Board of Directors
Interpretation Canada’s volunteer Board of Directors is elected to serve a two-year term. Members hold a breadth of experience working in botanic gardens, parks, museums, aquariums, science centers and historic sites.
The Board is responsible for the governing and day-to-day operations of our association. For more information about our governance, download a copy of our Bylaws.
| Jennifer Dick - Chair (she/her)Jennifer is passionate about connecting people to the world around them. She lives and works in the homeland of the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, and Huron-Wendat Nations. Jennifer is Royal Botanical Gardens’ Manager of Interpretation where she oversees interpretation in their 11 square-kilometres of gardens and nature sanctuaries. From visitor programs, tours, and events to signage, exhibits, and training, she enjoys the variety and seasonality of RBG. Her adventure in interpretation began at Bonnechere Provincial Park in 2001. A BSc in Biology, BA in Anthropology, and a graduate diploma in Science Communication have served her well in her career working for museums and not-for-profits across Canada. Jennifer joined Interpretation Canada's board in 2015. She was IC's Secretary from 2017 to 2021 and Conference Committee Chair from 2017 to 2019. |
| Sarah Rauh - Vice Chair and Awards Chair (she/her)Sarah is an Interpretation Officer/Coordinator with Parks Canada at Lake Superior National Marine Conservation Area and currently lives and works in the Robinson Superior Treaty Territory which is the ancestral lands of the Anishinaabe and homeland of the Metis people. |
| Jewels Goff - Treasurer (she/her)Born and raised in Alberta. Jewels started working for Pipestone Creek Dinosaur Initiative as a summer student in 2011, this initiative was started to fundraise and build the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum. Formerly a shy quiet girl Jewels fell in love with interpretation and returned to PCDI for three summers in a row. With a Bachelor of Science Degree in Earth and Atmospheric Science’s Jewels returned to the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum and worked there for several years. She has recently finished her Bachelor of Arts in Economics and is excited for her future. > |
| Munju Ravindra - Conference Chair (she/her)Munju got her start in interpretation 25 years ago in her home province of Nova Scotia, as a naturalist in Cape Breton Highlands National Park. She has since worked at Fundy, St Lawrence Islands, Gros Morne, and Auyuittuq National Parks, interpreting everything from the sex lives of barnacles to the story of plate tectonics to the reason for marine conservation. She has been responsible for marine tourism to Parks Canada sites in Nunavut, and the visitor experience offer at Lake Superior National Marine Conservation Area. When she’s not with Parks Canada, Munju runs a tourism and interpretation consultancy, working with communities to train guides and create transformative visitor experiences. This has led her to projects in Albania, Costa Rica, Antigua, and all over Atlantic Canada, and into subjects ranging from Siberian tigers to the art of sock-knitting in rural Newfoundland. She is also an award-winning writer. Munju has a BSc in Biology and a Masters in Ecological Conservation. She loves boats and is at her happiest outdoors in, on, or near the ocean. She is currently figuring out how marine tourism could or should work for Parks Canada places across the country. |
| David Lloyd - IC Blog (he/him)Born and raised in Alberta, David grew up in Canmore and currently splits his time between his home on unceded territory of the WSANEC and Paiquachin people on Vancouver Island and working in Treaty 7 territory of the Stoney people in Alberta. His first experience with interpretation was while working at the Cave & Basin and Banff Park Museum National Historic Sites in Banff during the summers while going to university for his B.Sc. in zoology/earth science (basically following along with the palaeontology program at the U of A, but with some minor deviations). David started working at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology (RTMP) in 2005 through 2018. David completed a Post-Baccalaureate Diploma in Heritage Resource Management from Athabasca University while working at the RTMP. In 2012 through 2020, he has spent his summers in Dinosaur Provincial Park as the Guided Excavation Coordinator, teaching the public how to dig up dinosaurs in a dinosaur bonebed, and taking small groups on exploratory hikes through the badlands, looking for fossils. In the summers of 2021 and 2022, David worked for Parks Canada as an inspector of non-motorized watercraft and educated visitors about aquatic invasive species. David enjoys exploring and spending time in nature – exploring badlands, mountains, trees, and beaches. He loves photography. |
| Pam Murray - Past Chair (she/her)Pam has loved interpretation since she was six years old and discovered that museums, aquariums, and parks suited her much better as learning environments than school classrooms. A undisclosed number of years later, Pam manages and delivers school programs while also writing and planning interpretive signage at Milner Gardens & Woodland, located in the unceded territory of the Qualicum First Nation. In her long career as a front-line interpreter, Pam has delivered evening programs about heroic wolverines and rapping mule deer for Parks Canada; dissected salmon, dragged seine nets, and interpreted coal mining for Arenaria Research and Interpretation in BC Parks on Vancouver Island; and created species at risk programming for Metro Vancouver Parks. Pam is a certified teacher and commutes by kayak. Pam has volunteered for IC in a number of roles since 2003, most recently as Chairperson from 2016 - 2021. She is one of the co-editors of the Interpreter’s Big Book of Disasters. Pam believes that the work we do as interpreters is essential, difficult, and undervalued, and is committed to advocating for our profession. |
 | Roderick (Rod) MacLean (he/him)Rod’s fascination with public history and historical interpretation began at an early age through family visits to and, much later, summer jobs at, Fort Henry National Historic Site in his hometown of Kingston, Ontario. This boyhood interest with things both historical and mueseological led to an academic one, the completion of a BA and MA in history, additional graduate work in Museum Studies and an internship/part-time work at the Royal Ontario Museum. Rod then moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia to begin work at the Halifax Citadel National Historic Site and has since held various roles at that location including those of interpretive program planner and Curator/Adminstrator of The Army Museum, an institution dedicated to Atlantic Canadian military history. He is presently the Executive Director of the Halifax Citadel Society, a non-profit organization which works in partnership with Parks Canada to deliver the personal interpretive programs at the site. |
