Profiles | Dr. Deondre Smiles

Senior Research Associate

Deondre Smiles (Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, he/him/wiin pronouns) is an Indigenous geographer whose research interests are multifaceted, including Indigenous geographies/epistemologies, science and technology studies, and tribal cultural resource preservation/protection.

He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Victoria, in BC, Canada.

His current research agenda centers around investigating the ways that lessons learned by tribal nations in the defense of deceased tribal members, such as burial grounds/site protection and preservation, can be extended to protection of the living environment, including more-than-human kin (animals, plants, water), creating new political possibilities for all living things including humans and more-than-human alike in an era of climate crisis.

Smiles has worked with Indigenous communities in Minnesota and the Upper Midwest and is currently working to build respectful relationships and research collaborations with Indigenous communities on Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, in Canada, and in global/transnational contexts.

Smiles holds a bachelor’s degree in Geography (2013) from Saint Cloud State University, a master’s degree in Global Indigenous Studies (2016) from the University of Minnesota-Duluth, and a Ph.D. in Geography (2020) from The Ohio State University, where he also spent a year (2020-21) as a President’s Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of History.