Aluki Kotierk picked to lead Indigenous education advisory body

Aluki Kotierk added another line to her growing resume this week when the National Advisory Committee on Indigenous Teacher Education named her a co-chair.

Kotierk served as a member of the forum’s 10-member committee since it was first established by the Rideau Hall Foundation in Janaury 2023. The foundation announced the appointment Tuesday.

“Kotierk leads by example,” the foundation website states. “(She is) driven by her passion to empower and improve the lives of Inuit.”

The other co-chair is Annette Trimbee, president of Grant MacEwan University, in Edmonton.

The committee is focused on increasing the numbers of Inuit, First Nations and Métis teachers in Canada. The Rideau Hall Foundation is an independent and non-political charitable organization.

It has been a busy year for Kotierk.

In July, she was acclaimed to a four-year term as Inuit Circumpolar Council chairperson at the organization’s general assembly held in Iqluit.

Earlier in the spring, Kotierk was appointed chair of the United Nations’ Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. She presided over its 25th session in New York City in April.

In February 2025, then-Northern affairs minister Gary Anandasangaree appointed her as a special ministerial representative responsible for overseeing an external review of Nutrition North. In May, she delivered the report.

Kotierk served as the eighth president of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., from late 2016 through 2024.

Before that she held leadership roles with the Government of Nunavut and worked with various Inuit organizations, including Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada, Inuit Tapirisat of Canada (now Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami) and Nunavut Sivuniksavut, an accredited, Inuit‑led post‑secondary school based in Ottawa.