Jennifer Lavalley

Jennifer Lavalley is a Nêhiyaw-Saulteaux Métis scholar from Regina, SK (Treaty 4 territory) and a registered member of Piapot First Nation. She currently resides in Vancouver, British Columbia (BC), located on the unceded and occupied territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-waututh Nations, where she has been working in qualitative and health research with Indigenous Peoples who use illicit drugs (IPWUID) in the Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside neighbourhood. Her research background concerns questions of substance use, harm reduction, resurgence, and Indigenous and decolonial methodologies. She is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Victoria at the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research and the Centre for Indigenous Research and Community-Led Engagement under the co-supervision of Drs. Bruce Wallace and Sarah Hunt. Jennifer’s postdoctoral research project seeks to characterize the needs and perspectives of IPWUID in accessing innovative drug checking technologies to develop Indigenous centered and culturally safe drug checking technologies and services.