Welcome

Dr. Michelle Lam is a faculty member in the Curriculum and Pedagogy Department at Brandon University and Director of the Centre for Applied Research and Education in Indigenous, Rural, and Remote settings (BU CARES). She was an English as an Additional Language teacher for ten years and also served as the Director of Teacher Training and Development for an educational project in Vietnam. She is interested in community education, rural migration, identity, anti-racism, and social justice.

As director of a research centre that focuses on rural and Indigenous community-engaged research, Dr. Lam is invested in developing partnerships and working collaboratively with community members, students, researchers, teachers, and leaders to ensure research knowledge is accessible, ethical, and useful to the community. She has managed multiple federal funding grants and has single-authored and co-authored national and international publications on areas such as equity, ethics, positionality, and research methodology. Her strong background in interdisciplinary collaboration and community-based research serves her well in carrying out community-engaged, participatory projects. She has received numerous awards as well as invitations to share her knowledge through book chapters, articles, lectures, and conference presentations. Dr. Lam also has experience in HQP training, integrating student research assistants into existing research projects, and achieving training and mentoring goals within a smaller university.

Current Projects:

Together with Dr. Jacqueline Kirk, Dr. Lam co-hosts a podcast, Leaning in and Speaking Out, which connects researchers with people who use the knowledge created by that research. 

You can find episodes of the podcast on the BU CARES website. 

Dr. Lam is interested in innovative approaches to conducting research. In 2018, she created a board game, Refugee Journeys, which is an educational tool designed to promote discussions about newcomer integration in Canada. The game has been featured on CBC radio, in the Columbus Museum of Art, in Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees, and has been used for Peace Days Winnipeg. She wrote about the game for The Conversation and also was interviewed about the game for an article on Deconstructing Privilege. She also used the game as part of the data collection process for her dissertation. 

More recently, Dr. Lam has worked with a team of research assistants, scriptwriters, filmmakers, and advisors to create a series of anti-racist education videos based on the survey findings of 500 Manitobans about their experiences with racism in the province. You can watch the videos on YouTube or read more about the project here.