Pasternak is an associate professor in the Department of Criminology at Toronto Metropolitan University. Her research interests include interdisciplinary approaches to Indigenous jurisdiction, resource economies, and Crown-First Nations’ relations.
She will serve as the Laurence G. Pathy ’56 Distinguished Visiting Professor in Canadian Studies in Spring 2026. Pasternak will spend the spring semester at Princeton collaborating with students and scholars on subjects related to Canadian politics and history. She will also teach a course titled “The Long Arc of Fascism” for the Council’s Program in Humanistic Studies. The undergraduate seminar, cross-listed in the University Center for Human Values, will explore ways that political authoritarianism and genocidal practices are inseparable from capitalist modernity and not unique to the mid-20th century.
Pasternak is the co-founder and former research director for the Yellowhead Institute, an Indigenous-led think tank based in the Faculty of Arts at Toronto Metropolitan University. She is the author of the award-winning book Grounded Authority: The Algonquins of Barriere Lake Against the State, published by the University of Minnesota Press in 2017. She has contributed to numerous essay collections and academic journals, while also writing for The Globe & Mail, Toronto Star, and Canada’s National Observer.
