A UWinnipeg faculty member is spending 12 months as a visiting professor at one of the world’s most prestigious universities.
Dr. Mary Jane McCallum is the 2026-2027 William Lyon Mackenzie King Visiting Professor of Canadian Studies at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Centre for International Affairs. Her 12-month appointment began July 1.
“I’m very honoured to be here,” said Dr. McCallum. “I’m especially looking forward to learning about repatriation work undertaken at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, coming to a better understanding of Harvard’s Indigenous history, and hosting a series of excellent speakers in the Canada Seminar. Both the Centre and the History Department have been wonderful.”
Dr. McCallum was nominated for the appointment by an interdepartmental Harvard faculty committee.
“Dr. McCallum’s research on Indigenous People, History, and Archives, including her seminal work on residential schools and the transgenerational effects of colonialism and racism on Indigenous People, has been instrumental in centring decolonial practices and Indigenous knowledges,” said Dr. Pavlina Radia, Provost and Vice-President, Academic. “Grounded in historical research and community, Dr. McCallum’s work extends beyond the local and the national. This international recognition of Dr. McCallum’s research further exemplifies and mobilizes the overall impact and significance of her work on a global scale. The University of Winnipeg congratulates Dr. McCallum on her remarkable achievement.”
The Weatherhead Centre, situated on Harvard’s campus in Cambridge, Mass., was established in 1967 by an endowment from banker and philanthropist David Rockefeller in honour of William Lyon Mackenzie King, Canada’s longest-serving Prime Minister.
As Visiting Professor, Dr. McCallum will chair the annual Canada Seminar, a wide-ranging ideas-exchange forum with participation by public figures, scholars, artists, and experts in various fields. Guest speakers have included Canadian prime ministers, prominent philosophers, hockey hall-of-famers, film directors, and justices of the Supreme Court of Canada.
At UWinnipeg, Dr. McCallum is Professor in the Department of History and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous People, History and Archives. Her research interests include modern Indigenous histories of education, and labour; Munsee-Delaware history and language; racism; and colonialism.
Dr. McCallum led the Manitoba Indigenous Tuberculosis History Project, an award-winning Indigenous health history research project devoted to sharing and recovering histories of Indigenous tuberculosis in Manitoba from the 1930s to 1970s. The project’s newest stage, “Health and History: Using Colonial Archives and Historical Methods to Understand Racism and Improve Indigenous Access to Healthcare” examines historical records to study patterns of anti-Indigenous racism in Canada’s health care system with the goal of creating educational and anti-racism training tools. Health and History received a five-year, $1.9-million grant from CIHR (Canadian Institutes of Health Research).
With faculty and staff in History, Indigenous Studies, and the UW Library, McCallum is also on the “Ten Years of the ICR” project which is celebrating, documenting and preserving the history of UWinnipeg’s Indigenous Course Requirement as it celebrates its 10th anniversary. The project received a $200,000 grant from SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council).
