Dorothy is of the Secwepemc and Syilx Nations from the interior plateau regions of BC. Her home community of Splatsin, is one of 17 communities that comprise the Secwepemc Nation. She is the eldest of 10, has one daughter and over 65 nieces, nephews, great nieces and nephews. Dr. Christian currently serves in the department of Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies at SFU. Her research in academia has consistently centralized Indigenous knowledge even before those terms were recognized in the academy.

In her undergraduate studies at the University of Toronto, Dorothy Cucw-la7 did a double major in Political Science and Religious Studies where she started comparing Indigenous thought with Euro-Western thought. Indigenous cultural knowledge informed both her MA at SFU’s School of Communications and her PhD at the Department of Educational Studies at UBC, which focused on Indigenous visual storytelling/filmmaking practices. Dorothy curated the Voices From The Western Regions of Turtle Island program at the 2018 ImagineNative film festival and in 2019 curated the Victor Masayesva, Jr. Retrospective – Dawsoma: Making Meaning in Toronto, at the largest Indigenous film festival in the world.