Dr. Newell’s research interests span a range of subjects within these broad areas: Canadian social and economic history; science and technology in late industrial society; Aboriginal women in the industrial economy; and Pacific/Northwest Coast fisheries and anthropology. Her publications have won prizes from the Canadian Historical Association, the Canadian Nautical Research Society, and the Association of Canadian Studies. Dr. Newell has received the UBC Killam Memorial Fellowship and the UBC Killam Research Prize, was a 2002 Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies Distinguished Scholar in Residence, and Director of the Institute 2003-2011, and a 2012 Fellow of the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, South Africa. She is an ongoing Visiting Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study, Technical University of Munich.

Dr. Newell contributed to the founding of the UBC Emeritus College in 2017 and served as its first Principal in 2018-2019.

In 2015 Dr. Newell received a Retired Faculty appointment with the Institute for the Ocean and Fisheries. At present she is Interim Director of the IOF’s new Centre for Indigenous Fisheries, which she helped to establish.

The Dean of Arts Faculty Award for excellence and transformative contributions to the Faculty of Arts this year went to Margaret Schabas in Philosophy. Each year the award is named after an Emeritus Professor from Arts, chosen by the recipient, who has made a significant contribution to the Faculty of Arts and has been an inspiration to the award recipient. For 2022-2023, it has been named after Dr. Newell.

Research Interests

• Canadian social and economic history
• science and technology in late industrial society
• women in Cold War science fiction and 1970s radio documentaries
• Aboriginal women in the industrial economy
• Pacific/Northwest Coast fisheries and anthropology

Books

D. Newell; V. Lamont. Judith Merril: a critical study. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland, 2012.

D. Newell; R.E. Ommer, editors. Fishing places, fishing people: traditions and issues in Canadian small-scale fisheries. Toronto, Ont: University of Toronto Press, 1999.

D. Newell. Tangled webs of history: Indians and the law in Canada’s Pacific Coast fisheries. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993.

D. Newell; R. Greenhill. Survivals: aspects of industrial archaeology in Ontario. Erin, Ont: Boston Mills Press, 1989.

D. Newell, editor. The Development of the Pacific salmon-canning industry: a grown man’s game. Kingston, Ont: McGill-Queen’s Univ. Press, 1989.

D. Newell. Ebook Collection. Technology on the frontier: mining in old Ontario. Vancouver [B.C.]: University of British Columbia Press, 1986.

Articles/Book Chapters on Fisheries and Coastal Communities since 2003

D. Newell, Review of “Indian Fishing: Early Methods on the Northwest Coast, by H. Stewart”, BC Studies, No. 198, Summer, 2019.  https://bcstudies.com/book_film_review/indian-fishing-early-methods-on-the-northwest-coast-3/

D. Newell,  Luedecke, C. and Menzel, A., “The Science Behind Moravian Meteorological Observations for Late-18^th Century Labrador” Geophysical Research Abstracts, Vol. 19, EGU2017-19294, (European Geophysical Union General Assembly 2017), 2018. Retrieved from: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017EGUGA..1919294N/abstract

M. Matiu, Luedecke, C., Newell, D.,  and Menzel, A, “Polar Lows in the Labrador Sea Based on Moravian Historical Collection of Meteorological Data in Labrador and Greenland Since the mid-18^th Century”, Geophysical Research Abstracts, Vol. 19, 2018, (EGU2017-7827, European Geophysical Union General Assembly 2017). Retrieved from: https://ui.adsas.harvard.edu/as/2017EGUGA..19.7827M/abstract/

S. Harper, Salomon, A. K., Newell, D., Waterfall, P.H., Brown, K.,  Harris, L. and Sumaila, U.R., “Indigenous Women Respond to Fisheries conflict and Catalyze Change in Governance on Canada’s Pacific Coast”, Maritime Studies, Vol. 17, No. 2, 2017, pp. 189-198. DOI: I0.1007/s40152-018-0101-0C

D. Newell, “Renewing ‘That Which Was Almost Lost or Forgotten’: The Implications of Old Ethnologies for Present-Day Traditional Ecological Knowledge Among Canada’s Pacific Coast Peoples”, The International Indigenous Policy Journal, vol. 6, no. 2, 2015.

D. Newell and Stein, W., “The Ksraom-Larhae Totem Pole c.1885 of Canada’s Northwest Coast Culture Area.”, Fünf Kontinente. Forum für ethnologische Forschung, no. Band 1, pp. 107-127, 2015.

D. Newell and Schreiber, D., “Why Spend a Lot of Time Dwelling on the Past?: Understanding Resistance to Contemporary Salmon Farming in Kwakwaka’wakw Territory”, in Pedagogies of the Global: Knowledge in the Human Interest, A. Dirlik editor, Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2006.

D. Newell and Schreiber, D., “Collaborations on the Periphery: The Wolcott-Sewid Potlatch Controversy”, BC Studies, pp. 7-33, 2006.

D. Schreiber and Newell, D., “Negotiating Tek in BC Salmon Farming: Learning from Each Other or Managing Tradition and Eliminating Contention?”, BC Studies, pp. 79-102, 2006.

D. Newell, “Belonging Out of Place: Women’s Stories from the Western Edge of the Western World”, in Embodied Contact: Women in Canada’s Colonial Past, K. Pickles and Rutherdale, M. editors, Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2005, chapter 11.

D. Newell, “Beyond Chinatown: Social Networks, Development, and Overseas Chinese Intermediaries on the North American Pacific Coast in the Age of Finance Capital”, in Finance, Intermediaries and Economic Development, Engerman, S., Hoffman, P. T., Rosenthal, J. – L., and Sokoloff, K. L., editors, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 247-71.

D. Newell, “Fisheries and Fish Processing”, in Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History, Vol. 2, New York: Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 324-31.