Emerging Scholars Collective
Emerging Scholars Collective
Mission Statement
The Emerging Scholars Collective (formerly the Women Scholars’ Speakers Series) was created in 2025, in the hopes of providing a safe space for equity seeking groups to share their stories, discuss polarizing topics, and create a space for themselves within the university community.
The ESC is oriented towards three goals: (1) to foster a diverse and engaged academic community, (2) to support faculty excellence and promote interdisciplinary collaboration in scholarship, and (3) to support faculty as they navigate the early years of scholarship. The ESC is a place to ask questions, seek advice, and share ideas with peers across disciplines.
Upcoming Events for 2025-26
More information coming soon!
Past Events
The WSSS hosted a New Year Faculty Coffee Hour, an event to foster connections and camaraderie among our newest colleagues.
Speakers: Dr. Jebunnessa Chapola (SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Regina) and Dr. Ranjan Datta (Mount Royal University)
Co-sponsored by: Women Scholars' Speaker Series
Dr. Jebunnessa Chapola's doctoral research journey tells the story of her racialized settler woman's transformative journey toward transnational solidarity, mutual empowerment and how to be anti-racist through community engagements in Saskatoon, Canada.
Dr. Ranjan Datta will share his 17 years of anti-racist and decolonial research journey with various Black, Indigenous and racialized immigrants and other land-based minority communities worldwide.
Read more here.
Speaker: Dr. Maho Ikeda (Hokkai Gakuen University)
Presented by: The Department of History & Religion
Co-sponsored by: Asian Studies and Women Scholars' Speaker Series
When political parties first form and evolve in a society, the process often reflects deeper societal changes. Japan is no exception. Political parties in Japan emerged following the Meiji Restoration of 1868 in response to a nationwide movement for broader political participation.
This event examined the formative years of political parties in Japan and explored their ramifications into the 20th century.
Read more here.
Speakers: Dr. Orquidea Morales (School of Theatre, Film, and Television at the University of Arizona), Lin Young (Mount Royal University), and Dr. June Scudeler (Simon Fraser University).
Moderated by: Dr. Chelsea Ekstrand and Dr. Miranda Leibel.
This session delved into the multi-faceted aspects of horror tales, examining the political, sociological and cultural implications these narratives carry. More about this spook-tacular event here.
Speakers: Dr. Dharashree Das (Prentice Institute), Dr. Mbuli Shei Clodine (Community Bridge Lab), and Dr. Chelsea Matisz (Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience)
Moderated by: Dr. Chelsea Ekstrand and Dr. Miranda Leibel
This session brought together a group of accomplished interdisciplinary postdoctoral scholars to discuss the evolving nature of interdisciplinary studies. The panel provided insights into the strategies they employed to overcome hurdles, the collaborative approaches that have driven their success, and the ways they've harnessed multiple perspectives to tackle complex issues.
Speaker: Dr. Jennifer Doyle, UC Riverside
The Women Scholars' Speaker Series is pleased to present Dr. Jennifer Doyle, Professor of English at UC Riverside. Professor Doyle spoke about the work involved in her recent book Campus Sex, Campus Security.
Campus Sex, Campus Security was written in a fever: the book was published in 2015, prior to #metoo and the transformation in journalism which grew around this shift in discourse about harassment. In this talk, Jennifer shares the process of writing this book, and shifts in her thinking as she's centered more and more of her work around harassment and its ecologies.
Dr. Gülden Özcan was a brilliant scholar, activist, colleague, friend, loving partner and mother. She worked as an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Lethbridge prior to her untimely passing in May 2022. This panel brought together scholars and activists to discuss her important legacies both within and outside of the academy. Panelists included:
- Khadija Baker (Montreal-based, multidisciplinary artist of Kurdish-Syrian descent)
- Dr. Simten Coşar (feminist political scientist)
- Dr. Nisha Nath (settler woman of colour living in Amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton) and an Assistant Professor of Equity Studies at Athabasca University)
- Arturo Tejeda Torres (a PhD candidate in Cultural, Social and Political Thought at the University of Lethbridge
Panelists: Monique Giroux, Eve Chartrand, Marie-Jeanne Musiol, Jaimee Jarvie
Moderator: Mia van Leeuwen
This webinar highlighted the artist as researcher and contributor to the development of knowledge and innovation through artistic expression, scholarly investigation, and experimentation.
