Past students who made the HGIS Lab their home
Arya Adityan (Society and Culture, IIT Gandhinagar) pursued an undergraduate degree from Mount Carmel College, Bangalore in the Humanities and Social Sciences and is currently pursuing Masters in Society and Culture from the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar. Her research interests lies in South Asian studies. She loves traveling and is an avid follower of tennis.
Simran Anand is a student of Political science and Economics at Ramjas College, University of Delhi, India. She wishes to pursue her career in public policy and is intuitively passionate about gender equality, child rights and youth activism. She is currently working under Professor Benjamin Hoy, at University of Saskatchewan as a research assistant and also involved with UNESCO as a research fellow.
My research examines the development of Chinese typographical printing undertaken by American Protestant missionary printers in nineteenth century Shanghai. I traces how this technology spread across East Asia and contributed to the production of vernacular language books in China and Japan. I combine archival sources with GIS research methods to identify and trace the global movement of missionaries, books, and print technology.
My research focuses on Jewish-Indigenous relations in the post-Confederation era. Specifically, it explores the interactions between Jewish settlers of the Lipton Colony, and Métis and First Nations communities in the File Hills region, north of the Qu'Appelle Valley at the turn of the twentieth century.
My thesis focuses on the history of the transnational mobility of Indigenous peoples in the Alberta-Saskatchewan-Montana region. Utilizing Historical Geographic Information Systems (HGIS) software with statistical data compiled by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and local newspaper accounts, I will visually trace the cross-border movement of Chippewa-Cree (Ne Hiyawak) individuals. My work will also reveal larger trends regarding the application of state power over Indigenous lives, and highlight the ways in which Chippewa-Cree communities navigated federal systems that simplified notions of land, citizenship, and belonging.
Danika entered the Masters program at the University of Saskatchewan in the Fall of 2016. She previously worked as an undergraduate research assistant at the HGIS lab while completing the last year of her Honours degree in history. Her Masters research will focus on the nutritional history of the Northeast of England during the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries.
Meagan is currently working on her B.A. in History at the University of Saskatchewan, in addition to working as an undergraduate research assistant. After obtaining her degree, Meagan plans to pursue graduate studies in World War II and Genocide Studies.
He is finishing a Bachelor Degree in Anthropology at National University of Colombia. His background research is related to Archaeology, Curatorship and Museology. He is a MITACS Globalink Research Intern and He is working in HGIS Lab in the Project 'Exploring History with Augmented Reality' creating VR Environments, 3D modeling and GIS-Media maps of some networking commodities places in Canada and England during the first decades of 20th Century. His Bachelor Thesis is related with use of Technologies to recreate historical/archaeological sites in VR/AR Environments (and other tools) and make simulations how these sites could have been in the past. He aims to pursue a Master's/Ph.D Degree in the future.
Christiana Cameron is entering her fifth year in LLB Scots Law and European Legal Studies at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. She plans to complete her diploma of legal practice in order to become a solicitor in human rights or international law.
Patrick is a Ph.D. candidate studying environmental history in Guatemala. He graduated with an M.A. in history from the University of Victoria in 2007. He documented the short-lived Scottish colony established in the Darien Gap between Panama and Columbia at the turn of the 18th century. This project was his first exploration of themes that continue to guide his work, including environment, ideas about food, and indigenous issues in Latin America. In 2008, Patrick travelled to Guatemala as a CIDA intern. He lived in remote a Kaqchikel community, teaching History and English and harvesting corn and tomatoes in his spare time. In 2010, he spent several months learning about organic coffee production from the CCDA, an indigenous-campesino group advocating for sustainable agriculture. Patrick began his Ph.D. in 2010. His dissertation explores the environmental and social consequences of the industrialization of agriculture in Guatemala. His case study is the Pacific Coast cotton boom, 1949-1980. He is using historical GIS techniques, maps and records from the agrarian reform (1952-1954) and census data to reconstruct land use and displacement in this understudied region. He is a member of the Sustainable Farming Systems (SFS) project based at the University of Saskatchewan. In May 2014 Patrick will be undertaking a research sojourn to work with SFS partners at Pablo de Olavide University in Sevilla.
