it’s time to get to work…
… so let’s work together.
Dr. S. Ashleigh Weeden is an award-winning rural futurist, community developer, writer, and researcher, whose work is fundamentally concerned with place, power, and policy - and how these forces shape our lives, particularly in rural contexts and during times of seismic socioeconomic change. She works with leaders in communities and organizations of all sizes to develop critical pathways towards their preferred futures.
A long-time advocate for the power of place-based approaches as critical mechanisms for re-centering public policy on what matters most - ensuring everyone is included in a vibrant, vital future - Dr. Weeden has spent her career championing community-led innovation. She provides effective, pragmatic solutions to high-stakes policy problems, from the community-impacts of large scale energy development to digital infrastructure management to strategic planning and governance. She has developed a reputation for “speaking truth to power” through her provocative and impactful interventions.
With more than fifteen years of progressively influential contributions to leadership in rural policy, practice, and research, Dr. Weeden has become a sought-after thought leader in the areas of future-oriented public sector leadership, the application of the “right to be rural” in policy and practice, advancing evidence-informed rural policy renewal, community-first approaches to innovation and economic transformation policy, and place-based public stewardship.
Dr. Weeden 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. Dr. Weeden has published widely in both scholarly and popular press, and her work can be read in publications like The Conversation Canada, IRPP Policy Options, the Annals of the Association of American Geographers, the Annals of Regional Science, the Journal of Rural and Community Development, the Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation, the Rural Policy Learning Commons, CIGI Online, and her long-standing column in Municipal World.
As a lifelong ‘joiner’, Dr. Weeden also supports an eclectic mix of community initiatives, including serving on the Board of Directors for the Canadian Centre for Rural Creativity, serving as a founding Board Member to the youth-led organization Rural and Ready, and supporting progressive policy development through her affiliation as a Research Associate with the Ontario Office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. She has played the bagpipes competitively since the age of nine (and was once among the top amateur competitors in Canada), supported her family in showing a highly competitive six-horse hitch of Haflinger horses, and has published and performed poetry in multiple platforms.
Recent & Upcoming Appearances
February 10, 2026 - AFCO-ACAF Winter Tune Up, Fireside Chat with Allana Stuart (Private Event)
November 5, 2025 - CSA Group Policy Pathways Conference, Building a Thriving Canadian Economy (Toronto, Ontario)
OCtober 6, 2025 - Futures Possible Podcast with Bojan Furst
September 23-26, 2025 - Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation Conference, Keynote + Master of Ceremonies (Brandon, Manitoba)
July 12, 2025 - Poetry in the Gallery, Gallery at Blyth Festival Theatre, Poetry Reading (Blyth, Ontario)
January 20, 2025 - Rural Ontario Municipalities Association, Annual Conference (Toronto, Ontario)
Recent Publications
Community-Engaged Research and the “Right to be Rural” - Chapter in Critical Futures: Community-Engaged Research in a Time of Crisis and Social Transformation (with Sean Markey, Ryan Gibson, Greg Halseth, and Laura Ryser)
Sisyphus’s Broadband: Exploring models of rural community participation in digital infrastructure and connectivity (Journal of Community Informatics, with Dr. Wayne Kelly and Dr. Sarah-Patricia Breen)
Effective rural policy is critical to Canada’s security, stability and sovereignty (Policy Options)
Our future depends on infrastructure. It’s time to act like it. (Policy Options)
Outsmarting urbanism: Can leveraging the ‘right to be rural’ produce alternative futures? Chapter in The Smartification of Everything.
Recent projects
Evaluating ECHO in Rural Contexts (University of Manitoba/Manitoba Shared Health)
Does AI Have a Place in Rural Governance? Navigating the co-creation of responsive digital
technology solutions in rural Canada and Scotland (Rural Development Institute/Scotland’s Rural College)
ConnectedMB - Rural Development Institute, Brandon University (Manitoba)
Education
University of Guelph
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY, RURAL STUDIES
Defended (with distinction) November 2022, Conferred February 2023
uNIVERSITY OF vICTORIA
MASTER OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION (CO-OP)
Defended December 2010, Conferred June 2011
University of Guelph
HONOURS BACHELOR OF ARTS, INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT (POLITICAL ECONOMY AND ADMINISTRATIVE CHANGE)
Graduated February 2008