Panelists: Evelyn Encalada Grez, Petra Molnar, Ethel Tungohan
Moderator: Julie Young
This webinar highlighted three panelists whose research bridges academia, advocacy, and community-based work in the area of migrant justice.
Presenter: Dr. Nisha Nath (Assistant Professor of Equity Studies, Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies, Athabasca University
Roundtable Discussion with SNAC+ members: Gulden Ozcan, Gideon Fujiwara, Glenda Bonifacio, Saurya Das
Moderator: Dr. Caroline Hodes (Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies (SNAC+, co-applicant RED project)
Presenters: Amandine Pras, Athena Elafros, Grace Brooks, Monica Lockett
Read the article in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society
Meet the Organizers
Chelsea Ekstrand (she/her) is an assistant professor of neuroscience at the University of Lethbridge. She received her PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience from the University of Saskatchewan in 2019 and cut her post-doctoral fellowship at Western University short to start her appointment at the University of Lethbridge in July 2020. Her NSERC funded research focuses on human neuroimaging- incorporating behaviour, functional neuroimaging, and structural connectivity to identify the underlying network architecture of "real-world" cognition in brain health and disease.
Miranda Leibel, assistant professor and Evelyn Hamilton Chair in the School of Liberal Education, is a settler scholar and holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) and Master of Arts in Political Science from the University of Alberta (Treaty Six territory), before completing an interdisciplinary PhD in Canadian Studies and Political Economy at Carleton University in Ottawa (unceded Algonquin territory). Her current work examines bureaucratic and policy processes in the context of settler-colonial government, demonstrating the connections between mundane practices of governance and the ongoing violence of settler colonialism in Canada.
History of the Emerging Scholars Collective
Dr. Shelly Wismath, Professor Emerita, School of Liberal Education
The Emerging Scholars Collective (formerly the Women Scholars’ Speaker Series) was founded in June of 2002, a result of the advocacy and efforts of Dr. Shelly Wismath. When Dr. Wismath accepted a tenure track position in July of 1989, there were only three tenured or tenure-track women in the sciences at the University of Lethbridge. In the coming decades, the faculty at the U of L became increasingly diverse, but Dr. Wismath noticed that many new women hires came and left, subject to an isolating and sometimes hostile environment.
Dr. Wismath recounts that in May 2002 “the President held a Town Hall Meeting, in the University Theatre, and the theatre was packed.... One of the topics was diversity. When the presentations were done and the floor was opened for questions, the first question was once again about how we were going to maintain excellence if we focus on diversity. I put my hand up immediately to tackle this – I was now a tenured Full Professor – but in fact President Cade took the question and immediately said something like “I’m sure you didn’t mean to imply that women and other diversity groups would not offer us excellent candidates,” and went on to discuss the advantages of diversity hires.”
In the coming months, continued efforts to support women scholars, and especially Dr. Wismath’s persistent efforts to make demands of the administration, the Women Scholars’ Speaker Series (WSSS), and the associated, informal collective (known as the Women Scholars Group) became official. Since 2002, the WSSS has hosted lectures from diverse women faculty across disciplines and from campuses across North America, and the WGS fostered a sense of community and support across campus.
The faculty at the University of Lethbridge has continued to diversify in the years since, and not only are women increasingly represented among the faculty, but emerging faculty are more likely to come from a variety of backgrounds historically marginalized in academic spaces. With the change of name– from the Women Scholars’ Speaker Series to the Emerging Scholars Collective– we hope to more accurately represent the diversity of emerging academics on our campus, while staying true to the original purpose of the WSSS: to cultivate a collaborative community of scholars, with the intention of sharing resources and supporting one another in navigating the early years of an academic career.