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Mavis Reimer
Project Director
Mavis Reimer is Project Director of the SSHRC Partnership Project, Six Seasons of the Asiniskaw Īthiniwak: Reclamation, Regeneration, and Reconciliation. She is Dean of Graduate Studies and Professor of English at the University of Winnipeg. She was the Canada Research Chair in Young People’s Texts and Cultures between 2005 and 2015, lead editor of Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures between 2009 and 2015, and President of the International Research Society for Children’s Literature between 2011 and 2015. She is the founding director of the Centre for Research in Young People’s Texts and Cultures (CRYTC) at the University of Winnipeg and founding President of the Association for Research in Young People’s Cultures.
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William Dumas
Project Mentor
William Dumas is an asiniskaw īthiniw Knowledge Keeper and acclaimed storyteller from O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation (OPCN). He has been an educator all his life and is passionate about Cree language and culture. He is Co-Leader of the Story Team for the Six Seasons of the Asiniskaw Īthiniwak project. Dumas is experienced as a Northern educator and administrator, having worked as a coordinator for the Culture and Language Program for Nisichawayasi Nehetho Culture and Education Authority, as a First Nations Language & Culture Specialist (Cree) at the Manitoba First Nations Education Resource Centre (MFNERC), Cree Language and Culture Consultant in the Mystery Lake and Frontier School Divisions, as the Director of Education for Fox Lake Education Authority in Nelson House, and as the Executive Director for Northern Nishnabe Education Council. Dumas is the author of the award-winning picture book Pīsim Finds Her Miskanow (2013), which is the first book in the Six Seasons of Asiniskaw Īthiniwak series. He is also the author of The Gift of the Little People (2022).
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Melanie Braith
Senior Research Associate
Melanie Braith is the Senior Research Associate of the Six Seasons of the Asiniskaw Īthiniwak Partnership Project, and the Research Coordinator for the Centre for Research in Young People's Texts and Cultures at the University of Winnipeg. Melanie holds a PhD in Indigenous literatures from the University of Manitoba and she worked for the Six Seasons project as a research assistant from 2018 to 2020 and as a postdoctoral fellow from fall 2020 to spring 2021. Her research focuses on Indigenous storytelling and she is excited about the many learning opportunities that this project has to offer. Melanie is from Germany and worked as a journalist for print, online, and TV before she came to Winnipeg for her PhD.
