The following message was sent by AINA. More information about the Arctic
Institute of North America can be found at the AINA website at:
http://www.ucalgary.ca/aina/
New AINA Executive Director
Karla Jessen Williamson will be the new Executive Director of the Arctic
Institute of North America effective September 15, 2000.
Karla Jessen Williamson was born in Appamiut, Greenland. She received her
primary education in Greenland and her high school education at Maribo
Gymnasium, Denmark.
After moving to Canada, Karla received Bachelor's and Master's degrees in
her third language, English, from the University of Saskatchewan. Her
Master's thesis dealt with Inuit child-rearing practices in Pangnirtung,
Nunavut as they relate to Inuit relationships with the land.
Karla is finishing her Ph.D. at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. Her
dissertation on gender relations in the post-colonial Greenland Inuit
community specifically examines how Inuit women gain status through
genderless empowerment. Karla has published a number of articles and edited
The Journal of Indigenous Studies. Before becoming the Executive Director of
the Arctic Institute of North America, she taught at the University of
Saskatchewan for sixteen years. Karla is happily married to Dr. Robert
Williamson, C.M., and is blessed with two children.
Inspired by Indigenous ways of knowing and their resilience, Karla Jessen
Williamson intends to stimulate the Arctic Institute of North America to
become the main centre from which to explore, build on, and share all
possible ways of knowing in the circumpolar Arctic and Subarctic areas.