2016 Request For Proposal Program Review Committee Leadership
Dr. Heather Castleden | Committee Co-chair & Reviewer
Dr. Heather Castleden is a white settler scholar-ally who holds the Canada Research Chair in Reconciling Relations for Health, Environments, and Communities at Queen’s University where she is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Planning and the Department of Public Health Sciences. As a broadly trained health geographer, Dr. Castleden undertakes community-based participatory research in partnership with Indigenous peoples in Canada on issues that are important to them and fall within her programmatic areas of expertise. Since 2009, she has been the Director of the Health, Environment, and Communities Research Lab (www.heclab.com), a vibrant community of research associates, trainees, and staff. Dr. Castleden has served on the CIHR Institute of Aboriginal Peoples’ Health Advisory Board (2013-2016) and provides peer review for regional, national, and international funding competitions.
Dr. Jeff Reading | Committee Co-chair
Dr. Jeff Reading is a Professor and British Columbia First Nations Health Authority Chair in Heart Health and Wellness at St. Paul’s Hospital, Vancouver, BC. Simon Fraser University and Professor (status-only appointment) Waakebiness Institute for Indigenous Health, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. He is also a Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria.
Dr. Cynthia Stirbys | Committee Scientific Officer
Dr. Cynthia Stirbys is Saulteaux-Cree from the Cowessess First Nation, Saskatchewan. She holds an MA in Conflict Studies and a PhD in Feminist and Gender Studies from the University of Ottawa (2016). In her research she examined the intergenerational effects of the Indian residential school experience through Indigenous women’s sharing of their life stories. Using the Grounded Theory Methodology, Dr. Stirbys developed a theoretical framework called “Potentializing Wellness” from an Indigenous perspective. Her research motivation is to optimally advance Indigenous peoples’ well-being. Dr. Stirbys who has worked in various positions related to Indigenous Peoples’ Health was recently appointed Adjunct Professor at Simon Fraser University in BC.
Request for Proposal Program Review Committee
Ms. Katie Big-Canoe
Ms. Katie Big-Canoe is a member of the Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation and is presently the Research Coordinator of the Indigenous Health Lab at Western University. She holds two degrees from Western University; a Bachelor of Science in Biology and Geography, and a Master of Arts in Geography. She brings over 9 years’ experience working in the community-based research field, most recently completing the data collection for a comprehensive urban Aboriginal research project entitled Our Health Counts London while hired as Community Research Coordinator at the Southwest Ontario Aboriginal Health Access Centre.
Dr. Heather Castleden
Dr. Heather Castleden is a white settler scholar-ally who holds the Canada Research Chair in Reconciling Relations for Health, Environments, and Communities at Queen’s University where she is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Planning and the Department of Public Health Sciences. As a broadly trained health geographer, Dr. Castleden undertakes community-based participatory research in partnership with Indigenous peoples in Canada on issues that are important to them and fall within her programmatic areas of expertise. Since 2009, she has been the Director of the Health, Environment, and Communities Research Lab (www.heclab.com), a vibrant community of research associates, trainees, and staff. Dr. Castleden has served on the CIHR Institute of Aboriginal Peoples’ Health Advisory Board (2013-2016) and provides peer review for regional, national, and international funding competitions.
Ms. Leslie Bryant
Ms. Leslie Bryant (MSc, CSEP-CEP, Leader for Research, Quality Improvement and Projects, Population Health, Interior Health) is responsible for the strategic implementation of quality improvement and larger special projects as well as research coordination and general knowledge translation and exchange activities. She also teaches in the School of Human Kinetics and UBC Okanagan. Ms. Bryant assists with the enhancement of health services and policy research capacity and education within the health authority, including the provision of relevant and timely evidence for decision support and program planning. She is also provides research support, networking opportunities and skills training sessions for Interior Health staff. Ms. Bryant’s research interests focus on knowledge translation and capacity building as a means to inform health service delivery and the evidence to practice continuum; particularly in elder care and aboriginal health, most recently holding a CIHR grant, Embracing A Vision for Indigenous Health: Community Access to Prevention, Self-management and Integrated Diabetes/Obesity Services in the BC Interior, as a co-principle investigator.
