecily Nicholson

Thurs., April 10 | 5:30 pm | 315 Wheeler Hall

The UC Berkeley Department of English invites you to a reading with this year’s Holloway Lecturer in the Practice of Poetry, Cecily Nicholson.

Cecily Nicholson is an assistant professor in the School of Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. She is the author of four poetry books, and her work has received awards including BC’s Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, the Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry, and the inaugural Phyllis Webb Memorial Reading Award from the Poetry in Canada Society. Her most recent work, Crowd Source, considers the diurnal movement of crows. Her poetry addresses issues of social and environmental justice, including the displacement of Black and Indigenous Canadians.

Canadian Studies Program

213 Philosophy Hall #2308

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