CURRENT CERIS AFFILIATES

Affiliate Bios
Affiliates names starting from M to Z

(This page shows current CERIS affiliates as of February 29, page updated quarterly each year.)

• Affiliates by Name

• Affiliates by Research Domain

• Affiliates by Population Interest

• Affiliate Bios: A-D, E-L, M-Z

Amal Madibbo

Research Domain(s):
1. Education
2. Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing

Bio:
Amal Madibbo has obtained her Ph. D. degree in November 2004 from the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE)/UT. Her Ph. D. Thesis : Minority within a Minority: Black Francophones of Ontario and the Dynamics of Power and Resistance, looks at the immigration and integration experiences of Black Francophones who constitute both a racial and official linguistic minority. She is currently a lecturer at Glendon College, York University, Toronto. Ms. Madibbo has been affiliated student with the Joint Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration and Settlement (CERIS) at the University of Toronto since 1999.
 

Lillian Magalhaes
University of Western Ontario

Research Domain(s):
Health and Well-being

Research Interest:
1. Gender, migration and occupation
2. Cultural aspects of health assessments
3. Cultural dimensions of illness and occupation

Population(s):
1. Portuguese speaking immigrant women
2. Muslim Arab immigrant women
3. Latin American undocumented workers

Bio:
Lilian Magalhaes is an assistant professor in the School of Occupational Therapy Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Western Ontario. She was involved with occupational therapy education in Brazil for more than 25 years. As President of the Brazilian Association of Occupational Therapists, she played a major role in the first revision of Brazilian Minimum Curriculum, which took place between 1980 and 1982. Her study of the process of professional formation in Occupational Therapy in Brazil granted her the title of Master in Education in 1989. Her PhD in Public Health in 1998 focused on gender and workplace issues related to Repetitive Strain Injury. In Canada she first developed a Post Doctoral study at the Institute for Work and Health in Toronto in 2002 where she studied the cultural aspects of the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure. After that she worked with the University Health Network (Toronto) studying Portuguese speaking immigrant women’s health. She also worked with Knowledge Transfer and Exchange Initiatives focusing on Portuguese speakers in the St. Christopher Community House in Toronto. Her academic work is organized around five main domains, all of which aim at analyzing health practices and knowledge production from a cross-cultural perspective. These areas are: (i) Gender, migration, and occupation; (ii) Cultural aspects of health assessments; (iii) Cultural dimension of illness and occupation; (iv) Qualitative methodology and Second language speakers; (v) Knowledge transfer and exchange in a cross-cultural context.
 

Minelle Mahtani
University of Toronto

Research Domain(s):
Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration 

Research Interest:
1. Media and minority representation
2. Women of colour in the academy
3. Critical “mixed raced” theory

Population(s):
1. South Asian
2. Iranian
3. Black
 

Guida Man
York University

Research Domain(s):
Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing

Bio:
Guida Man is an Assistant Professor at the School of Social Sciences, York University. Her area of research focuses on immigration and transnational migration. She has been doing research with Chinese immigrant women for the last 15 years, and has published extensively on the topic.
 

Robin Mason
Centre for Research in Women's Health

Research Domain(s):
1. Family, Children and Youth
2. Health and Well-Being

Research Interest:
1. Intimate partner violence
2. Education and training initiatives
3. Social determinants of health

Population(s):
1. Somali
2. Tamil
3. Ethiopian
 

John Walter Maury

Research Domain(s):
1. Education
2. Health and Well-being
3. Economic and Labour Market Integration

Research Interest:
1. Education policies in Ontario
2. Accessibility of health and employment services
3. The job market and visible minorities

Population(s):
1. Linguistic - Francophone minorities
2. Ethno-cultural communities
 

Lance McCready
OISE, University of Toronto

Research Domain(s):
1. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration
2. Family, Children and Youth
3. Welcoming Communities: Building Capacity in Regions, Cities, and Neighbourhoods

