Dr. Lisa Rankin is a Professor of Archaeology at Memorial University and a Memorial University Research Chair in Northern Indigenous Archaeology. She has been active in archaeology for over thirty-five years, in South America, the American southwest, and across Canada. Between 2013 and 2017 she was president of the Canadian Archaeological Association.
Since 2001, Dr. Rankin has conducted research along the coast of Labrador, studying the history of Inuit and pre-Inuit people. Her speciality is collaborative, community-based research, in which the present-day local communities play the key role in formulating the goals of the research, also assisting in the field work and the analysis and presentation of the results.
Lisa has been the Principal Investigator in two multi-year, interdisciplinary research projects in Labrador, in collaboration with local communities. The first was “Understanding the Past to Build the Future”, conducted in collaboration with the NunatuKavut Community Council to study the history of the southern Labrador Inuit from the 15th century to the present day.
The second project, ending in 2022, is called, “Tradition and Transition Among the Labrador Inuit”, in collaboration with the government and communities of Nunatsiavut (central and northern Labrador). That project sought to assist Nunatsiavut communities in understanding traditional Inuit lifeways and values and incorporating them into strategies for coping with rapidly changing economic and social circumstances.