WINNIPEG, MB – UWinnipeg professor Dr. Jennifer Brown has been elected into the prestigious Fellowship of the Royal Society of Canada for her outstanding scholarly achievement in ethnohistory. Brown specializes in history of the fur trade and of the Northern Algonquian and Métis peoples. Election to RSC is the highest honour a scholar can achieve in the Arts, Humanities and Sciences.
“It’s wonderful to be recognized by my peers,” said Brown, professor of history, Director, Centre for Rupert’s Land Studies and the Canada Research Chair in Aboriginal Peoples in an Urban and Regional Context. “My career has been rooted here at The University of Winnipeg. I am thankful for such a supporting career base which contributed in making my Fellowship possible.”
Brown is a distinguished ethnohistorian who has made significant contributions to the understandings of fur trade history and of Northern Algonquian and Métis peoples. For more than three decades, her many publications have shed light on familial and social relations among fur traders and Aboriginal communities across three centuries. Her work also tackles the complex and multiple origins of people of mixed descent whose life trajectories led them towards diverse identities, Métis and other. Brown brings together documentary and oral records generated from various perspectives, which has contributed in advancing research.
Brown is the first woman from UWinnipeg to be bestowed this honour. President Emeritus Dr. Henry E. Duckworth was the first RSC Fellow from UWinnipeg. He was elected to this elite Fellowship in 1954.
Founded in 1882, RSC, The Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada, is the senior national body of distinguished Canadian scientists and scholars and is the most prestigious scholarly organization in Canada. Its primary objective is to promote learning and research in the arts and sciences. The Society consists of approximately 1800 Fellows: men and women from across the country who are selected by their peers for outstanding contributions to the natural and social sciences and in the humanities.
Brown will be inducted with the other newly elected Fellows at a ceremony in Ottawa on Saturday, November 15, 2008.
