Our People: The Sustainability Council

Robert Summers — Academic Director & Office Leadership

Expert in:

• UN Sustainable Development Goals
• Community planning and development
• Environmental policy

Howie Harshaw — Council Member & Associate Director for the Certificate of Sustainability

Howie Harshaw examines the human dimensions of natural resources. He is curious about people's relationships with nature. He wonders about how we could provide more opportunities for people to have meaningful interactions in and with nature.

Howie integrates social science into the planning and management of natural resources, and has worked regularly in interdisciplinary teams to provide theoretically-based empirical research contributions to broader landscape-based projects examining conservation issues. Throughout the course of his research, he has worked with communities, municipal, provincial, state, and federal governments, and industry to better represent the views and attitudes of the public in policy and operational decisions. Working with these same groups, he has helped to raise the profile of outdoor recreation issues and concerns with regard to broader land-use planning initiatives and strategies.

Greg King — Council Member

An assistant professor of environmental science at Augustana Campus in Camrose, his research investigates tree response to environmental drivers, specifically using tree rings and dendrochronology.

He has worked in northern and alpine ecosystems and is now applying research methods to urban forests and working on a regional climate history in the Beaver Hills Biosphere east of Edmonton. Greg teaches in the environmental science and sustainability studies majors at Augustana, including a project-based sustainability course as well as courses on climatology, soils, biogeography, the SDGs and the science of climate change.

Arlene Oak — Council Member & Academic Advisor for the Certificate in Sustainability

Arlene's research in material culture and design studies explores how language, particularly talk, shapes the creation, mediation, and consumption of the material world. She is especially interested in the relationships between objects, language, and personal, social, and cultural identity.

Her research focuses on the processes of designing and making, examining how people and objects become intertwined through description, interpretation, negotiation, and critique. Her work draws on social psychology, history, and anthropology, using methods such as conversation analysis, oral history, narrative analysis, and ethnography.

Her background includes studio-based design practice, design history, and the social psychology of design practice.

Guillermo Hernandez Ramirez — Council Member & Academic Advisor for the Certificate of Sustainability

Mustafa Gul — Council Member

Dr. Mustafa Gül, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Alberta and CEO of CityScan Technologies, advances research and innovation in smart, sustainable, and resilient cities. He leads CoMBiNE, a crowdsensing-based platform for monitoring built and natural environments, and conducts pioneering research on integrating solar photovoltaic systems from the building scale to the city scale. Throughout his career, he has led more than 30 major projects, published over 90 journal papers and 100 conference papers, and trained more than 50 highly qualified personnel and 5,000 students. Through CityScan Technologies, he delivers end-to-end smart city solutions powered by AI and IoT, transforming data into safer and cleaner communities.

Dr. Gül’s research focuses on smart, sustainable, energy-efficient, and resilient cities, with two main areas of interest:

• Developing smart, sustainable, and resilient infrastructure systems
• Developing smart, sustainable, and energy-efficient communities and cities

Matthew Wildcat — Council Member

Matthew is an Associate Professor and the Director of Indigenous Governance in the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta. Wildcat leads the Relational Governance Project – an Indigenous policy concept that explores the practice of how First Nations co-govern service delivery organizations. This emerges from his experience with the Maskwacis Education Schools Commission that led to the creation of a unified school system for the four Nations of Maskwacis. Wildcat is also the co-director of the partnership grant Critical Approaches to Indigenous Relationality.

Anita Dey Nuttall — Council Member

As Polar Science and Policy Engagement Officer, Anita focuses on interdisciplinary research, science policy, outreach and community engagement, and teaching. She also identifies opportunities for collaboration across the natural and social sciences.

She studied History at Delhi University and International Relations at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India, and holds a PhD in Polar Ecology and Management from the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge. Her involvement in Arctic and Antarctic research spans nearly three decades, both as a researcher and, more significantly, in supporting and promoting northern and circumpolar research and education.

Candace Nykiforuk — Council Member

Candace is a professor and vice dean of the School of Public Health and holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Community Environments and Public Policy for Well-being. She also serves as the Scientific Director of the Centre for Healthy Communities in the School of Public Health.

She is an applied public health researcher with a strong interest in the role of community environments—both built and social—and public policies in health and well-being, health promotion, and health equity. She is the Principal Investigator of the Policy, Location and Access in Community Environments (PLACE) Research Lab.