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Biography

Ashlee Cunsolo is an internationally recognized scholar and leader, who joined Acadia University in 2024 as the Provost and Vice-President Academic.

Before coming to Acadia, Ashlee was the Founding Vice-Provost of the Labrador Campus of Memorial University and the Founding Dean of the School of Arctic and Subarctic Studies, where she spent eight years working with Indigenous governments and leaders to create a new co-governed Northern Campus in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador. In this role, Ashlee worked with faculty, staff, students, Elders, and communities to: create Northern-led and Northern-focused undergraduate, graduate, and professional learning programs; expand Northern and Indigenous-led research in the region; create new policies and processes; hire faculty and staff; and grow infrastructure. During this time, Ashlee also acquired, created, and oversaw the Pye Centre for Northern Boreal Food Systems, an 80-acre research, education, and experimental farm focused on enhancing and expanding Northern food bases, food security, and food sovereignty in Labrador.

As a leader, Ashlee prioritizes institution-building, increasing EDI-AR and Indigenization throughout programming and policies, building university-community relationships, and creating innovative programs and structures to better meet the needs of students. In 2023, Ashlee received the Angela Hildyard Recognition Award for Emerging Leaders, presented annually by the Senior Women Academic Administrators Canada (SWAAC), in recognition of her influential leadership and her demonstrated ability to create transformational change and advance the mission of higher education in innovative and outstanding ways.

As a researcher, Dr. Cunsolo has been working for almost 20 years on community-based and community-led climate change and health research in the North and internationally. A former Canada Research Chair (Tier II) and an inaugural member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists (of which she is now Member Emeritus), Ashlee is internationally recognized for her groundbreaking work on climate change, mental health, and ecological grief, particularly in Labrador and across the North. She has served on multiple national and international advisory boards and task forces, including serving as the Co-Chair of the Canadian Council of Academies Future of Arctic Research report, an elected member of the Federal Task Force on Northern Post-Secondary Education, a contributing author to two chapters of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 6th Assessment Report, a Lead Author on Chapters in the Natural Resources Canada and the Health Canada Climate Change Assessment Reports, and a Commissioner for the Lancet Arctic Health Commission.

She is the author and editor of Mourning Nature: Hope at the Heart of Ecological Loss, a global compilation of loss and grief beyond the human. She prioritizes using visual media in research and science communication and is the Director and Producer of Attutauniujuk Nunami/Lament for the Land; the Producer of HERD: Inuit Voices on Caribou, and a featured researcher in the internationally award-winning film, The Magnitude of All Things. She is a regular contributor to print, audio, and visual media, and is releasing a 12-part podcast Second Nature: Living with Ecological Grief.

Ashlee obtained her PhD at the University of Guelph, before going to McGill University (2012) as a post-doctoral fellow, and then to Cape Breton University (2013) as a Canada Research Chair and Assistant Professor. In 2016 she moved to Memorial University, where she was promoted to associate professor and then full professor, and held progressive leadership roles as Director, Dean, and Vice-Provost.