About Me
Dr. Renée Hetherington is the author of the popular science book Living in a Dangerous Climate and co-author of The Climate Connection with Robert G.B. Reid, both published by Cambridge University Press. Her NSERC-funded doctoral work with the University of Victoria reconstructed the paleogeography of Canada’s Pacific coast during and after the last ice age and examined the impact of a changing climate on the peopling of the Americas. Her SSHRC-funded post-doctoral work modelled the world’s climate, vegetation, and glaciation over the last 135,000 years and related it to the evolution of modern humans and humanity’s response to crisis. Dr. Hetherington was co-leader of an international UNESCO project researching the evolution of the world’s continental shelves with a specific interest in its impact on humans. She recognizes that throughout human history, when humans have faced crises, diverse peoples have communicated and collaborated to create the innovative conditions necessary for humanity’s survival. Which is why she is committed to communicating the value of human diversity and the damage caused by “othering.”
Dr. Hetherington has been a reviewer for Cambridge University Press, Literary Review of Canada, and various scientific peer-reviewed journals. She has been a writer-in-residence at the Banff Centre four times, once as a Leighton Studio resident, and is the recipient of a 2023 Access Copyright Professional Development Grant. Her peer-reviewed book chapters and articles have appeared in Geological Society of London, Geological Society of America, Geotimes, Current Anthropology, Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, Canadian Journal of Zoology, and the Literary Review of Canada. She has presented keynote addresses to a variety of international audiences and participated in many radio and TV interviews, as well as in the film Coming to America (2004). She has worked as an adjunct professor at the University of Victoria and holds a master of business administration from the Ivey School of Business at Western University.
Dr. Hetherington was executive director of Sidney and Peninsula Literary Festival for eight years and is a certified Vijnana Yoga teacher, a businesswoman, geologist, and rancher. Her life experiences have been eclectic, from riding herd at her ranch in British Columbia’s interior to running for Member of Parliament in the 2011 federal election. Currently, when not writing or riding the range, she spends her time climbing mountains and fording glacial streams while doing geology with her husband and business partner.
Renée’s research skills and life experiences contributed to her writing a unique memoir that combines the history of psychiatry in Canada with her deeply personal experience of her mother’s troubled life. What Happened to Gladys? is now with publishers for review.
Renée’s next project is a narrative non-fiction book about a diverse group of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people from central British Columbia who defied a provincial evacuation mandate and stayed in their homes, risking their lives to fight a 252,000-hectare complex of wildfires to save their homes, land, livelihoods, and community.