Audrey R. Giles

Professor Giles is an applied cultural anthropologist who conducts most of her research with Indigenous communities, primarily in the Arctic and sub-Arctic. Her research focuses on three main areas: 

• injury prevention (particularly drowning prevention in the Canadian North)
• health promotion (particularly Indigenous people’s engagement in physical activity), with particular emphasis on gender and cultural adaptation of resources
• sport for development and for reconciliation with Indigenous peoples in Canada, Australia and Aotearoa (New Zealand)

Learn more about Dr. Giles’s research and team.

Professor Giles is accepting new students for thesis supervision.

• Socio-cultural aspects of sport and leisure (especially gender and culture)
• Community-based research
• Sport for development
• Sport for reconciliation
• Northern studies
• Indigenous peoples
• Water and boating safety

Research funding

Professor Giles is proud to have had consistent Tri-Council funding (primarily SSHRC) throughout her career. She has also received funding from the Canadian Olympic Committee, the Public Health Agency of Canada (with the Canadian Red Cross), Transport Canada (with the NWT Recreation and Parks Association) and Health Canada (with the municipality of Pangnirtung, Nunavut). She has completed contracts with the Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health, Cancer Care Ontario and PHE Canada.

Giles has authored over 150 journal articles and more than 25 book chapters, and has co-edited three books, including Participatory Research in Sport and Physical Activity (Rich et al., 2024). Her book co-edited with Janice Forsyth, Aboriginal Peoples and Sport in Canada: Historical Foundations and Contemporary Issues, was one of two named Best Anthology by the North American Society for Sport History in 2014. Professor Giles’s past and current undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, all members of “Team Giles,” are simply superstars! They have won many prestigious awards and scholarships, including some of the biggest in Canada.

Professor Giles has received numerous awards for her work and advocacy:

• 2024 - Scholar Award
  Canadian Association of Leisure Studies
• 2023 - Canadian Safe Boating Council
  Best Boating Safety Initiative Award
• 2022 - University of Ottawa Faculty of Health Sciences Dean’s Award
  Research Impact in Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
• 2022 - Canadian Drowning Prevention Coalition
  Research Award for Drowning Prevention
• 2019 - Excellence in Education Award
  University of Ottawa
• 2018 - Research Fellow
  North American Society for the Sociology of Sport 
• 2018 - Fulbright Canada Arctic Research Chair
  Dartmouth College (US$25,000)
• 2012 - Community Service Award
  Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Ottawa

Current research funding

SSHRC Insight Grant

• PI: Audrey Giles; Co-I: Lyndsay Hayhurst; Collaborators: Jeremy Hapeta; Steven Rynne, Rochelle Stewart-Withers
• A sporting chance? A critical Indigenous analysis of “sport for reconciliation” in Canada, Australia, and Aotearoa/New Zealand
• Awarded: $253,015
   

Canadian Olympic Committee

• PI: Audrey Giles; Co-I: Francine Darroch
• Baby steps toward safe(r) policies: Examining Canadian safe sport policies and support for pregnant and parenting athletes
• Awarded: $57,064

SSHRC Insight Dev Grant

• PI: Francine Darroch; Co-I: Audrey Giles
• Water bottles and baby bottles: Community-based participatory research to understand the experiences of parenting track Olympians and Olympic hopefuls
• Awarded: $60,000

SSHRC Insight Grant

• PI: Kyle Rich; Co-Is: Jonathan Edwards, Audrey Giles, Larena Hoeber, Ann Pegoraro
• A Regional Approach to Sport Policy
• Requested: $290,842

SSHRC Partnership Grant

• PI: Catherine Sabiston, Co-Applicant: Audrey Giles et al.
• Partnership for Equitable and Inclusive Participation, Access, and Quality Experiences in Youth Sport (Sport4All)
• Awarded: $2.5 million

CIHR: Healthy Cities Implementation Science (HCIS) Team

• NPAs: Meghan Winters, Marie-Soleil Cloutier, Daniel Fuller; Co-Is: Audrey Giles et al.
• Building CapaCITY/É for Sustainable Transportation
• Awarded: $3 million
   

Team Giles’s research

See Audrey Giles’s publications.