Himanshu Chuahan (Chemical Engineering, IIT Gandhinagar) is an undergraduate student at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar. Himanshu's work on the Building Borders Project focused on digital mapping and utilizing Optical Character Recognition to enhance existing data entry approaches.
Jessica graduated from the University of Rochester with her M.A. in History in May 2011. Jessica’s Masters Thesis is entitled “A Convergence of Recreational and Conservation Ideals: The Cook Forest State Park Campaign, 1910-1928,” and discusses the connection of the Cook Forest campaign to national conservation and state park trends. Jessica began the PhD program in the Department of History at the University of Saskatchewan in September 2011. She passed her comprehensive exams in October 2012. She is currently working on her dissertation, a comparative study of provincial and state parks, which defines the unique role that these park “middlemen” play in North American society. Jessica is learning GIS methods as a research assistant in the HGIS Lab. She works on contract mapping, historical map digitizing, GIS quality control and other lab projects. She is also the webmaster and communication director for the lab and the Sustainable Farm Systems project.
Andrew earned an M.Sc. in geography at the University of Saskatchewan in 2000, then taught a wide range of geography courses at the University of Manitoba before returning to Saskatoon for his doctoral program. Beginning in 2007, Andrew worked as a research assistant in the HGIS Lab and contributed significantly to the Great Plains Population and Environment Project. Andrew successfully defended his PhD dissertation, “Progress, Crisis, and Stability: Making the Northwest Plains Agricultural Landscape,” in December 2014. His research involved digitizing historical aerial photographs of agricultural landscapes on either side of the Canada-U.S. border to trace land use change during the twentieth century. Andrew is now Director, Community Outreach and Engagement at the University of Saskatchewan.
Katherine Faryna received a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from the University of Alberta in 2007 and is about to enter her second year of Law at the University of Saskatchewan. She is keenly interested in the evolution of Canada's justice system and its historical treatment of women and Indigenous persons.
Sam is in her final year of her Juris Doctor at the Usask College of Law. She also has a Bachelor of Commerce in Finance from the Edward School of Business. Upon completion of her JD, Sam hopes to practice intellectual property and business law in Vancouver.
Eden is in the final year of her Juris Doctor at the USask College of Law. She has a background in non-profit communications and conservation, with a current academic focus on the human rights applications of Indigenous-led land management techniques. Eden’s free time is spent travelling, meeting new people, and working to make the world a better place.
Ana Gibson is a third year History and English student at Durham University. She plans to do an MA in United States history.
Alice successfully defended her M.A. thesis, entitled “Women Before the Kirk: Godly Discipline in Canongate [Scotland], 1640-1650,” in 2009. After a stint as a professional historical researcher she began the Ph.D. program at the University of Guelph in 2012, where she plans to undertake a historical GIS analysis of early modern Scotland for her dissertation. While at the HGIS Lab Alice contributed to several projects, including Rethinking the Dust Bowl and the 1936-37 Wind Erosion Maps.
John successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation, entitled “Persistent Mirage: How the ‘Great American Desert’ Buries Great Plains Indian Environmental History,” in 2011. He used historical GIS methods to reconstruct in fine detail the routes of European and American explorers, travelers, and traders who crossed the central Great Plains before 1830.
Mariana Martinez Guevara is currently undertaking a BA in English (honours) and Psychology at the University of Saskatchewan. As part of the Justice Across Borders project she catalogued information about the Prince Albert penitentiary (prisoner treatment, labor, prison escapes), wrote documentation, and transcribed more than a thousand pages of extradition records.
Tenille Holm is currently working on her BA in History with a minor in English and a German recognition. Over the summer she is working as an undergrad research assistant in the HGIS lab. After she graduates she intends to pursue an MA in Archival Studies.
Erin Isaac completed her B.A. with Honours in History from the University of Saskatchewan. She is beginning a Master’s degree at the University of New Brunswick beginning in the fall of 2018. Erin worked on the Building Borders project over the summer of 2017.
Anne graduated with a M.A. from the University of Oulu, Finland in 2012, where she specialized in intercultural education and history. Her thesis examined representations of land, treaties, and settlement in Canadian history textbooks. Having passed her Ph.D. comprehensive exams in October 2013, she is now working on her dissertation, which focuses on nineteenth- and twentieth-century land use in Ontario as it relates to Indigenous communities. Using case studies focused on logging, agriculture, and park creation, her dissertation explores the ways in which Indigenous individuals and communities have drawn on, and adjusted, practices and livelihoods as a result of government- and industry-driven changes in land use, both on reserve and within broader ancestral territories. In the Historical GIS Lab, Anne works on digitizing historical maps and contract mapping.
Mudit is Undergrad pursuing his Computer Science Engineering with Specialization in Big Data Analytics from India, His current work involves Exploring History with the help of 3D reconstruction, Augmented/Virtual Reality. He's a MITACS GRI intern at USask, and is working with HGIS for the summer and is also Select Associate with Harvard Business Review Ascend. Other Interests include Hiking, Swimming and App Development.
My project examines the transmission of geographic knowledge from the Niimpipuuu, Mandan-Hidatsa, and Chinookan peoples to the Lewis and Clark expedition between 1804 and 1806. My research features the perspectives of expedition members and Indigenous people on issues of diplomacy and trade, social customs, and cultural practices.
My research will explore how the Canadian uranium industry was created to fuel American nuclear weapons production, and what that weapons production looked like. My thesis will argue that the American nuclear weapons program formed a transnational supply chain stretching from uranium mines in northern Saskatchewan to testing sites in the South Pacific.
Laura Larsen is a PhD Candidate in the Department of History at the University of Saskatchewan. Her dissertation explores rail rationalization and agricultural policy under the Trudeau government. It focuses on the tensions between government, farmers, grain companies, and railways created by attempts to modernize the grain handling and transportation system as well as the substantial changes to the underlying structure of prairie agriculture caused by these changes. In the HGIS Lab, Laura works on historical map digitizing and other contract mapping projects. She will also be working for the Sustainable Farm Systems project this upcoming year.
Elise was an undergraduate research assistant in the HGIS Lab and also worked in the Education Library on campus. Elise is now attending the University of Alberta and is working on a Master of Library and Information Studies.
Chris completed his M.A. at the University of Calgary in 2012. His thesis examined a decade of intertribal warfare in the borderlands of northern Montana and southern Alberta in the 1880s involving the Kainai (Blood Tribe) of the Blackfoot Confederacy and the A’aninin (Gros Ventre) and Nakoda (Assiniboine) of Fort Belknap. It explored the influence of environmental alteration in the continuity of equestrian and warrior culture as well as the interaction between the Canadian federal state-in the form of the North West Mounted Police and the local level of the Department of Indian Affairs (DIA)- and First Nations peoples in the early reserve era (1876-1900). His research interests include U.S.-Canadian borderlands history in the Great Plains region, comparative U.S.-Canadian Western history, Native-newcomer relations on the Great Plains, Aboriginal farming and ranching, and the development of law enforcement and the legal system in the Canadian West. He is currently engaged in coursework in preparation for comprehensive exams. He is a member of the Sustainable Farms Systems Great Plains team for 2014-2015.
Katherine McPhee is currently in her final year of an History Honours degree as well as working as an undergrad research assistant at the HGIS lab. She enjoys studying late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century British medical and social history. After completing her degree, Katherine aims to pursue a Masters degree in history.
Christina is working on her undergraduate in International Studies with a minor in Economics at the University of Saskatchewan. She is passionate about social and planetary welfare and can often be found reading, climbing, or eating a good dark chocolate.
Diana is currently studying Geography at the University of Cauca (Colombia). She is very interested in cartography and in the study of ecofeminist theories. She is currently doing a three month research internship at HGIS Lab working on the project "Exploring history with augmented reality" where she has been developing animated and interactive maps.
Oskar Peterson is an undergraduate student in the International Studies program at the University of Saskatchewan. His main interests of study are colonial history, military history, peace and conflict resolution studies, and the use of media to facilitate universal liberation and decolonization.
Louis worked as undergraduate research assistant at the HGIS Lab. Louis is now working towards his Masters degree in History at the University of Calgary.
María is currently finishing her bachelor's degree in International Relations and Political Studies in Bogotá, Colombia. Her areas of research interest are philosophy and conceptual history, international history and Public International Law. Her participation in the Justice Across Borders project has focused on the formal extradition process between the United States and Canada in the first half of the 20th century.