Dr. Chelsea Gabel
Dr. Chelsea Gabel is Métis from Rivers, Manitoba. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health, Aging and Society and the Indigenous Studies Program at McMaster University. Her program of research focuses on the strengths and weaknesses of digital technology as a means of providing health education, self-determination, advocacy and support for Indigenous elders and youth. As the primary investigator on two SSHRC grants, her research identifies issues faced by elders and youth that are influenced by changes to traditional Indigenous culture and other interconnected health, social, economic, and political processes; and evaluates the role of digital technology and whether it could be beneficial for community health, supporting and strengthening community capacity. The inclusion of digital technology as a way of maintaining community health and well-being in Indigenous communities has the potential to increase leverage to advocate for specific policy and program initiatives. A key feature of her work focuses on the importance of community engagement and using Indigenous ‘ways of knowing’ to inform the research process.
Mr. Randy Jackson
Mr. Randy Jackson is interested in ways Indigenous knowledges that can be used in health research to focus on experiences of HIV among Aboriginal people living with or at risk of HIV infection. His current thesis project is focused on experiences and responses to depression among Aboriginal people living with HIV. He is also working on several other research projects—in the role of co-investigator—including developing an understanding of use of arts-based approaches in research to inspire Aboriginal youth HIV prevention leadership; exploring resiliency among two-spirited men living with HIV; and last, a project exploring cultural understandings of home and how this intersects with health and wellbeing for Aboriginal peoples living with HIV. Through research he is involved in, he is particularly interested in ways Indigenous knowledges move ‘us’ beyond critiques of colonization towards ways research can reflect tribal wisdom.
Dr. Alexandra King
Dr. Alexandra King, MD, FRCPC, is a member of the Nipissing First Nation (Ontario). She is an Internal Medicine Spec ialist with a focus on HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C (HCV) and HIV/HCV coinfections. As a First Nation physician, her Indigenous-focus practice includes care for HIV/AIDS, HCV and co-infec tions, for which First Nations, Inuit, and Métis bear a disproportionate bu rden. She works at the Lu’ma Medical Centre (Vancouver), an Indigenous health and wellnes s centre providing excellence in care using both Indigenous and Western heal ing approaches. She also co-leads a collaborative project with the Atwood Clinic, Cariboo Memorial Hospital and Interior Heal th to provide Williams Lake and surrounding communities with a shared model of hepatitis C care. As a First Nation researcher, Alexandra is a Principal In vestigator on various CIHR research grants related to Indigenous people and HIV, HCV and co-infections. Other research interests include Indigenous wellness and Indigenous research ethics. She undertakes community based research that is centred on Indigenous ancestral wisdom and lived experience; similarly, she develops intervention research that is grounded in Indigenous epistemology, culture and wellness. Indigen ous research philosophies and methodologies, as well as Two-Eyed Seeing, are combined to produce innovation and excellence in the research processes and outcomes, and peer-based navigation, support and research; land-based cultural retreats; land-based research; and arts-based research. Alexandra has co-developed and co-teaches Indigenous health courses at Simon Fraser University, including a mandatory mini-course for Ma ster of Public Health students. She serves on many local and national initiatives, including the CanHepC: the Canadian hepatitis C network (Scientific Committee, Clinic al Core, Knowledge translation / implementation science core), the Canadian National Aboriginal Working Group on HIV & AIDS, the Interagency Coalition on AIDS and Development, and the CIHR Canadian HIV Trials Network (CTN) Working Group for Health f or People Who Use Drugs (co-lead). Throughout her medical training, she received numerous award s for her activism, including the Gordon Cressy Student Leadership Award, the President’s Award f or the Outstanding Native Student of the Yearand the Dr. John Big Canoe Memorial Scholarship. Alexandra is co mpleting a Master of Science degree at Simon Fraser University, focusing on Indigenous peoples in Canada and HCV.
