Cheryl Chetkiewicz, Ph.D., is a Conservation Scientist with Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Canada with expertise in wildlife research, conservation, environmental planning, and monitoring. She currently focuses on community-based monitoring, Indigenous relationships in conservation, and environmental assessment across WCS Canada’s programs. From 2009-2018, she led WCS Canada’s program in the far north in Ontario where she focused on field-based and applied wildlife research and monitoring, cumulative effects assessment, regional strategic environmental assessment, and protected area planning. Prior to her work with WCS Canada, Cheryl worked for the Gwich’in Renewable Resource Board as a biologist conducting research based on direction from the co-management board and was a program officer for global carnivore conservation at WCS Global based in New York.
With respect to environmental assessment, Cheryl has been engaged with a number of federal and provincial environmental assessments in northern Ontario, particularly in the Ring of Fire. She leads a research effort to examine the cumulative effects of future lands use and climate change scenarios on wildlife in the region to support more effective cumulative environmental assessment and decision-making.
Cheryl has been a member of the OAIA Planning Committee since 2015 and has focused on bringing practitioners and experts together to share their experience around environmental assessments across Canada at both the federal and provincial level. As Chair of the Membership Committee for OAIA, Cheryl plans to support and encourage membership in OAIA and continues to bring attention to regional and strategic environmental assessment, cumulative effects assessment, and Indigenous Peoples roles and rights in environmental assessment to generate better conservation outcomes.
Last Updated: January, 2023