Desiree Valadares is an Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of British Columbia. Valadares’ research and teaching focuses on the cultural memory and infrastructural imaginaries of the Second World War in western Canada and the non-contiguous US. In her current book project, Valadares theorizes repair through Pacific redress movements which coalesce around the preservation and stewardship of Second World War confinement landscapes in Hawai’i, Alaska and British Columbia. She draws insights from archival research, and place-based research methods including architectural drawing and photography in addition to participant-engaged methods such as landscape archaeology, gardening, and salvage at former confinement sites. Broadly, Valadares’ research contributes to ongoing debates on infrastructural repair, war reparations, Asian North American-Indigenous relations, settler colonialism and land dispossession at former Second World War confinement sites in former US territories and in western Canada.

Valadares trained as an architectural historian (Berkeley), urban designer (McGill) and landscape architect (Guelph/Edinburgh) and worked in private practice, government, and non-profits in landscape architecture, master planning, heritage conservation (Canada) and historic preservation (U.S.). Currently, Valadares holds professional affiliations with the Canadian Association of Heritage Professionals (CAHP) and is a registered landscape architect with the British Columbia Society of Landscape Architects (BCSLA).