Dr. Kim McKay-McNabb
Dr. Kim McKay-McNabb, is a Registered Doctoral Psychologist (Provisional) and a First Nation Saulteuax Cree woman who resides in Regina, Sk. Dr. McKay-McNabb pursued her B.A. Honours, M.A. Clinical Psychology and Ph.D. Clinical Psychology through the University of Regina. She completed her one-year psychology residency through the Saskatoon Health Region. Kim has put her gift of academic, research and Indigenous knowledge to excellent use, having served as a faculty member at First Nations University of Canada from 2006 to 2014. In this role, she has taught dozens of courses and has taken care to represent the views of her community in her courses, by speaking from firsthand knowledge, inviting Elders and Knowledge Keepers to meet with her students, and encouraging students to advocate for the needs of indigenous Canadians through initiatives such as the REDress project and MMIWG projects. She has secured CIHR grants and continues to mentor many students and community members in regards to research and clinical work. Kim begun full-time work as a clinician in her own practice in 2015, and her passion for education continues to thrive in this context, as she continues to commit time to sessional lecturing, conducts presentations on topics related to mental health, works toward publishing her dissertation work, and continues to collaborate on work to inspire university students to consider and value Indigenous knowledge. She also provides her expertise to Indigenous communities through in kind work, research projects and being a independent consultant. She also ensures that she volunteers her time on research teams, committees and review panels. Through these initiatives, Kim’s commitment to using her education to further the wellbeing of Indigenous communities in Canada is her priority for engaging with those kindred individuals who strive for similar purposes. She is married to her husband Patrick of over twenty five years and they have raised four children together and have three granddaughters.
Dr. John McLaughlin
Dr. John McLaughlin is Chief Science Officer and a Senior Scientist at Public Health Ontario, and is Professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. As an epidemiologist he specializes in research that integrates diverse disciplines in studies of environmental, societal, behavioural and biological determinants of health, resulting in more than 270 peer-reviewed publications. As a health system executive he also works to apply research findings in prevention initiatives, such as by launching Ontario’s colorectal screening program (the first of its kind in Canada), and by steering research and services to have high impact by focusing on disparities, system performance and disease prevention. Serving as professor, teacher, mentor and supporter of initiatives at local levels, he also advises national and international organizations on how to improve the impact of health research and services.
Dr. Christopher Mushquash
Dr. Christopher Mushquash, C.Psych. is Ojibway and a member of Pays Plat First Nation. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Lakehead University and the Division of Human Sciences at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. Dr. Mushquash is a Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Mental Health and Addiction. In addition to his academic appointments, he is a registered clinical psychologist providing assessment, treatment, and consultation services to First Nations children, adolescents, and adults at Dilico Anishinabek Family Care.
Ms. Doris Peltier
Ms. Doris Peltier, a publicly disclosed 58 year old HIV Positive Aboriginal Woman and is currently transitioning into a new role within the Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network, as the National Coordinator for Visioning Health II, a newly funded research study, designed as an intervention for Positive Aboriginal Women in Canada. She serves on a number of committees and working groups, some of which include CIHR-CTN CAC (Community Advisory Committee); co-chair with the Aboriginal Women’s Research Initiative (AWRI) with Women’s College Hospital; and Co-lead for CHIWOS PAW in Québec; board member with the Canadian Positive Peoples Network; co-chair with CTN’s Health for People Who Use Drugs (HfPWUD) Working Group. Doris also co-authored an academic article/chapter entitled When Women Pick Up Their Bundles: HIV Prevention and Related Service Needs of Aboriginal Women in Canada, which is included in the Scholar Press publication – Women and HIV Prevention in Canada. Doris is fluent in her Odawa language and has a considerable wealth of Indigenous knowledge and has a passion for the work she gets involved with and is an amazing and strong Aboriginal woman with a strong voice.
