Simon Blakesley is an educator living in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. He completed the Ph.D. (Educational Studies) program at UBC (Vancouver) in 2010. His dissertation, titled “Remote and Unresearched: A Contextualized Study of Non-Indigenous Educational Leaders Working in Yukon Indigenous Communities”, engages in a critical analysis of the lived experiences of non-Indigenous educational leaders working in Yukon.
Simon is Director, Student Achievement and Systems Accountability, at the Yukon Department of Education. He also teaches courses in education policy, educational leadership, pedagogy, organizational behavior, leadership, and qualitative research for numerous universities, and serves as a reviewer for educational leadership academic journals. In his role as Director, Simon contributes significantly to bring research to the forefront of education policy assessment and enacting. His knowledge of both the Yukon educational contexts, and his prolific scholarly publications contribute to highlight the role research has come to play in the Yukon’s educational trajectory.