Evan Bowness, Director
Canada Research Chair in Sustainability and Equity
Evan Bowness is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Environment at Western University. His collaborative, community-engaged research sits at the intersections of political ecology, sustainability transitions, traditional food systems, and climate adaptation planning, with a focus on how knowledge and power shape responses to the climate crisis and wider ecological breakdowns. Through the TEST Lab, Evan works alongside natural scientists, Indigenous and land-based community leaders, and other partners to co-develop research that supports community adaptation while remaining attentive to histories of colonial land dispossession and extractive research. As a scholar working within colonial institutions, Evan benefits from and is implicated in structural inequities, and he aims to approach the responsibilities this confers with care. His scholarship aims to contribute to critical understandings of sustainability transitions and to the development of collaborative research practices to reshape how universities relate to land and to communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis.
Mateus Tremembé, Co-Director
Tremembé da Barra do Mundaú, Brazil
Mateus Tremembé is an Indigenous leader from the Tremembé da Barra do Mundaú Indigenous Territory. He’s a researcher, an agroecological farmer, and cultural curator for traditional Tremembé festivities, such as the Ritual of Ancestral Food, the Murici and Batiputá Festival, the Festa de Farinhada, and the Yemanjá Festival. In his role as Project Coordinator for ADELCO (Association for Co-produced Local Development), h e currently coordinates several community projects, including the Just Transitions in Food Systems Network, the Tremembé Earth School, and the Tremembé Climate Project. He speaks internationally on traditional food systems and climate justice, and was the keynote speaker at the 2025 Living Breath of wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ Indigenous Foods Symposium in Seattle, Washington (USA).
Past Members
