The Team

The current members of the IURI Team are:

• Myrna Kostash
• Naomi McIlwraith
• Leah Hrycun
• Larysa Hayduk
• Maryna Chernyavska

The founding members of the initiative are: Larysa Hayduk, Maryna Chernyavska, Myrna Kostash, Leah Hrycun, and Chelsea Vowel.

Learn more about our team below.

Myrna Kostash

Myrna Kostash is an acclaimed writer of literary and creative nonfiction who makes her home in Edmonton when she is not travelling in pursuit of her varied literary interests and passions. Her latest book, Ghosts in a Photograph, published by NeWest Press in 2022, questions the stories we, as Ukrainian Canadians, tell ourselves about our past, including the stories of settlement and relationships with the Indigenous Peoples.

Chelsea Vowel

Chelsea Vowel is Métis from manitow-sâkahikan (Lac Ste. Anne) Alberta, residing in amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton). Mother to six girls, she has a BEd, LLB, and MA. She is a Cree language instructor at the Faculty of Native studies at the University of Alberta.

Leah Hrycun

Leah Hrycun is a PhD Candidate at the Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta who has spent most of her life in Amiskwaciwâskahikan. She is a third generation Ukrainian Canadian who also shares German and Jewish ancestry. Her research seeks to recover narratives of Indigenous-Ukrainian relations in east central Alberta in the hope that it will open dialogues surrounding the shared histories of these lands and address why so few historians consider the presence of Indigenous peoples and land in Ukrainian Canadian histories. 

Larysa Hayduk

Larysa Hayduk is the Director of the Ukrainian Resource and Development Centre at MacEwan University. She is passionate about innovative approaches to connecting people with diverse backgrounds in meaningful and respectful ways.

Maryna Chernyavska

Maryna Chernyavska is the Digital Archivist at the University of Alberta Archives. She is also working on an interdisciplinary doctoral program in Media & Cultural Studies and Library & Information Studies at the University of Alberta. Maryna is originally from Chernivtsi, Bukovyna, Ukraine. Her research is focused on traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions in archives, community archives, and unorthodox archival practices.

Naomi McIlwraith

Naomi McIlwraith is a Mētis woman born and raised in Edmonton with roots going all the way back to Red River, Manitoba and beyond. Naomi is a peace educator, a thinker, a poet, a writer, and a quiet revolutionary.