Advisors

Eva Qamaniq Aariak

Aariak was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut in 2008 and subsequently chosen as the second Premier of Nunavut under the territory’s consensus government system. She was the fifth woman to serve as a premier in Canada. Prior to her election, she was the first Languages Commissioner for Nunavut, and she has a background in adult education, human resources and CBC Radio and Television. Aariak is now one of the language experts at the Pirurvik Centre in Iqaluit, as well as the owner and operator of Malikkaat, a store of all things Inuit. She has also served as coordinator of the Baffin Divisional Education Council’s Inuktitut language book publishing program, as president of the Baffin Regional Chamber of Commerce, and as chair of the Nunavut Film Development Corporation. Aariak has been a long time advocate for Inuit language and culture.

Wade Davis

Davis is Professor of Anthropology and the BC Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk at the University of British Columbia. Between 1999 and 2013 he served as Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society and is currently a member of the NGS Explorers Council. Author of 17 books, he holds degrees in anthropology and biology and received his Ph.D. in ethnobotany, all from Harvard University. His many film credits include Light at the Edge of the World, an eight-hour documentary series written and produced for the National Geographic. Davis is the recipient of 11 honorary degrees, as well as the 2009 Gold Medal from the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, the 2011 Explorers Medal, the 2012 David Fairchild Medal, and the 2013 Ness Medal from the Royal Geographical Society. His latest book, Into the Silence, received the 2012 Samuel Johnson prize, the top award for literary nonfiction in the English language.

Dr. Joe MacInnis

MacInnis was the first person to explore the ocean beneath the ice at the geographic North Pole. Among the first to dive to the Titanic, he has worked on deep-sea science and engineering projects with the US Navy, the Canadian and French governments and the Russian Academy of Sciences. He currently studies leadership in high-risk environments. His latest is book is Deep Leadership: Essential Insights From High-Risk Environments (Random House).