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Carolyn Relf
Director
Carolyn Relf joined the Yukon Geological Survey as director in January, 2008. She moved to Whitehorse from Yellowknife, NWT where she worked as a project geologist with the Government of the NWT, then as chief geologist with the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. She has led bedrock mapping projects in the Slave and Churchill Provinces, and collaborated with colleagues from the Geological Survey of Canada and a number of universities on regional and targeted studies.
In 2001 she helped to establish a partnership between the territorial and federal governments to develop a single, co-delivered geoscience program (the NWT Geoscience Office). As federal co-manager of the office, she was responsible for management of the scientific programs (bedrock mapping, petroleum geoscience and mineral deposit studies) and client and information services. Carolyn also helped to develop two educational initiatives: a community-based mapping program designed to expose youth from First Nations communities to science, and an annual geological mapping course held in the NWT for senior undergraduate students at the University of Alberta. Both programs were created in response to capacity gaps identified by industry, and many of the participants of these programs are now employed in the resource industry in the North.
Most recently Carolyn worked as Director of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources for Indian and Northern Affairs Canada in Yellowknife, overseeing four divisions collectively responsible for the issuance of subsurface rights for mineral and petroleum exploration, regulatory advice to industry, and delivery of NWT’s geoscience program and services.
Carolyn has a B.Sc. in geology from Queen’s University (1984), a M.Sc. from Memorial University in (1988), and a Ph.D. from Queen’s (1992). She is currently an adjunct professor at the University of Alberta Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.