Meera Kachroo (PhD, McGill University) is a Post-Doctoral Fellow with the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology and the Canadian Centre for Rural and Agricultural Health. Her research project is an ethnography of experiences, aspirations, and cultural memories of sleep; the project is co-created by and among on-reserve members of Beardy’s and Okemasis Cree Nation (Treaty 6). It is a component of the CIHR funded study, “Assess, Redress, Re-Assess: Addressing Disparities in Sleep Health among First Nations People” (PI: Dr. J. Dosman, co-PIs: Dr. P. Pahwa, Dr. S. Abonyi).
Meera is an experienced socio-cultural anthropologist, whose doctoral research brought a robust ethnographic focus to a south Indian religious tradition which was previously studied only for its texts and histories. In doing so, it affirmed the role of specific contemporary communities as agents and creators of their tradition, and re-centres emic analytical voices which have been dismissed in academic works on the topic. Dr. Kachroo is also an Adjunct Professor at St. Thomas More College and has extensive experience teaching culture, philosophy, and religion at the University level.
Returning to her hometown of Saskatoon after having worked and studied in Quebec, Europe, and South Asia, Meera is excited to take part in a local research project and enact her commitments to community engagement and Reconciliation in Treaty 6.