Traditional-plant researcher wins $225,000 for studies

University of Victoria ethnobotanist Nancy Turner will receive $225,000 over the next three years to study traditional plant use by First Nations groups, especially those in the western part of North America.

Turner’s research will look at ethnobotany and ethnoecology as a means of supporting indigenous land claims.

She is one of five Canadian scholars to receive a 2015 research fellowship from the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, an independent and non-partisan charity established in 2001 in memory of the former prime minister.

It was endowed in 2002 by the federal government with the Advanced Research in the Humanities and Human Sciences Fund, and also receives private donations.

Turner, who is retiring as a professor next July after 25 years at UVic, called the fellowship “a really special honour.”

“It’s kind of a nice culmination of my work here at UVic,” Turner said. “I’ve just loved this work. I’ve taught lots of courses and had a lot of graduate students and a lot of collabora- UVic ethnobotanist Nancy Turner. tive research with First Nations.”

Previous UVic recipients include law professors Jeremy Webber (2009), John Borrows (2006) and Jim Tully (2003).

The Trudeau fellowships were created in 2003 to inspire originality and innovation in research that might not be funded in traditional ways. Winners are nominated by their peers, with selections being made by an independent panel.

Other recipients are Jocelyn Downie of Dalhousie University (assisted suicide and related issues), Bessma Momani of the University of Waterloo (Arab-Canadian youth), Rene Provost of McGill University (the possibility of armed rebels applying justice in areas of conflict) and Cleo Pascal of the Université de Montreal (the relationship between Canada and the IndoPacific region). All fellows receive $225,000 over the next three years.

Also earning recognition for their work at UVic are Joan MacLeod, Frank van Veggel and James O. Young, who have been named Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada.

They are among a group of 87 new fellows who will be inducted into the academies of the Royal Society of Canada during a Nov. 27 ceremony at the Empress Hotel.

MacLeod is in the department of writing and is one of Canada’s most celebrated playwrights; van Veggel is a chemist working in such areas as the study of microscopic nanoparticles in cancer diagnosis and therapy; and Young is a philosophy professor whose focus includes philosophy of both art and language.

The fellows are elected by their peers, with election considered the highest honour for a Canadian scholar in the arts, humanities and sciences.