A Mohawk from the Six nations reserve near Brantford, Ont., she earned a master’s degree in law from Osgoode Hall in 1998 and taught law at Dalhousie University and the University of Ottawa before joining the U of S department of Native studies in 1994.
She switched to the sociology department in 2004 and was the academic co-ordinator of the Aboriginal Justice and Criminology Program when she died in November 2010.
She served on the advisory committee for establishing the Canadian Museum of Human Rights, and was a leader in Canada in the areas of Indigenous theory, governance, law, social responsibility, and social and political inequities.