Ms. Nicole Robinson
Ms. Nicole Robinson has a B.A. in Anthropology and Biology from the University of Toronto and Carleton University, and an M.A. in Anthropology from Carleton University. Her MA studies focused on providing culturally safe care to Indigenous peoples, particularly those struggling with drug and/or alcohol dependence. Prior to joining the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer Ms. Robinson worked for the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada as the Coordinator for the Aboriginal Health Initiative. From 2010-2012 Ms. Robinson worked for the National Aboriginal Health Organization as a research officer for the First Nations Centre, and a program manager for the Office of Women and Urban Health. Prior to working at the National Aboriginal Health Organization, Ms. Robinson worked in the field of knowledge translation. From 2010-2011 she worked at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research conducting an evaluation of the Integrated Knowledge Translation peer review process. From 2001-2008, she worked as a research assistant and research manager for the Ottawa Health Research Institute and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre on multiple research grants exploring optimal mechanisms of translating knowledge into action in various health care settings. As a woman of Métis, Welsh and English heritage, Ms Robinson is dedicated to using her education and work experience to work towards improving the health of Indigenous people in Canada.
Dr. Caroline Tait
Dr. Caroline Tait, Department of Psychiatry, University of Saskatchewan
Dr. Hannah Tait Neufeld
Dr. Hannah Tait Neufeld is a mixed race scholar with family of Scottish, French, Dutch and American Indian heritage. For the past 20 years, she has worked with Indigenous women and children on the revitalization of traditional foods and medicines beginning in northeastern Brazil and central Java, Indonesia. At the University of Manitoba, she went on to study generational changes in prenatal food acquisition patterns on-reserve. Her dissertation explored urban First Nation and Métis women’s experiences with gestational diabetes. As a Banting Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Indigenous Health Lab at Western University she studied processes of environmental dispossession and their impact on the transference of traditional food knowledge. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Applied Human Nutrition at the University of Guelph continuing to focus on health inequities, taking into consideration community interests, along with environmental factors influencing maternal and child health, and Indigenous food systems.
Ms. Danielle Wilson
Ms. Danielle Wilson is a member of the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation, and works for Interior Health as a Practice Lead in Aboriginal Health Program since 2011. Danielle has a B.Sc. from University of Victoria and continued her education and career path in environmental and public health. She worked as an environmental health officer for 12 years in Health Canada, First Nation Inuit Health Branch. During this time, she obtained her Master Degree in Public Health from University of Waterloo. She was a co-Investigator on the Culturally Safe Dementia Research Project, editor and contributor on a book on Indigenous Perspectives on Dementia (UBC Press to be release this year) and is Co-investigator on another CIHR funded grant with University of British Columbia Okanagan focusing on Indigenous knowledge and diabetes self-management.
2016 Request For Proposal Program Successful Applicants
Track A-Community-Based Indigenous Health Intervention Research
Michelle Firestone
Co-lead(s)
DLSPH Faculty member(s)
Community partner(s)
Project Description
Using a two-armed prospective cohort study, this project will explore how measures of wellness relate to prescription drug abuse and its consequences. This project will build local capacity in the use of the Native Wellness Assessment (NWA) tool to collect data regarding community wellness and its relationship to participation in land-based and culture-based activities. The project will also pilot a new First Nations PDA Survey co-developed by the Thunderbird Partnership Foundation, First Nations Inuit Health Branch of Health Canada, and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health to assist communities in collecting information regarding prescription drug abuse and its consequences.