Research Interest:
1. Urban education
2. Student engagement
3. Gender studies

Population(s):
1. Ethno-racial
2. Ethno-cultural
3. Sexual minority

Bio:
Lance T. McCready, Ph. D. is Assistant Professor of Urban Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. He received his doctorate in Social and Cultural Studies with a Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. McCready teaches School & Society in the new inner city cohort of the Secondary Initial Teacher Education program and is team-teaching an interdisciplinary course in Urban Education for the new M.Ed. cohort in urban education. Dr. McCready's research and writing focuses on curricular and pedagogical issues in urban education, specifically the “troubles” facing Black male students in urban schools. A book length manuscript under review looks at the ways gay and gender non-conforming Black male students are marginalized in a racially segregated Northern California High School. In Toronto he is working with teachers in Model Inner City Schools to develop culturally-responsive classroom management practices. He is also a lead researcher on the Black and Latino Male School Intervention Study (BLMSIS) of single-sex schools based at New York University’s Metro Center. A consistent theme throughout all of these projects is using a feminist anti-racist lens to understand and make policy recommendations that amend race, class, and gender disparities in achievement, participation, and discipline. Dr. McCready's research has been supported by grants and fellowships from University of Toronto Connaught Fund, Columbia University Teachers College, Carleton College, Five-Colleges Incorporated, Center for Urban Education at UC Berkeley, Holmes Scholar Network, Ford Foundation/National Academy of Sciences, and Spencer Foundation.
 

Lynn McDonald
University of Toronto

Research Domain(s):
Health and Well-Being

Research Interest:
1. Retirement and caregiving
2. Health disparities and aging
3. Older homelessness

Population(s):
1. Ethno-cultural older adults
2. Socially marginalized older adults
3. Economically marginalized older adults
 

Bonnie McElhinny
University of Toronto

Research Domain(s):
1. Economic and Labour Market Integration
2. Family, Children and Youth
3. Health and Well-Being

Research Interest:
1. Life histories of Filipino Canadians
2. Filipinos working as caregivers
3. language, gender, neoliberalism

Population(s):
1. Filipino, Filipino-Canadian
2. Anglo-American and Canadian

Bio:
Bonnie McElhinny is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Women and Gender Studies. Her research focuses on historical and contemporary investigations of North American interventions into Filipino health care and childcare practices, and reactions and resistance to these. Her current work includes an investigation into early 20th century attempts to address high infant mortality rates in the Philippines during the American colonial occupation, as a case study in imperial attempts to restructure affect and intimacy, and the ways debates about children were used as a terrain for imperial and nationalist arguments. As a way of engaging with the long-term impact of imperial and nationalist projects in the Philippines, she is working with a collective of Filipino-Canadian students and activists to compile and analyze a collection of life histories of Filipinos and Filipino-Canadians in Toronto. McElhinny is also the founding co-editor of the journal Gender and Language, and has recently written a number of theoretical papers on the role of language in an era of globalization, corporatization and neoliberalization. Recent and representative publications on these topics include: (1) Words, Worlds, Material Girls: Language and Gender in a Global Economy (2007) (2) “’Kissing a Baby is Not At All Good For Him’: Infant Mortality, Medicine and Colonial Modernity in the U.S.-Occupied Philippines” American Anthropologist (2005) (3) "Prétextes de L'Empire Américain aux Philippines: Recontextualisation des Histoires de la Médecine Impériale" Anthropologie et Sociétés (2007); (4) Bonnie McElhinny, Shirley Yeung, Valerie Damasco, Angela DeOcampo, Monina Febria, Christianne Collantes, and Jason Salonga "Talk about Luck": Coherence, Contingency, Character and Class in the Life Stories of Filipino Canadians in Toronto. Language and Asia-Pacific Americans, edited by Adrienne Lo and Angela Reyes. Oxford University Press (forthcoming). Dr. McElhinny's research is read in anthropology, women and gender studies, linguistics and literature departments, in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Catalonia, Switzerland, Germany, Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines. She has recently given invited plenary talks in Basel Switzerland and in Washington DC.
 

Susan McGrath
York University

Research Domain(s):
1. Health and Well-being
2. Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing

Research Interest:
1. Refugee determination and settlement
2. Community organizing
3. Collective trauma

Population(s):
1. Diverse refugee populations
2. Rwanda
3. Groups in the “Jane Finch” community

Bio:
Susan McGrath has extensive experience working with marginalized community groups including refugees and immigrants as a social work practitioner and researcher. With colleagues at three other Canadian universities, she recently completed a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) funded project, The State of Community Practice within Marginalized Groups in Ontario. Her focus in this research was on refugee communities across Ontario. From this research, several articles have been published and a book is in progress (Wilfrid Laurier Press). Dr. McGrath has a particular interest in the needs of refugees who have experienced trauma and has written on her work with the Canadian Centre for Survivors of Torture where she is active as a board member. Currently Dr. McGrath is a co-applicant on an Association of Universities.
 

