Thank you to Caitlin Hayes at the Cornell Chronicle, a feature article on Prof. Charles was published on October 10th, 2024. “With research and data, professor empowers Indigenous communities” gives background to Prof. Charles’ experiences and journey towards engaging Indigenous communities in our research group’s projects! Article excerpt:

Building reciprocity, community

As much as possible, Charles approaches and imbues his research and outreach with values from his culture: reciprocity, balance and community.

“Within our culture, we’re very much taught within a reciprocity framework, a community framework, rather than any sort of individual-based goal,” he said. “When it comes to environmental engineering and design, we want to start thinking about how we give back to the landscapes, to nature, what we’re taking and receiving.”

Establishing this reciprocity is also an essential goal of his community work, which means the research itself often becomes one piece of a larger relationship. Sometimes the models he and his team want to produce are at odds with what the community has requested, Charles said. “So maybe we need to go in one direction to hit our research mark, but then another time we come back to the community to shape a project by what’s useful or urgent to them.”