Heather Watts is Mohawk & Anishinaabe from Six Nations of the Grand River Territory. Education has been a central part of her work over the past ten years, graduating from Syracuse University with a degree in Inclusive Education, Columbia University Teachers College with a degree in Literacy Coaching, and working as an elementary school teacher in New York City and in Rochester, NY. Heather has studied at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) in the Education Policy & Management Program and graduated with her Ed.M. in 2019. During her time at HGSE, she served as an Equity & Inclusion Fellow, and co-chair of an HGSE student group, Future Indigenous Educators Resisting Colonial Education (FIERCE). Heather was also honoured with the 2019 Student Leadership Award presented by the Native American Alumni of Harvard University (NAAHU).
Heather is currently a fourth-year doctoral student at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education – University of Toronto, in the Social Justice Education program. She recently served as an elected member of the OISE Council and sat on the Equity Committee. She has been awarded a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship, through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), a highly competitive national award competition. Her work centers Reconciliation and reclamation of Indigenous ways of knowing in modern-day education systems.
Professionally, Heather is the Education Manager for the Six Nations Lifelong Learning Taskforce, researching and engaging with the community around draft recommendations for a lifelong learning education system grounded in Haudenosaunee languages and culture. She also works as Training Officer in the environmental sector, developing and implementing learning modules related to the topics of Reconciliation, Identity and Privilege, as well as Indigenous worldviews of Land.
Heather has a passion for engaging in work at the intersection of curriculum and Reconciliation and is happy to be a part of the FPG team.