Lorena Sekwan Fontaine (BA, LL.B., LL.M., Ph.D) is Cree-Anishinabe and a member of the Sagkeeng First Nation in Manitoba, Canada. Professor Fontaine is co-founder and co-director of an Indigenous languages program and an Associate Professor in Human Rights at the University of Winnipeg. Her research includes linguicide, the legacy of residential schools and Indigenous language rights in Canada. In 2022, she served as the Fulbright Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Studies at San Diego State University.

Professor Fontaine has spoken nationally and internationally and has authored articles on residential school issues and Indigenous language rights in Canada. Her research was presented in a CBC documentary entitled “Undoing Linguicide.” She has also worked with Indigenous organizations as an advisor on Indigenous languages and linguistic rights. Since 2003, Professor Fontaine has been an advocate for Indigenous Residential School Survivors as well as their descendants. Both her parents and maternal and paternal grandparents are residential school survivors. She has been involved with a Digital Storytelling project on the Intergenerational Legacy of the Residential Schools. She was a task force member and contributor to the Assembly of First Nation's Report on Canada's Dispute Resolution Plan to compensate for abuses in Indian Residential Schools. Dr. Fontaine also acted as a legal consultant to the Toronto law firm Thomson, Rogers in a National Class Action on Indigenous Residential schools. 

Recently, Dr. Fontaine was a co-organizer of an educational forum on the legacy of the residential schools and the Holocaust with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 

Read more about Professor Fontaine's work on her faculty website here.