Dr. Ashleigh Weeden

Rural Futurist & Researcher, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives - Ontario Office

rural Canada, innovation, economic development, rural policy, rural development, rural urban dynamics, future of rural Canada, broadband in rural communities, inclusive economies, politics, energy policy, evidence-based policy, infrastructure

Media

University of Guelph Graduate Student Profile - Ashleigh Weeden

Ashleigh Weeden is a PhD candidate in the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development at the University of Guelph. Her research is finding ways to help rural Canada keep up in a future innovative digital economy.

Rural Communities and Long Weekend Visitors

Ashleigh Weeden, a PhD candidate in Rural Studies in the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development, offers her perspective on why smaller communities fear an influx of long weekend visitors.

Read more on how the pandemic is affecting rural areas: https://uoguel.ph/u5c7x

Ashleigh Weeden - International Women's Day Keynote, Women's Centre Grey Bruce

Space junk and high costs a concern as Starlink plans to launch in Canada | Your Morning

Rural futurist Ashleigh Weeden explains the potential advantages and drawbacks of SpaceX’s internet service.

Space junk and high costs a concern as Starlink plans to launch in Canada | Your Morning

CTV Your Morning, May 5, 2021Television

URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPX2CcQz3G8&list=PLleNaHGXXlGRG3fXR4k0_tknBGNSneRu5&index=2

Rural futurist Ashleigh Weeden explains the potential advantages and drawbacks of SpaceX’s internet service.

Discouraging cottage-goers for the long weekend

Will post-COVID policies realize the full potential of rural Canada?

P.E.I. Business Women’s Association annual symposium pivots to no-cost online event for 2020

COVID-19: Do you have a right to go to the cottage during the coronavirus pandemic?

Why Schitt's Creek and Letterkenny are being called 'love letters to rural Canada'

Keeping COVID-19 out of rural Canada proving more difficult as variants spread

The coronavirus pandemic is pushing Canadians out of cities and into the countryside

Do you have a right to go to the cottage during the coronavirus pandemic?

‘Schitt’s Creek’ and ‘Letterkenny’ are love letters to rural Canada

Biography

S. Ashleigh Weeden, MPA, PhD, is a community changemaker and rural futurist who splits her time between Ontario’s Saugeen/Bruce Peninsula (Saugeen Treaty Lands) and Wellington County (Haldimand Treaty Lands). Her work is fundamentally concerned with place, power, and policy — and how these forces shape people’s lives, particularly in rural communities and through technological and economic change.

A long-time advocate for the power of place-based approaches as critical mechanisms for creating effective public policy, Ashleigh has spent her career championing community-led innovation. Ashleigh recently completed her PhD in Rural Studies in the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development at the University of Guelph, under the direction of Dr. Ryan Gibson.

Prior to pursuing her doctorate, Ashleigh’s work leading Grey County’s Connected County Initiative directly contributed to the community being recognized as one of the Top 7 Intelligent Communities of 2017 by the Intelligent Community Forum. She also provided strategic communications, community engagement, and Indigenous relations support to the largest publicly-funded regional broadband project in Canada to-date, the Southwest Integrated Fibre Technology (SWIFT) initiative.

Recognized as a thought leader on rural renewal, policy foresight, and public sector innovation, and an emerging voice for ‘the right to be rural,’ Ashleigh has provided expert commentary to outlets and organizations like Buzzfeed News, the Ryerson Review of Journalism, the David Hume Institute (Scotland), the Scottish Government, CBC News, and CTV News, as well as several podcasts and community news outlets. Her work can be read in publications like The Conversation Canada, IRPP Policy Options, the Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation, Rural Policy Learning Commons, CIGI Online, and Municipal World (where readers have voter her Columnist of the Year in 2022 and 2023).

Additional Titles and Affiliations

Rural Policy Learning Commons

Member

Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation

Editor and Project Coordinator - Rural Insights Series: COVID-19

University of Guelph

PhD Candidate

Expertise

  • rural Canada
  • innovation
  • economic development
  • rural policy
  • rural development
  • rural urban dynamics
  • future of rural Canada
  • broadband in rural communities
  • inclusive economies
  • politics

Education/Éducation

  • University of Guelph
    Rural Studies
    Doctor of Philosophy, Rural Studies, 2022

    Currently in progress. Anticipated defense date in early 2022.


  • University of Victoria
    Public Administraton
    Master of Public Administration (Co-Op Designation), 2011
  • University of Guelph
    International Development, Political Economy & Administrative Change
    Honours Bachelor of Arts, 2008