B.C.’s Lilwat Nation celebrates second-ever PhD [Video]

The Lil’wat Nation is celebrating one of its own after Qátsya7 Mason Ducharme earned the Nation’s second-ever PhD.

After four years of study at the University of Victoria, Ducharme successfully defended his thesis, on the turnover and retention of Indigenous executives in Indigenous organizations, and earned his doctorate on Dec. 4.

When Ducharme started his PhD, he had an eight-month-old daughter, Riel. Midway through his studies, he and his wife had another daughter named Macy. During the long hours, stresses and curveballs a PhD program throws at you, he said his kids kept him going.

Fittingly, you can hear Ducharme’s children in the background of his thesis defence.

“I get my oldest daughter Riel saying that she wants to be a scientist, she wants to be a doctor, she wants to be a chemist,” said Ducharme. “To hear that at under five years old, that’s amazing. Because she knows dad’s …