Celeste Pedri-Spade is an Anishinaabekwe and member citizen of Nezaadiikaang (Lac des Mille Lacs First Nation) located in Treaty 3 territory. In 2022, Celeste became McGill University’s first Associate Provost of Indigenous Initiatives and in this role she oversees the University’s ongoing response to the 52 Calls to Action articulated by the Provost’s Task Force on Indigenous Studies and Indigenous Education. She also holds a faculty position in the Department of Anthropology.
Before arriving at McGill, she was the Queen’s National Scholar in Indigenous Studies at Queen’s University. Celeste began her academic career at Laurentian University where she served as an associate professor and the inaugural Director of the Maamwizing Indigenous Research Institute.
Her current research interests include Anishinaabe gikendaasowin, critical pedagogies and identity politics, the role of Indigenous visual/material culture in decolonial praxis, and the materiality of Anishinaabemowin. Celeste received her PhD in Visual Anthropology from the University of Victoria.