Commission members

Chair
Nesodden

Dagfinn Høybråten is the General Secretary of Norwegian Church Aid. He has extensive experience from assignments within politics and administration, as a member of the Storting, as Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, as Minister of Health and Care Services and as Director of the National Insurance Administration. He is a former leader of the Norwegian Christian Democratic Party and has served as Secretary General of the Nordic Council of Ministers.

Ivar Bjørklund

Professor
Tromsø

Ivar Bjørklund is Professor of Cultural Sciences at Tromsø University Museum. He is a social anthropologist and has carried out fieldwork in north-west Russia and Northern Norway. His primary focus has been on interethnic relations between the Sámi, Norwegians and Kvens, and the growth of Laestadianism. He is currently working on Sámi reindeer husbandry as a form of pastoral adaptation and its economic and political integration into the Norwegian nation-state.

Håkon Hermanstrand

Research Fellow,
Kolvereid

Håkon Hermanstrand is a PhD Research Fellow in Southern Sámi History at Nord University in Levanger. He has previously worked on Southern Sámi History for Røyrvik municipality, Nord-Trøndelag University College and Saemien Sïjte.

Per Oskar Kjølaas

Bishop Emeritus
Tromsø

Per Oskar Kjølaas is Bishop Emeritus. He has held a number of offices and assignments in the Church of Norway, and was minister in Kautokeino and Karasjok and Dean of Inner Finnmark. Until he became bishop, he was the theological consultant and project leader of the Northern Sámi Bible translation project.

Pia Lane

Professor
Oslo

Pia Lane is Professor of Multilingualism at the Center for Multilingualism at the University of Oslo. She has carried out research into language policy, multilingualism, language shift and linguistic revitalisation in the northern regions, in particular in her hometown of Bugøynes.

Anne Kristin Gurák

Senior Adviser,
Hamarøy

Anne Kristin Gurák is Senior Adviser at Árran – julevsáme guovdásj (the Lule Sámi Centre). She has been highly involved for many years in documenting and communicating accounts of offensive and unreported incidents in the community. She participated in the Norwegian Archive, Library and Museum Authority’s and Arts Council Norway’s BRUDD project, the objective of which was to create a debate about taboo-laden, marginal and controversial topics. She is a member of the steering committee for Jasska/Trygg, a follow-up project in the wake of the abuse cases in Tysfjord. Her Master’s thesis in Culture and Profession at UiT – The Arctic University of Norway concerns Norwegianisation and its consequences for relations in the Pite Sámi region.

Marit Myrvoll

Researcher
Tromsø

Marit Myrvoll is a researcher at the Sámi Norwegian National Advisory Unit on Mental Health and Substance Use (SANKS), Sámi Klinihkka, Finnmark Hospital Trust. She holds a PHD in Social Anthropology and her work has focused on perspectives on culture, societies and identities, cultural history and religious beliefs, as well as cultural heritage management. She has previously worked in the educational system, for the Sámi Parliament, the Directorate for Cultural Management, as a museum manager and researcher.

Einar Niemi

Professor Emeritus
Vadsø

Einar Niemi has been Professor Emeritus at UiT – The Arctic University of Norway since 2013. He studied at the University of Oslo, and has been a college lecturer, County Conservator in Finnmark, and Assistant Professor and Professor in History at UiT. He has worked in such areas as minority policy, ethnicity, regional and local history and research history.

Anne Julie Semb

Professor
Oslo

Anne Julie Semb is Professor of Political Science and currently Head of the Department of Political Science at the University of Oslo. Her academic interests include conflicts between states and groups, state sovereignty, citizenship, minority issues, in particular the issue of the Sámi population’s citizenship status in Norway, and human rights.

Liv Inger Somby

University College Lecturer
Kautokeino

Liv Inger Somby is a University College Lecturer, teaching journalism, indigenous peoples’ journalism and Sámi at the Sámi University of Applied Sciences in Guovdageaidnu (Kautokeino). She has worked for some decades as a news journalist, documentary journalist, editor and project manager in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. She carried out a major project, collecting the important and taboo-laden life stories of elderly Sámi women. She was sent to boarding school when she was seven years old.

Aslak Syse

Professor Emeritus,
Oslo

Aslak Syse is Professor in Law at the University of Oslo (emeritus since 2016). From 1971 to 1991 he worked as a doctor in Finnmark, and he was Senior Consultant in the Health Service for the Mentally Disabled. He has been Chair of the Norwegian Equality and Anti-Discrimination Tribunal and of the Department of Public and International Law at the University of Oslo. Since 2013, he has been Norway’s member of the Council of Europe’s Commission against Racism and Intolerance.

Ketil Zachariassen

Associate Professor
Tromsø

Ketil Zachariassen is Associate Professor in Modern History, with particular responsibility for the history of indigenous peoples and minorities at the Department of Archaeology, History, Religious Studies and Theology at UiT – The Arctic University of Norway. In his research, he has worked on a wide range of topics within modern Sámi, Kven and Northern-Norwegian history.