Maï Yasué has been appointed as the Associate Director of the REDI office.
We are excited to announce that Maï Yasué has been appointed as the Associate Director of the Office of Respectful Environments, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. Mai will provide leadership to the REDI team in the development and delivery of our education and training programming. She will collaborate with leaders in departments, centres, and administration units, and staff, and faculty to identify institutional and individual barriers to inclusion and to foster long-term socio-cultural change towards justice, equity, decolonization, indigenization, and inclusion (JEDII). Her role involves connecting with senior leadership, staff, and faculty in the Faculty of Medicine to collaboratively work towards creating long-term socio-cultural change in the areas of justice, equity, decolonization, indigenization, and inclusion (JEDII).
Prior to joining REDI, Maï spent two years as a strategist and interim Director in the Equity & Inclusion Office at UBC. During her time there, she spearheaded the JEDII STEM Series and the IBPOC STEM Network and worked to support capacity-building to embed JEDII principles into teaching, research, and faculty and staff recruitment and review processes (including merit, tenure and promotion).
Previously, Maï served as a faculty member and administrative leader at Quest University Canada for 13 years. She taught and developed over 50 interdisciplinary courses in conservation and geography and held various leadership roles, including head of social sciences and chair of the university’s equity and diversity committee, faculty review, admissions, and financial aid committees. Her efforts focused on revising processes and procedures to enhance transparency, equity, and inclusion.
Maï, a second-generation immigrant from Japan, holds an MSc in Zoology from the University of Oxford and a PhD in Geography from the University of Victoria. As an interdisciplinary scholar, she has published over 40 articles in academic fields such as conservation, geography, zoology, education, behavioral ecology, economics, and psychology. Her recent research utilizes Self-Determination Theory to design inclusive and equitable practices and policies that foster autonomous motivation for sociocultural change.
Maï is grateful for having spent most of her life on the traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), and Stó:lō Nations. On a personal level, Maï is a parent to an 11-year-old daughter, a partner to a psychology instructor, and enjoys cooking, spending time in nature, and snuggling with her pet bunnies.