Olivia Hee

Dr. Olivia Hee is a postdoctoral researcher and wildlife veterinarian in the Kutz Research Group at the University of Calgary Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. Her interests lie in community-based wildlife health surveillance (CBWHS) and arctic ungulate health.

Originally from Fort Saskatchewan, AB, Olivia completed her BSc at the University of Alberta and her DVM at the University of Calgary. She then moved to Yellowknife, NT to work in a small animal practice before completing her MSc at the University of Calgary. Her thesis focused on the use of harvester-based samples to assess health and reproduction in muskoxen. Soon after, Olivia was recruited to act as the Kutz Research Group’s CBWHS coordinator based in Yellowknife to further advance the program’s goals.

Olivia’s POLAR Fellowship supports her collaboration with Aurora College’s Environment and Natural Resources Technology Program and her northern leadership role collaborating with communities and governments of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut to expand and support community-based wildlife health surveillance. Her work focuses on i) establishing a northern research and administrative node to support and expand the existing CBWHS program; ii) summarizing and mobilizing the program’s existing wildlife health data that underpin and guide wildlife co-management and public health decisions; and iii) increasing wildlife health training opportunities for Northerners. Olivia’s aims are to help amplify the Indigenous Voice in wildlife co-management and to support wildlife conservation and public health decision-making in the Arctic.