I am a member of the Serpent River First Nation and was born and raised in Elliot Lake, Ontario. I completed my undergraduate degree in History and English at Laurier in 2005 and obtained my MA in History from Western in 2006.

While completing my PhD at Laurier through the Tri-University Graduate Program in History, I taught courses in Indigenous and Canadian history in the Department of Humanities at Mount Royal University in Calgary, and also worked as an academic advisor in the Faculty of Arts. Prior to joining Laurier as a faculty member in 2014, I was an assistant professor in the Department of History at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

My research focuses on Indigenous-settler relations, particularly those framed by gender and environmental issues. I am also interested in Indigenous methodologies and decolonizing research practices.

My first monograph, Serpent River Resurgence: Confronting Uranium Mining at Elliot Lake, is forthcoming from University of Toronto Press. As a co-investigator on a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)-supported interdisciplinary research team, I am also extending this project forward by examining contemporary environmental stewardship and the legacies of uranium extraction on Anishinaabek territory. In another SSHRC-funded project, I examined the gendered experiences of colonialism. Specifically, this project examined the roles of Indigenous women in Anishinaabe communities in postwar Ontario, and their contributions to the politicization of First Nations from 1950s to the 1980s.

This project has also led to an examination of the ethical and gendered considerations when conducting Indigenous feminist oral history. Currently, I am working on a second monograph that explores the history of Indigenous women’s experiences with democracy, governance, and colonialism as part of a book series on women’s suffrage in Canada through University of British Columbia Press.

• OCUFA Status of Women and Equity Award of Distinction, 2018.
• Merit Award, Wilfrid Laurier University, 2016.
• Merit Award, Wilfrid Laurier University, 2018.
• SSHRC Insight Development Grant, “Indigenous Women and Nation-Building in Ontario,” 2012-13 (primary investigator).
• SSHRC Insight Grant, “Northern Exposures: Science, indigenous peoples, and northern contaminants,” 2014-2018 (co-investigator).
• SSHRC Connection Grant, “Traces of Ochre: Changing Perspectives on the Beothuk,” 2013 (collaborator).

I am a member of the Tri-University Program in History (MA and PhD).

I am interested in supervising graduate students studying Indigenous history, especially topics related to gender and the environment. I have research assistantship opportunities available for students interested in these areas. Please contact me for more information.

Leddy, Lianne C. “The Mum with the Dark Hair: Indigenous Motherhood and the NICU.” In Writing Mothers: Narrative Acts of Care, Redemption, and Transformation, edited by BettyAnn Martin and Michelann Parr, 65-77. Bradford: Demeter Press, 2020.

Leddy, Lianne C. “Are you only interviewing women for this?”: Indigenous Feminism and Oral History.” In Beyond Women’s Words: Feminisms and the Practices of Oral History in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Katrina Srigley, Stacey Zembrycki, and Franca Iacovetta, 95-108. London: Routledge, 2018. 

Leddy, Lianne C. “Historical Sources and the Beothuk: Questioning Settler Interpretations.” In Tracing Ochre: Changing Perspectives on the Beothuk, edited by Fiona Polack, 199-219. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018.  

Leddy, Lianne C. “Intersections of Indigenous and Environmental History in Canada.” Canadian Historical Review 98, no. 1 (2017): 83-95.

Leddy, Lianne C. “Dibaajimowinan as method: Environmental history, Indigenous scholarship, and balancing sources.” In Methodological Challenges in Nature-Culture and Environmental History Research, edited by Jocelyn Thorpe, Stephanie Rutherford, and Anders L. Sandberg, 93-104. New York: Routledge, 2017.

Leddy, Lianne C. ““Mostly Just as a Social Gathering”: Anishinaabe Kwewag and the Indian Homemakers’ Club, 1945-1960.” In Aboriginal History: A Reader, edited by Kristin Burnett and Geoff Read, 352-363. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2016.

Leddy, Lianne C. “Poisoning the Serpent: Uranium Exploitation and the Serpent River First Nation, 1953-1988.” In The Natures of Empire and the Empires of Nature, edited by Karl Hele, 125-147. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2013.

Leddy, Lianne C. “Interviewing Nookomis and Other Reflections of an Indigenous Historian.” Oral History Forum d'histoire orale, 30 (Special Issue-2010:): 1-18. Available here: http://www.oralhistoryforum.ca/index.php/ohf/article/view/386