Dr. Gary Wilson, a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Northern British Columbia, became President of the Association of Canadian Universities for Northern Studies (ACUNS) in October.

Established in 1978, ACUNS promotes northern and Arctic research and education in Canada throughout the circumpolar North among its member institutions.

In addition to teaching Political Science, Wilson is the Acting Chair of UNBC’s Department of First Nations Studies and the Co-ordinator of the Northern Studies Program. His research focuses on governance and politics in the Canadian and circumpolar North, and on the impacts of globalization and political change on regions and communities in northern Canada and the Celtic periphery in Europe. 

His role as ACUNS President is a two-year term.

Through the Canadian Northern Studies Trust program, ACUNS administers more than $1.4 million in research and travel funding every year for undergraduate and graduate students, and post-doctoral fellows based at Canadian post-secondary institutions. The majority of funds for the CNST program are provided through a generous grant from the W. Garfield Weston Foundation.  Recently, ACUNS created a new scholarship in northern research in honour of Dr. Jim McDonald, a faculty member in Anthropology at UNBC and a former President of ACUNS, who passed away in 2015.