Indigenous Health and Research: Lea is a traditional practitioner that applies an integrated approach to practice combining Indigenous knowledge with nursing knowledge. Lea has worked as a frontline nurse in First Nations communities for over 30 years and has served as the president of the Indigenous Nurses’ Association of Canada. This first-hand experience as a nurse lead to specializing in Indigenous health research including community-participatory research, cross-cultural awareness, health promotion, and program development and evaluation. Lea is a co-investigator with the AFNIGC on the $500 thousand emergency department project and is a Principle Investigator on an Indigenous Healthy Life Trajectories Initiative (I-HeLTI) in partnership with the University of Alberta.

This includes working with First Nations members across Alberta and interviewing First Nations patients —from remote, rural and urban centres — to get their perspectives to better understand and define quality of care in the emergency department from a First Nations perspective.  Previously, Lea was the Research and Oversight Manager as well as the First Nations Cancer Pathways project manager with the AFNIGC. Lea has co-authored recent publications in the areas of health services research and health provider education, including barriers and facilitators to health services, using decolonizing theories and qualitative methodologies. In addition, she provides oversight, training, and guides partnerships between communities and researchers to apply appropriate qualitative methodologies to address the needs, priorities, and values of First Nations people. This includes formal and informal opportunities to build capacity.

Indigenous Leadership: Lea is the the Executive Director of the Alberta First Nations Information Governance Centre (AFNIGC) since 2019. The mandate of the AFNIGC is to promote, protect and advance the First Nations´ Ownership, Control, Access and Possession (OCAP®) principles, the inherent right to self-determination and jurisdiction in research and information management. In this role, she facilitates OCAP® principles by increasing the impact of research and information for First Nations health and wellbeing, provide oversight of research initiatives, provide stewardship of data, and build individual and systemic capacity for respectful engagement in data collection, analysis and utilization through professional development, training and tools, standards of excellence, and access to equitable funding.

This role has provided her with extensive engagement, leadership and management experience in research with First Nations communities across all treaty areas in Alberta. She has also been an Indigenous advisor and Indigenous knowledge holder for several national health organizations. Moreover, she has extensive training in facilitation and dispute mediation. Through the former First Nations Inuit Health Branch, she completed the Learning for Leadership program as well as other training sessions in professional development and leadership, including a Train the Trainer program.