Dr. Merissa Daborn is a white scholar and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Indigenous Studies at the University of Manitoba where she researches at the intersections of food, technoscience, surveillance, policing, policy, and whiteness.

Her doctoral research considered how policy approaches to Indigenous food insecurity perpetuate healthism (the self-regulation of health behaviours) rather than addressing the everyday structural and material conditions food insecure Indigenous people must navigate — including securitization, policing, and networks of colonial biopower.

Her latest research is focussed on the relationship between citizen surveillance, policing, and grocery stores as carceral spaces in Winnipeg.

Merissa is a member of the Indigenous STS Lab in the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta. She is dedicated to research in the areas of urban Indigenous studies and Indigenous STS (science, technology, and society).