Deanna Burgart

Deanna Burgart developed a love of finding cross-cultural collaboration opportunities between youth, government, Indigenous communities and industries based on her life experience. Her early exposure to music led her to believe that incorporating arts into STEM could broaden its appeal to broader audiences and more diverse perspectives. To promote inclusivity for Indigneous Indigenous youths in STEM, she co-founded IndigeSTEAM, which engages students through outreach programs. Trained as a chemical engineer, she recognized the high demand for her skills in the energy sector.

She credits her passion for protecting the environment as one of the major motivators for her work. She combined this passion with her strong belief in supporting Indigenous engagement in the energy sector when she co-founded the consulting firm of Indigenous Engineering Inclusion (IEI). IEI provides training, workshops and lectures keynote addresses to post-secondary institutions and STEM-based organizations. In 2019 Deanna joined the University of Calgary as the first Teaching Chair in the Schulich School of Engineering tasked with shifting the culture of Engineering Education to She serves on the Board of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) where she co-leads the Education and Professional Development committees. Their mandate is to serve K-12 Indigenous youth across Canada and the United States.  She also serves on the Board of Contemporary Calgary Arts and several Indigenous advisory groups across Canada and the United States.

As a member of the Canadian Indigenous Advisory Council, she advised the American Indian Science and Engineering Society on how to better serve their Canadian members, which included the first national gathering for Indigenous STEM post-secondary students and professionals, the Canadian Indigenous Science and Engineering Society.

Deanna Burgart’s research on engineering was partially funded by NSERC.