Richard Violette

I am a non-Indigenous French-Canadian with my cultural roots firmly planted in the boreal forests and lakes of the Témiscamingue region of north-western Québec, the lands of Kebaowek First Nation, one of ten distinct First Nations that make up the Algonquin Nation.

Initially trained as a sociologist, I built a decades long career as a research professional with demonstrated expertise in planning, implementing, and evaluating health service and health system research across several leading Canadian academic research institutions and government agencies, including: OPEN-Ontario Pharmacy Evidence Network (University of Waterloo); PROPEL Centre for Population Health Impact (University of Waterloo); Agence de la Santé et des Services Sociaux du Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean (Public Health Surveillance, Research and Evaluation Branch, Government of Québec); CHU de Québec (Planning, Programs, and Research Office, Departments of Surgery, Perioperative, Medicine, and Geriatrics); the MGSS McGill Group for Suicide Studies, and the Douglas-Bell Brain Bank (Douglas Mental Health University Institute Research Centre, McGill University).

In 2019 I moved to Meanjin (Brisbane) to complete my PhD in Human Services at Griffith University. My PhD "Practice at the research interface: Two-Eyed Seeing, community-engaged research practice, and non-Indigenous collaboration in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health research" proposed an operationalizable dialectical model of community-engaged research practice as a two-way strength-based lever to meaningfully support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander self-determination in health research. Grounded and guided by my Aboriginal mentors Kerry (Kuku Thaypan/Kuku Warra/Lama Lama) and Michael (Kullilla/Muruwari), we engaged in Etuaptmumk (Two-Eyed Seeing, Mi’kmaq Elders Albert and Murdena Marshall, Eskasoni First Nation, Unama'ki) to explore how to do research differently, how to foster genuine collaborations with community, and most importantly, how to meaningfully support communities to self-determine their involvement in research on their terms. Fundamentally transformative for me and my research praxis, this incredible experience reinforced that research in community spaces is a relational process, one that is steeped in meanings for both the community and researchers involved; it is also through this experience that I finally learned to listen and listened to learn.

Since conferral, I worked as a Senior Research Assistant at the Centre for the Business and Economics of Health (CBEH) at the University of Queensland, and then as a Research Fellow at the UQ Poche Centre for Indigenous Health. I am currently the Senior Academic Lead Research at the Murtupuni Centre for Rural and Remote Health, where I live, work, and learn on Kalkadoon Country in Mount Isa, NW Queensland.