Bryn Evans is an MPP-MEM joint degree student specializing in minority rights and the environment. His work explores the intersections between culture, development, justice, and the natural world, focusing on how collaborative governance and localized decision-making can drive social and environmental progress. At Yale, Bryn intends to study how to design culturally inclusive policy regimes that better protect and empower frontline communities and holders of Traditional Knowledge.
Prior to graduate study, Bryn worked for three years at one of Canada’s leading public law firms, Ratcliff LLP, as a member of both the litigation and policy teams. He contributed to several precedent-setting Indigenous and constitutional climate rights cases, including the first Canadian case to allege an infringement of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms on the basis of government climate policy. Bryn also acted for five Pacific northwest coast First Nations in negotiations with the governments of British Columbia and Canada to draft and implement policies related to economic development, education, governance, water, and wildlife. Following his legal work, Bryn was an assistant program coordinator with the U'mista Kwak'wala Language Revitalization Planning Program, a Kwakwakaʼwakw initiative that aims to strengthen language and cultural practices.
Bryn holds an LLB degree with first-class honors from Durham University. His undergraduate dissertation, published in the Durham Law Review, argued that the legal protection of Indigenous socio-political systems is crucial to the success of global environmental solutions.