Shirley Tagalik

Shirley Tagalik is the Director of the Aqqiumavvik Society, an organization working to address food insecurity and other community challenges in Arviat, Nunavut, and a partner in the Nunavut Network Environment on Indigenous Health Research. She researches areas of education, child and language development, youth engagement and suicide prevention, determinants of health, healing, cultural revitalization, climate change, and food security.

Shirley is also a co-editor of Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit: What Inuit Have Always Known to Be True. She writes and presents extensively on Inuit cultural systems; her current work focuses on the articulation of Inuit worldview within social development policy and practices. Working with Inuit Elders for more than 30 years, Shirley documents Inuit cultural knowledge and works to rebuild the strengths of cultural concepts into community programs. She is a 2012 Arctic Inspiration Prize Laureate and was recently awarded a Governor General Innovation Award for her work on Arctic Corridors and Northern Voices Research.

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