Magda Smolewski
Co-lead(s)
Maya Chacaby, Janice Du Mont & Sheila Macdonald
DLSPH Faculty member(s)
Community partner(s)
Hamilton Regional Indian Centre & United Native Friendship Centre
Project Description
$25,000 over 12 months to engage in Indigenous community driven research on culturally specific supports required by Indigenous women and girls accessing one of Ontario’s 35 sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Treatment Centres (ONSA/DVTCs), as well as determine current assets and gaps in nurse examiner training working in SA/DVTCs across the province with regards to Indigenous women. Communities will drive with support of collaborators, findings from initial stages of this research to produce culturally-relevant resources and tools, inclusive of a webinar and training materials, for Sexual Assault Nurse examiners so that the Nurse Examiners are better prepared to address the needs of Indigenous survivors of sexual assault presenting to one of Ontario’s SA/DVTCs.
Track B-Planning Project
Raglan Maddox
Co-lead(s)
Cheryllee Bourgeois & Janet Smylie
DLSPH Faculty member(s)
Associate Professor Janet Smylie
Community partner(s)
Seventh Generation Midwives Toronto
Project Description
The proposed Planning Project, International Indigenous Cohort Collaborative will bring together relevant community partners, Indigenous and non-Indigenous cohort study experts, knowledge-users and other stakeholders to discuss and explore ways in which we can ‘scale-up’ our studies, identifying robust community governance arrangements, suitable data platforms as well as potential research questions, setting research priorities, and catalyzing new interdisciplinary collaborations among the research team. We will build on existing cross-sectional Indigenous health assessment studies in both Canada and Australia. Importantly, engaging with knowledge-users will ensure a compressive understanding of way in which our research can be applied in practice or policy. The results of these activities will put the team in a strong position to attract comprehensive funding to support the development of longitudinal Indigenous health cohort studies. This will contribute towards developing valid and reliable population level health data bases by, with and for Indigenous people living in Canada as well as Australia that are immediately accessible, useful, and culturally relevant to local, regional and jurisdictional policy makers.
Sherri Pooyak
Co-lead(s)
Stephanie Nixon & Renée Masching
DLSPH Faculty member(s)
Community partner(s)
Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network
Project Description
The purpose of this application is to bring together Indigenous and allied stakeholders who are working with Indigenous people in the field of HIV and AIDS to develop land-based methodologies to be used in developing culturally-based HIV and AIDS interventions for Indigenous people. The objectives for this project align with WBIIH Planning Project Themes specifically: Healthy environment for healthy persons: Land-based research (we will be exploring IK land based methodologies in the context of HIV and AIDS research) and Literature reviews of Indigenous health priorities, concepts or models (systematic review). We are proposing a systematic review be conducted that can then be utilized to further developed for research by, for and with Indigenous communities that are interested in using land based methodology for their HIV and AIDS research.
Track C-Student-Based Indigenous Health Research
Erika Finestone
Co-lead(s)
Bruce Parisian & Sandra Bamford
DLSPH or External Student & Degree Status
PhD student (Department of Anthropology, U of T)
DLSPH Liaison/Supervisor
Patricia O’Campo (Liaison)
Community partner(s)
Victoria Native Friendship Centre
Project Description
This project takes a strength-based approach by examining how urban-based families and youth build support networks both within and outside of institutional settings, and evaluates the extent to which these combined efforts help secure family and community well-being. This research produces a new set of questions currently going unanswered about the intersection of urban Indigeneity, child welfare, and family/community well-being in settler states.
Erynne Gilpin
Co-lead(s)
DLSPH or External Student & Degree Status
PhD student (University of Victoria)
DLSPH Liaison/Supervisor
Associate Professor Lori Ross (Liaison)
Community partner(s)
Project Description
The goals of this research will be to offer a more gender informed, comprehensive definition of Indigenous governance that emerges from collaborative partnerships within existing women-centred initiatives. The purpose of this learning will be to advance our current understanding of Indigenous governance in a manner that holds both theoretical and practical promise.
