Team Member Title Director

Barb Smeltzer – Vice president

Barb is a social impact professional with more than 20+ years of experience in the corporate philanthropy and nonprofit space. She has a degree in Cultural Anthropology which sparked her love of understanding the human journey. Her roots in Nova Scotia run deep, as her paternal ancestors are one of the settler families of Lunenburg and Mahone Bay, coming from Germany in 1752. Although Barb grew up all across Canada, she decided to make Nova Scotia her home in 2018 to be closer to her father’s side of the family and to embrace coastal living. Since then, Barb has become a concerned citizen in how the province can thrive in these uncertain times, building pathways for all Nova Scotians to have a high quality of life.

Barb presently is the Senior Operations Manager with Engage Nova Scotia. In her personal time, Barb enjoys communing with the natural beauty of Nova Scotia with her magical dog Merlin, a 9 year old Lab/Shepherd mix and rescue.

Gillian Kerr

Dr. Gillian Kerr is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Dalhousie, coordinating the Rural Futures Research Centre and working with the ‘Perceptions of Climate Change and Social Futures’ project. She is also adjunct faculty at Royal Roads University in Victoria, BC where she teaches environmental and ecological economics for decision-making. She recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at McGill University in the RESNET research group on ecosystem service research and application across Canada.

Her doctoral thesis, “Market-Based Approaches for Environmental Governance: Exploring the Implementation Gap in Alberta” explored governance issues that have impeded that application of MBIs for environmental objectives in Alberta. Her research interests include ecosystem services theory and application for sustainable communities, and the application of ecological economics to enhance sustainable futures. She has recently moved to Halifax from Edmonton, Alberta.

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