Ellen is currently Co-Chair in the School of Horticulture, Faculty of Science, and current instructor and former Chair in Policy Studies, Faculty of Arts. 

Ellen taught upper-level community planning and landscape systems courses in the Bachelor of Horticulture Science, Urban Ecosystems degree program. In 2020, she proposed and co-founded the Climate+ Challenge at KPU, to support empathetic and solutions-oriented teaching and learning on the climate crisis across the university. She also recently led the Training team at the Canadian Centre for Climate Services (Environment and Climate Change Canada) to deliver learning tools and tailored climate information for a wide range of climate data users, from public health organizations to Indigenous communities. Ellen’s current teaching practice at KPU explores how to achieve societal change, centered on the intersections of the climate and biodiversity crises, decolonization and equity.

At KPU since 2015, Ellen has extensive consulting and research experience in community planning and engagement, climate policy and climate knowledge mobilization. She designed the Energy section in the award-winning Town of Creston Official Community Plan. Her research work in community-based climate planning with UBC’s Collaborative for Advanced Landscape Planning led to publications on climate change visualization and co-authorship on a book chapter in the award winning and groundbreaking publication Successful Adaptation to Climate Change: Linking Science and Practice in a Rapidly Changing World (S. Moser and M. Boykoff, eds). Ellen brings her passion for collaboratively designed solutions to her work with interdisciplinary teams and her teaching at Kwantlen Polytechnic University.

Ellen is a Landscape Architect and Red Seal Carpenter with an undergraduate degree in Geography and a Master of Landscape Architecture. Her family settled in Treaty One, Treaty Four and Ktunaxa, Syilx and Sinixt territories over the past 100+ years. She currently lives and works in Vancouver as a guest on the unceded, ancestral and sacred territory of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples.

Courses taught at KPU:

• HORT 3210 Applied Urban Ecosystems
• HORT 3230 Urban Watershed Planning
• HORT 4252 Landscape and Environment: Applications
• POST 2150 CityLab6 Cultivating Community
• POST 2900 Special Topics: Urban Biodiversity
• POST 3110 Applied Policy Seminar I / Applied Sustainability Seminar
• POST 4110 Applied Policy Seminar II / Applied Public Policy Seminar