Biography
Erynne M. Gilpin is a Saulteaux-Cree Métis (Michif) PhD candidate with the Indigenous Governance Program at the University of Victoria and a Graduate Student Fellow at the Centre for Global Studies. Her Master’s project (SSHRC funded) was with the Tsartlip Garden Project in Indigenous efforts of food sovereignty and land-based education pedagogies. Today, her Doctoral work (SSHRC funded) focuses on Indigenous wellness, leadership and body-governance; specifically birth-work. Her work situates notions of embodied governance such as traditional birthing practices, tattooing ceremonies, food and medicinal health, as emancipatory practices of Indigenous resurgence and resistance to gendered colonial violence. Through the framework of Land as Body, Body as Land, Erynne works to cultivate Indigenized land-based education pedagogies as a decolonizing transformative praxis. Erynne also works with youth mural projects, visual arts and dance, music and as an Indigenous Doula. She aspires to contribute to ongoing dialogues between political spheres of Indigenous Governance, and research in Community-led health leadership. For Erynne, research is not divorced from community, family and identity and therefore must be led by Indigenous research methodologies and appropriate community protocol. The advancement in these knowledges and awareness will demonstrate how women-centred leadership has the capacity not only to infuse cultural and spiritual realms with political meaning, but also to connect political governance models with gendered healing and wellness traditions.
Photo Credit: www.przvida.com
Laura Warren
Co-lead(s)
Jennifer Walker & Dawn Lamothe
DLSPH or External Student & Degree Status
PhD Student (DLSPH, U of T)
DLSPH Liaison/Supervisor
Assistant Professor Jennifer Walker (DLSPH Co-Supervisor)
Community partner(s)
The North Bay Indian Friendship Centre
Project Description
The objective of this study is to characterize the epidemiology of dementia diagnoses and care in Ontario Indigenous populations using data from the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) and provincial health insurance claims datasets housed at the Institute of Clinical and Evaluative Sciences (ICES).
Track D-Student Travel Award
Laura Warren
DLSPH or External Student & Degree Status
DLSPH PhD Student
DLSPH Liaison/Supervisor
Assistant Professor Jennifer Walker (DLSPH Supervisor)
Event Description
Alzheimer’s Association International 2017 Conference
Dates: July 16-20, 2017
Location: London, England
Renée Monchalin
DLSPH or External Student & Degree Status
DLSPH PhD Student
DLSPH Liaison/Supervisor
Associate Professor Janet Smylie (DLSPH Supervisor)
Event Description
International Network in Indigenous Health Knowledge and Development 2017 Conference
Date: February 7-11, 2017
Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Biography
Renée Monchalin is a second-year PhD student in DLSPH’s Social and Behavioural Health Sciences Division, funded through a CIHR Doctoral Research Award. She is an urban Métis, Algonquin, Huron, and Scottish womyn, belongs to the Thunderbird Clan (Binesi n’doodem), and was born and raised on the Neutral territory of the Haudenosaunee and Anishnaabe peoples on the Niagara River (Onguiaahra). She completed her Masters in Environmental Studies at York University, and a Bachelor of Public Health at Brock University.
Renée’s research focuses on urban Métis identity and access to health services and programming in the city of Toronto. This research is nested within a CIHR funded, Indigenous lead project titled: “Our Health Counts Toronto: Developing a Population Based Urban Aboriginal Cohort to Assess and Enhance Individual, Family, and Community Health and Wellbeing” (OHC); executed by the Well Living House (WLH) in partnership with Seventh Generation Midwives Toronto (SGMT).
Her other research interests include: sexual health outreach and HIV prevention by and for Indigenous youth and communities; Intersectional spaces of Indigenous sexual, environmental, and reproductive health, rights, and justice; decolonizing and Indigenous research and methodologies; and community-based participatory action research.
Honorary degree
Suzanne Stewart
Dr. Suzanne Stewart, this year’s recipient of an honorary degree at the University of Guelph-Humber’s Convocation, hasn’t always felt accepted by the academic establishment.
When Dr. Stewart was a doctoral student, she pursued research connecting Indigenous mental health and educational challenges to the traumas inflicted by the residential school system. Again and again, her research was met with opposition, dismissal and even anger from some colleagues, students, professors, and psychology professionals. Read more.