Renuka de Silva

Biography

Renuka M. de Silva, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in Teaching, Leadership, and Professional Practice at the College of Education and Human Development at the University of North Dakota. She is also the principal investigator and the Director of Indigenous Teacher Education. Dr. de Silva earned her Ph.D. from the University of North Dakota (Educational Foundations and Research) in Indigenous Narratives and Storytelling, a MED from the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, B.ED from the York University and a B.FA-Visual Arts-Specialized Honors from the York University, Toronto, ON, Canada. She also holds a College Teaching Certificate and a Junior/Intermediate Teacher Licensure from the Ontario College of Teachers. Dr. de Silva’s research centers on qualitative methods and design. As a qualitative researcher, she examines issues and trends in Indigenous education, cultural contexts of higher education of rural women, and human rights advocacy for youth and women in underserved communities. Her primary research focuses on Indigenous and South Asian epistemologies and the importance of storytelling and cultural rituals in various forms critical to mental health and well-being. As a field-based teacher-educator, her best practices center on Native and Indigenous pedagogies where land-based cultural practices combined with the arts and sciences are essential components of syllabi for student engagement. As a multicultural educator, she focuses on decolonizing syllabi that remove Eurocentrically fabricated margins through hidden curricula that keep underserved learning communities at bay in areas of academic achievement. Dr. de Silva’s scholarly work represents embodied experiences [k]new knowledge that continues to shape people and creates identities that are meaningful to themselves. From this space, she interrogates imposed identities with prefabricated borders and limitations placed on everything that is self and the physical body.