Kathryn Sawatzky is a fourth year International Studies student at the University of Saskatchewan, pursuing a Political Studies minor and a Certificate in Spanish Language and Culture. She plans to work toward an MA in International Development in the future.
Lucas Schultz recently completed a bachelor’s degree in history at the University of Saskatchewan. During his time working in the historical GIS lab, he has primarily focused upon the creation and maintenance of supplementary datasets constructed from Saskatchewan’s prison registers.
Olha Sotska is an undergraduate student at Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute in Ukraine who is doing an internship in Canada as a part of Mitacs Globalink program. She is working in the HGIS Lab on Justice Across Borders project, being involved in digitizing federal reports, historical correspondence, and diplomatic records created by Britain, Canada and the United States between 1860 and 1920, mapping this information and contributing to the creation of a database based on British and American extradition reports.
Michael became an MSc in the department of Bioresource Policy, Business and Economics in the spring of 2013. He was previously the manager of the Canadian Rural Economy Research Lab (C-RERL) and an employee of GIServices – both at the University of Saskatchewan. He worked with the staff of the HGIS Lab from 2008 to 2014 helping with a variety of GIS projects and providing IT support. Michael worked extensively on the Breeding Bird Survey project and provided quality control for the 1936-37 Wind Erosion Maps. Michael is now employed by Map of Agriculture as a GIS and investment analyst in Banbury, England.
Punya is a Master's student currently enrolled at the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar. Her thesis involves the study of neo-colonialism and its impact on policy development & the ban on ivory in India. She is also interested in studying the interactions between people and Visual History and in the development of pedagogical techniques required to make history more accessible and enjoyable to the masses.
Louis Taylor is currently undertaking a BA in Geography at the University of Durham, where he is also co-president of the Geographical Society. His research interests include bordering practices, climate adaptation of urban areas and utilizing GIS methods. Louis aims to pursue a Master's degree in the future.
Matt successfully defended his M.A. thesis, entitled “Now May Be Heard a Discouraging Word: The Impact of Climate Fluctuation on Texas Ranching in the 1880s,” in 2010. Click here for an abstract. He worked as a research assistant on a variety of HGIS Lab projects, including the 1936-37 Wind Erosion Maps, the Métis Traditional Land Use project, and Glacier Map digitizing.
Gina worked as a research assistant in the HGIS Lab during most of her undergraduate career, contributing to a variety of projects, including Rethinking the Dust Bowl, the 1936-37 Wind Erosion Maps, the Métis Traditional Land Use project, the Kansas Grassland Settlement project, and many others. Gina graduated from the University of Saskatchewan with a double honours degree in 2012 (History and Political Studies).
Cheryl completed her M.A. in Native Studies at the University of Saskatchewan in 2009. She hired the Historical GIS Lab to design and prepare several maps for her thesis, entitled “Métis Women: Social Structure, Urbanization and Political Activism, 1850-1980.” Click here for an abstract. She began the Ph.D. program in History in 2012, exploring Métis women’s “road allowance” gardening in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Cheryl successfully passed her Comprehensive Exams in October 2013.
My research focus on the aftermath of the First World War. Canadians across the country mourned their lost friends and family members. Meanwhile, grand memorials were being constructed overseas to commemorate the war dead. My thesis examines how communities in South Saskatchewan remembered and mourned their lost loved ones, from small local projects to large international efforts.
Justin worked in the lab during the second year of his M.A. program in the Department of History at the University of Saskatchewan. His research focuses on the ways in which science and exploration were used during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in the development of Britain’s empire in the Pacific.
Kevin is currently working on his BA in History at the University of Saskatchewan as well as working as undergraduate research assistant at the HGIS Lab. Upon completion of his BA, Kevin aims to pursue a Ph.D. in American History at a cold climate grad school in the United States.
Caitlin (they/them) is a current M.A. student at the University of Saskatchewan. Their MA project focuses on the historical socio-cultural production and reproduction of masculinities in the timber industry and how the changing labour regimes in the Ottawa Valley, caused by Britain's demand for Canadian timber, impacted gender and family dynamics in the latter half of the 19th century.
