Author Profile

Originally from Quebec, Diana spent her teenage years in Western Africa which was an early awakening to different cultures and the difficulties of living in a developing country. Following that experience, she obtained a Chemical Engineering degree with the intention of helping people to improve their standard of living by working on water and sanitation projects. After working as an Environmental Engineer and Simulations Engineer for 6 years at Enbridge, she left her job to work as a volunteer in Peru for two years on optimizing existing water and sewer systems. At the end of her contract, she came back to Alberta to work for the Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology, a startup not-for-profit organization with whom she pioneered train the trainer programs on household water treatment projects throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Diana then worked on water distribution and treatment systems for consulting engineering firms in Calgary.
Aside from being an engineer, Diana is also an Algonquin Métis, an artist, and a musician. In the spring of 2016, one morning she woke up from a dream that had showed her the way to help Indigenous people by founding the Colouring It Forward project. To date she has published 4 colouring books, that share elders teachings and Indigenous artwork from the Blackfoot, Dene Ojibway and Cree Nations, and created a social entreprise that supports Indigenous artists, elders and community development projects. Diana's Blackfoot name is Natohyinhsin which means Holy Song. Her accomplishments include publishing Indigenous art and reconciliation calendars, Christmas cards, journals and tshirts, helping to paint large Indigenous murals and starting a series of portraits on Indigenous heroes. In 2017, Diana founded the CIF Reconciliation Society whose purpose is to foster reconciliation through the arts. The Society is spearheading the ‘Pokaiks’ the Children Walk and Family Event to take place on September 29, 2019 for Truth & Reconciliation Day (Orange Shirt Day), a day to honour the survivors of residential schools and remember those we lost. CIF Reconciliation Society has also begun a pilot project in 2019 to teach young Indigenous girls some Blackfoot language and culture and also how to develop apps in Blackfoot language to help other children to also learn. In 2018, Colouring It Forward was awarded the Social Enterprise of the Year by the Conseil de Développement Economique de l’Alberta (Economic Development Council of Alberta).