Best Student Oral Presentation Award Profile – Andrea M. Vásquez Fernández 

Andrea is a PhD candidate at The University of British Columbia. She holds an MSc. from the University of British Columbia, a B.Sc. in Forest Engineering, and a diploma in Environmental Management, Quality, and Auditing from Peru’s National Agrarian University of La Molina.

Since 2012, Andrea has been part of the Amazonian Asheninka and Yine Peoples Alliance, where she works with a pluricultural research team formed by Asheninka and Yine community members. Together, using indigenous theories and methodologies in power-shared projects, the team is committed to conducting collaborative community-led endeavors to address communities’ concerns and desired futures. Currently, they are executing a project called ‘RESPECT-AMAZONIA,’ which has been supported by UBC’s Public Scholar Initiative, Social Sciences, and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Aileen D. Ross Doctoral Fellowship, International Development Research Centre (IDRC), among others.

Andrea won the Best Student Oral Presentation award for her work titled “Negotiating Divergences and Bridging Divides: An Interculturally Respectful Methodology with Amazonian Indigenous Peoples.”

You can learn more about Andrea and her work here.