| Erin Poulton (she/her)Erin grew up in the Ottawa area, in the traditional and unceded territory of the Algonquin-Anishnaabeg people. She started working in interpretation over 20 years ago at the Goulbourn Museum—tracing her community’s history from its settlement by British soldiers after the War of 1812. Erin studied concurrently at the University of Ottawa, earning her B.A. Hon. in English Literature/History, her M.A. in Canadian History, and her B.Ed. respectively. Erin was briefly an occasional teacher before joining the education and programs team at the Canada Science and Technology Museum in 2008. She then moved to the Canada Aviation and Space Museum in 2013, shifting her full focus to exhibition development in the role of Interpretive Planner. When Erin isn’t getting audiences excited about airplanes, she can be found painting, reading about art and design, or refinishing furniture. Erin is thankful for the many passionate people, engaging projects, and learning opportunities that fill her work life. She looks forward to fostering the ongoing development of this field through Interpretation Canada. |
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| Diane Mitchell (she/her)When Diane completed her undergraduate degree in geology in 1995, she did not know what she wanted to do but figured she would give the museum world a try. By 1997, she had fallen into the field of interpretation and quickly discovered her passion and professional purpose. Over the next two+ decades she worked in curatorial, museum education and management roles before becoming a freelance interpretive planner and writer in 2021. She lives and works in the unceded territory of the Coast Salish Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation) where she has been for over fifteen years. Diane’s focus now is non-personal interpretation. She loves working with words and among other projects, works as an exhibit content developer, often taking them from research and theme development to final proofing. Working both independently and with exhibit design firms, she works on projects nationally, interpreting natural environments, settler history and traditional and contemporary Indigenous culture. |
| Jacquie Gilson (she/her)Jacquie has been involved in interpretation and loving it, for more than 40 years. She has worked mainly for parks organizations for municipal, provincial, national and not for profit organizations. She received her Doctor of Social Sciences degree from Royal Roads University in 2015, after studying the concept of inspiration in interpretation. Jacquie retired from being an Interpretation Coordinator for Parks Canada in Banff National Park and now runs her own company, InterpActive. She focuses on interpreter training and her specialty is training on dialogic and participatory interpretation. She was also written a book Inspired to Inspire: Holistic Inspirational Interpretation. Jacquie is honoured to live, work and play on the unceded territory of the K'omoks nation in the Comox Valley, British Columbia. |
| Sandi Stewart (she/her)Sandi grew up in Shelburne, NS and currently resides in K'jipuktuk (Halifax), Mi'kma'ki. She also lived and studied in St. John's, NL, the ancestral homelands of the Beothuk and the island of Newfoundland, the ancestral homelands of the Mi’kmaq and Beothuk. Sandi completed an M.A. in Folklore and B.A. (major: Folklore, minor: English) from Memorial University of Newfoundland. Sandi has worked closely with museums and archives in Atlantic Canada for 7+ years. Her experience in the not-for-profit sector specifically has awarded her a fresh perspective on data management, programming efforts, and daily operations in the GLAM community. She worked for the Association of Nova Scotia Museums (ANSM) for over four years, first, in the role as Advisory Assistant and, later, Member Services Coordinator. She continues to volunteer on ANSM’s Education and Training Working Group. Her interest in serving on the Interpretation Canada board surfaced through her involvement as a volunteer with the host organizing committee for the 2022 conference in Halifax, NS. Sandi is also a part-time Instructor at the School of Information Management, Faculty of Management at Dalhousie University and a member of the university’s Academic Quality Team. She enjoys sharing her passion for information management and history through her teaching. She recently developed a Museums & Community course in the Master of Information program that focuses on the role of museums in society, emphasizing the importance of community partnerships, sharing of knowledge, and the development of educational programming and related initiatives that serve the public. |
| Raynald Harvey Lemelin - (il/lui)Harvey is a French-Canadian who grew up and now lives in the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe within the Robinson Superior Treaty Territory and the Metis Homeland in north-western Ontario. Although working, researching, and teaching in parks and tourism for over 20 years, Harvey is relatively new to interpretation, becoming certified through the IGA, the NAI, InterpActive, and most recently, the Interpretive Academy. Harvey has incorporated these teachings into his research and courses offered in the School of Outdoor Recreation, Parks and Tourism at Lakehead University. Harvey has researched and published in battlefield tourism, heritage dissonance, Indigenous tourism, and human encounters with insects in leisure studies. When not teaching or conducting research, Harvey enjoys spending time outdoors through fat biking, gravel biking, mountain biking, snowshoeing, and hiking. |
| Heather Stern (she/her)Having grown up in Peterborough, Ontario, Heather has traveled around for school, finally getting her B.A. (major: Religious Studies, minor: Psychology) from Memorial University of Newfoundland and settled in Mattawa, Ontario. Every summer, Heather would return to Ontario to work as an interpreter with Ontario Parks and is now the Senior Park Naturalist at Samuel de Champlain Provincial Park. She loves to spend her time outside exploring the forests and waterways near her home. She describes herself as a canoe camper rather than a canoe tripper as she dreads portages but recognizes them as a necessary evil to reach more remote locations. Heather is incredibly grateful to be able to live and learn on the traditional homeland and territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation and is part of the Robinson-Huron Treaty of 1850 and the Williams treaty of 1923. |
Interpretation Canada c/o Kerry Wood Nature Centre 6300 45th Ave Red Deer, AB, Canada T4N 3M4