Day 1 Speakers
Bob Goulais
President, Nbisiing Consulting
Bob Goulais is Anishinaabe from Nipissing First Nation. He is a sought after speaker, traditional teacher, facilitator and Master of Ceremonies, providing valuable cultural context and traditional knowledge to diverse audiences across Canada.
In 2015, he founded Nbisiing Consulting Inc. and specializes in Indigenous cultural competency training. He has personally trained over 8,000 individuals from public, private and not-for-profit sector teams over the course of 23+ years.
He describes himself as a lifelong public servant with a career spent in various roles with the Anishinabek Nation, the Assembly of First Nations, and the Government of Ontario. He has also served on Chief and Council, President and Chairperson of Native Men’s Residence, President and Chairperson of the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation, and as a member of the Board of Directors for Humber College, Adler Professional Graduate School, and as a founding Board member of the Moccasin Identifier.
He is second degree member of the Three Fires Midewiwin Society and a committed advocate of advancing Indigenous ways of knowing and being.
Dr. Peter Ashmore
Professor Emeritus in Geography & Environment at the University of Western Ontario
Peter is a fluvial geomorphologist who is currently Professor Emeritus in Geography & Environment at the University of Western Ontario, where he has worked since 1988, with sabbatical leaves in Aotearoa New Zealand and Victoria BC. Prior to arriving at Western, he worked at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Environment Canada, and University of Saskatchewan, after completing his PhD at the University of Alberta. His research in fluvial geomorphology has included work on bedload and morphological dynamics in gravel-bed rivers, effects of urbanization on rivers, response of rivers in Canada to climate change, river restoration, and geomorphology of semi-alluvial rivers. His advisory work includes contributing to the International Joint Commission Upper Great Lakes Study on erosion of the bed of St Clair River, suspended sediment yields in large prairie rivers for Environment Canada, analyzing the potential effects of climate change on rivers in Canada for Geological Survey of Canada, and supporting the Ontario Natural Channel Systems initiative beginning in the 1990s. In Ontario, he has looked at the geomorphology of rivers in post-glacial landscapes, advised on various channel design and restoration projects, researched the multi-decadal effects of urbanization on rivers in GTA, and helped to develop tools for mapping and predicting network-scale impacts of urbanization.
Peter’s keynote will reflect on developments in Natural Channels practice and policies in the context of the geomorphic setting, effects of urbanization, related recent research, and ideas for the future.
Day 2 Speaker
Dr. Karen E. Smokorowski
Research Scientist, Fisheries and Oceans Canada
Karen Smokorowski received her BSc in biology from University of Toronto and her PhD from Trent University in watershed ecosystems, when she joined Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) in Sault Ste Marie, ON, in 1998. As a Research Scientist with DFO for over 27 years, Karen has been studying the impacts of human activities on fish and fish habitat, conducting science in support of the DFO Fish and Fish Habitat Protection Program in their administration of the Fisheries Act. Over the years she has conducted field-based empirical experiments ranging from the effects of whole-lake removal of woody habitat on fish productivity, to studying the long-term ecosystem effects of altering flow regimes at a hydropeaking hydroelectric dam, to testing the fish injury and mortality rates from entrainment through a new ‘fish friendly’ hydroelectric turbine design.
Karen’s research and advice has provided credible scientific evidence that has significantly influenced legislative changes to the Fisheries Act, and has been pivotal in restoring lost protections, rebuilding fish populations, and incorporating modern safeguards. A significant portion of Karen’s formal science advisory role in DFO has been to spearhead a paradigm shift in DFO-directed or facilitated monitoring of habitat offsets, banks or restorations. This work has culminated in the recent development of a Standardized Monitoring Framework that provides guidance for the design, implementation, and evaluation of habitat offsets, banks, and restorations, including the incorporation of learning to inform and improve project and program success.
Day 3 Speaker
Dr. Gary Brierley
Professor and Chair of Physical Geography, University of Auckland , New Zealand
Gary Brierley is Professor and Chair of Physical Geography at the University of Auckland (Waipapa Taumata Rau) in Aotearoa New Zealand. He is co-developer, with Professor Kirstie Fryirs (Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia) of the River Styles Framework (Brierley & Fryirs, 2005). This coherent, open-ended (non-prescriptive), geomorphological approach to proactive, cost-effective river management was co-developed with river managers in Australia.
Supported by professional short courses, there has been significant uptake of the framework in various parts of the world (Fryirs et al., 2019, 2021). The underlying premise to ‘work with nature, work with the river’ moves beyond inherent limitations of ‘command-and-control’ management practices (Brierley & Fryirs, 2022). Building on these principles, collaborations with Māori colleagues in Aotearoa New Zealand respect the rights of rivers as living and indivisible entities (Brierley et al., 2019), embracing a multiple-knowledges lens that endeavours to ‘Find the Voice of the River’ (Brierley, 2020). Recent work outlines how Communities of River Practitioners (CoRPs) make best use of best available understandings in moves towards ‘living generatively with living rivers’ (Brierley et al., 2021, 2025).