Brenda Parlee was born and grew up in northern Ontario. The landscape and political economy of this provincial-north significantly influenced her knowledge and interpretation of the social, economic and environmental issues of critical importance for research and teaching. She has a B.A. from the University of Guelph (1995), and an M.E.S. in Environmental Studies from the University of Waterloo (1998). She went on to receive her PhD from the University of Manitoba in Natural Resources and Environmental Management (NREM) in 2005. She is currently Associate Professor and a Canada Research Chair in the Department of Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology in the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences. She has worked in northern Canada for over 20 years on a range of collaborative and community-based research projects on different aspects of variability and change in northern communities and ecosystems. She is currently Principal Investigator of TRACKING CHANGE... - a collaborative research initiative focused on the role of local and traditional knowledge in the sustainable governance of the Mackenzie River Basin, the lower Amazon and the lower Mekong river basins. For more information see: trackingchange.ca