Jennifer F. Provencher (born 22 October 1979) is a Canadian conservation biologist. She is an early-career researcher and a spokesperson for the awareness of plastic contaminants in marine wildlife, pollution and climate change. Many of her work focus on the impact of human activities on the health of Arctic seabirds and marine ecosystems.
Education
Provencher received her B.Sc. in Marine Biology and her B.Ed. in Senior Sciences and Biology from the University of British Columbia. She then received a M.Sc. from the University of Victoria for her work on seabirds as indicators of change in the eastern Canadian Arctic. Her Ph.D. in Biology (Environmental and Chemical Toxicology) at Carleton University focused on parasites and mercury as possible drivers of avian health and reproduction.
She received a W. Garfield Weston Post-doctoral Fellowship in 2016 and a Liber Ero Post-doctoral Fellowship in 2018 to work in Northern Research at Acadia University.
Work
Before 2010: Career foundation
After graduating with a Bachelor's degree in Marine Biology and Education in 2004, Provencher taught and assisted in research projects at the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre on Vancouver Island, Canada as a teacher and a scientific diver. In 2008, she decided to return to school to pursue a M.Sc. at the University of Victoria.
2010-2018: Early career stage
In 2010, Provencher worked with the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS) in association with the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) and the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) to lead the education and outreach assessment of activities conducted during the 2007-2009 International Polar Year. In the following years, she once again returned to graduate school as she undertook a Ph.D. at Carleton University, and she remained engaged as a member of the APECS executive committee and guest poster.
Provencher has acted as committee chair or organizer for several international conferences, including the 2012 Inuit Studies Conference APECS workshop, Washington DC, USA; the 2013 ArcticNet Annual Science Meeting, Halifax, Canada and the 2018 Arctic Biodiversity Congress, Helsinki, Finland.
Between 2014 and 2019, Provencher gave over two dozen invited presentations all around the world on various topics related to contaminants or northern studies, among others. Some of the organizations that invited her included the American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation. In 2019, she was among the scientists invited to speak in a joint Canada-Monaco-France event on plastic pollution in the environment, namely at Maison Des Oceans, Paris, and the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco, Monaco. That same year, she was called upon to testify in front of the Canadian Senate Committee on the Arctic and speak at the Belfer School for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. Some of her other invited speeches were at the 2012 University of the Arctic Communications Workshop, Tromsø, Norway. She has been nominated to represent the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) at planning group for the April 2020 International Symposium on Plastics in the Arctic and Sub‐Arctic Region, Reykjavik, Iceland.
2018-present: Career advancement
Since 2018, Provencher is Head of the Wildlife Health Unit at the Canadian Wildlife Service (Environment and Climate Change Canada), and her work focuses on the effect of diseases, parasites and contaminants on the conservation of wildlife. As of 2019, she is an adjunct researcher at three Canadian universities: Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario; Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia; and Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada.