2026 Jack Middlemass Award Winner: Claudia Haas

June 24, 2026

Congratulations to Claudia Haas, a PhD student in Biology at Wilfrid Laurier University supervised by Dr. Frances Stewart, who was the recipient of the 2026 Jack Middlemass Memorial Graduate Award. This award will support Claudia’s fieldwork research in the Canadian North.

Claudia shares, “Northern studies that recognize Indigenous ways of knowing and answers Indigenous research priorities make for rewarding and meaningful research, yet take time to be done properly, including multiple in-person community visits to build necessary trust and counteract the impacts of extractive research of the past. While the North’s vast landscapes makes Northern research exciting, it is also what makes it challenging with long, expensive travel and is why the North is less studied than more accessible and populated southern Canada. Northern research now is even more important. I have personally experienced the impacts of accelerated climate change, most recently in 2023 when > 70% human population of the NWT was evacuated due to intensified wildfires and heavy smoke. Northern research, when done right, is immensely rewarding and provides irreplaceable information for current and future generations.”