Post-Doctoral Fellow
Dr. Sabina Mirza | Post-Doctoral Fellow
Dr. Sabina Mirza holds a PhD in Education from York University, with her research interests focusing on youth homelessness, education, mental health, climate justice and community-based research. Sabina teaches courses with an interdisciplinary lens on topics related to ethics, education, youth, families, mental health, social advocacy, and community engagement. She is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Waakebiness Institute for Indigenous Health at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. Dr. Mirza’s Postdoctoral work uses an anti-racist lens to focus on research that aims to Decolonize Indigenous youth homelessness and mental health. She is currently the lead on a research project about the climate crisis and its impacts on Indigenous youth mental health. Sabina loves to read, write, practice mindfulness and play basketball!
Graduate Students
Michael Brown | Doctoral Student
Michael Brown is of First Nation/Métis/settler ancestry, having been raised in the western culture, now decolonizing himself through Spirit and ceremony. He has achieved an Bachelor of Science degree with honour’s in Psychology at York University and a Master of Education degree at OISE with a University of Toronto Fellowship. He is currently working on his PhD in Social and Behavioural Health Sciences with a Vanier scholarship at U of T for the improvement of mental health of Indigenous youth. As a research officer and cultural and spiritual events coordinator for Waakebiness Institute for Indigenous Health, he works with community and Elders to improve (Indigenize) academia and create positive systems-level changes.
Apt’sqi’gnn | Doctoral Student
Apt’sqi’gnn is originally from Ktaqmkuk (the Island of Newfoundland) and their maternal family are members of the Qalipu Mi’kmaq First Nation. Their paternal ancestry is settler Canadian, originally from the United Kingdom. Apt’sqi’gnn is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Social and Behavioural Sciences at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health (DLSPH), University of Toronto. They hold a Master of Social Work from the University of Toronto, as well as a Bachelor of Social Work and a Bachelor of Arts from McMaster University. Since May 2024, Apt’sqi’gnn has been a Research Assistant at the Waakebiness Institute for Indigenous Health, where they are receiving training in Indigenous research methodologies, and providing graduate student mentorship. In this role, they contribute to a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)-funded research project titled Impacts of Climate Crisis on Indigenous Young Adults’ Mental Health. Apt’sqi’gnn is the recipient of both the Queen Elizabeth II Graduate Scholarship in Science and Technology (QEII-GSST) and the 2025–2026 Indigenous Mentorship Network of Ontario (IMN-Ontario) Graduate Scholarship.
Darienne Russell | Doctoral Student
Darienne Russell is a Social and Behavioural Health Sciences PhD student at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and a research assistant at the Waakabiness Institute of Indigenous Health Research (WIIH). She is a member of Tl’azt’en Nation, and her research interests include Indigenous women’s safety and well-being, homelessness, and community-based healing. She contributes to multiple CIHR-funded research projects through WIIH including Indigenous mental health and sexualized violence; urban Indigenous homelessness; Indigenous youth mental health and the climate crisis; and Indigenous conceptions and impacts of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).