Heather Simpson

About Heather

Heather Simpson is the Coordinator for the Office of Indigenization and a sessional faculty member at JIBC. Heather holds a Master of Arts in Leadership degree from Trinity Western University in a Business Specialization Stream. Heather has led a successful career in human service and education for nearly twenty years, with most of this time serving marginalized peoples and communities, specifically, peoples with disabilities and Indigenous Peoples.

Headshot of Heather Simpson.

Forming Strong Cultural Identities in an Intersecting Space of Indigeneity and Autism

The Justice Institute of BC and BCcampus have had a wonderful relationship of collaboration, support, and intellectual exchange for many years. Some of our staff have benefited from secondments and participation in several BCcampus-sponsored activities including the Festival of Learning conferences and ongoing Educational Technology User Group (ETUG) Another example of this fruitful relationship is Heather Simpson’s work as a BCcampus research fellow. Heather’s study, “Forming Strong Cultural Identities in an Intersecting Space of Indigeneity and Autism,” is a great example of how research through the lens of intersectionality serves to provide voice to marginalized people and groups in an educational context and challenge dominant colonial narratives about teaching and learning in post-secondary contexts. As Heather writes, “This research is one small but meaningful step toward improving higher learning outcomes for Indigenous learners with autism — and arguably for all students who are marginalized in the public post-secondary system.”

Reference: Simpson, H. (2021). Forming strong cultural identities in an intersecting space of indigeneity and autism in Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/11771801211039274)

Want to chat more with Heather? Reach out to her at hsimpson@jibc.ca