Emma Elliott-Groves, former FLAS fellow with the Center, is now a tenure-track faculty member with the College of Education.
Dr. Elliott-Groves is an assistant professor in the Department of Learning Sciences and Human Development in the College of Education. Her research centers on understanding the meanings and explanations of suicidal behavior from the perspective of Indigenous peoples. In her research, Dr. Elliott-Groves rigorously engages youth, families, and communities in the development of integrated behavioral health interventions to address complex social issues.
Dr. Elliott-Groves is an enrolled member of the Cowichan Tribes and from Duncan, British Columbia. She is currently partnering with her home community to design programming to strengthen the community’s physical, mental, intellectual, and cultural health. Using land as pedagogy, the project engages Cowichan elders, cultural knowledge keepers, community members, and their cultural stories to identify local systems of relationality that ensure individual and collective livelihoods. In doing so, the proposed research will identify power imbalances within contemporary relationships that illuminate community needs and thus, propose collective directions forward.
Dr. Elliott-Groves was a Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellow with the Canadian Studies Center in summer 2011 for the study of the French language.
From a recent interview Elliott-Groves describes what drew her to education: “Throughout my educational journey, there were very few stories that resonated with me. There were also very few teachers and mentors who looked like me. These experiences are what drew me to education and, as such, I am committed to being present as a First Nations’ faculty and mentor, as well as centering my own (Indigenous) knowledge systems in my work so that Indigenous students have access to stories that resonate with them and people that look like them.” For the complete interview, click here.
Dr. Elliott-Groves is also an affiliate faculty member with the Banks Center for Educational Justice, a new affiliate faculty with the Canadian Studies Center, and part of the advisory team for Dr. Patricia Johnston, 2020-22 Banting Postdoctoral Fellow.