John McHale
Queen's University

Research Domain(s):
Economic and Labour Market Integration

Research Interest:
1. Economics of Migration
2. Transition Economics
3. Public Economics

Population(s):
1. International Economics
2. Canadian Economy
3. Irish Economy

Bio:
John McHale is associate professor of economics and faculty research fellow at the Queen's School of Business. An Irish citizen, he received first class B.Comm (1988) and M.Econ.Sc (1990) degrees from University College Cork. He received Ph.D and A.M degrees from Harvard in 1996, where he also served as assistant and later associate professor. His current research focuses on causes and consequences of international migration. He has published numerous articles in refereed journals and edited volumes, and has recently co-authored Give Us Your Best and Brightest: The Global Hunt For Talent And Its Impact on the Developing World (with Devesh Kapur), published by the Brookings Institution and the Centre for Global Development. His more popular writings have appeared in such publications as the Financial Times, the Irish Times and the Wall Street Journal. He has also served as a consultant to the World Bank on various migration- and development-related projects.
 

Norman R. McLeod
Region of Peel

Research Domain(s):
1. Health and Well-being
2. Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing
3. Economic and Labour Market Integration

Research Interest:
1. Long term integration and growth planning
2. Labour force integration of newcomers
3. Integration, receptivity, and diversity strategies

Population(s):
1. All recent immigrants arriving in Peel
2. Descendants of immigrants living in Peel

Bio:
Norm McLeod, Manager of Strategic Social Policy for the Region of Peel, has led a number of inter-departmental staff teams at that addressed key issues, including poverty, immigration, social funding and accessible transportation. He is currently Project Manager for the Liveable Peel Immigration Project, a three-year strategic review to plan the municipal and community approach to successful integration of newcomers. He also sits on several community and inter-governmental committees aimed at improved services to newcomers; and oversees the Peel Community Immigration Portal Project. Norm started at Peel in 1981, when he revised the Region’s emergency plan based on the experience with the Mississauga train derailment. He aided in the transition of the former Peel Board of Health to a department of Regional government, and also managed the para transit service, TransHelp, for close to twenty years. Prior to joining the Region of Peel, Norm worked extensively in the non-profit sector. A province-wide “right to access” campaign for hard-of-hearing and deaf people, and a national non-profit organization serving the interests of Native peoples, have benefited from his community organizing skills. Norm holds a Master’s in Political Economy from the University of Toronto; and is a proud father of six, and grandfather of two. Norm’s interest in immigration began in 1968, when he authored a survey of literature on educating immigrants and ethnic minorities for the Toronto Board of Education. At the Region of Peel he authored the diversity strategy that was adopted by the senior management team; numerous reports to Council on immigration issues; and a presentation to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. Norm has traveled and studied in Europe, the Middle East, the Caribbean and India.
 

Susan McMillan
Statistics Canada
 

Agnes Meinhard
Ryerson University

Research Domain(s):
1. Economic and Labour Market Integration
2. Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing
 

Ali Mohamed Mohamud
Somali Canadian Community Organization

Research Domain(s):
1. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration
2. Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing
3. Education

Research Interest:
1. Citizenship, religion and culture
2. Community, neighbourhoods and housing
3. Education

Population(s):
1. Ethno-cultural
2. Linguistic
3. Religion
 

Marina Morgenshtern
Wilfrid Laurier University

Research Domain(s):
1. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration
2. Family, Children and Youth
3. Welcoming Communities: Building Capacity in Regions, Cities, and Neighbourhoods

Research Interest:
1. Lived experiences of immigration in Canada
2. Intersectional analysis of immigrant process
3. Resistance practices

Population(s):
1. Former Soviet Jewish immigrants
2. Isreali immigrants

Bio:
Marina Morgenshtern graduated with a BSW and an MSW (with Honours) degree from Tel-Aviv University. Her professional experience has included generic intervention with immigrant and ethnic minority families, and practice in child and family welfare services in Israel. Marina’s areas of interest include anti-oppressive and anti-racist approaches to social work and family therapy, as well as the inclusion of the voices of marginalized groups into social work theory, research and practice. She is currently enrolled in the PhD program at the Faculty of Social Work at Wilfrid Laurier University. Her PhD research focuses on former Soviet (Russian) Jewish couples’ lived experiences of immigration to Canada and transformations these couples undergo while establishing their lives in a new political, social and cultural context. The intention is to develop an understanding of the complexities of power and gender relations in the context of immigration, combining a feminist intersectional analysis of oppression (specifically, the discourse on immigrant and racialized masculinities and the transnational feminist discourse on women) with contemporary family therapy literature on immigration and family. Drawing together these analytical approaches with regard to gender, class, nation, culture and heterosexuality allows for an appreciation of the complex experiences of immigrants. This research on the interconnectedness of former Soviet Jewish immigrant couples’ relational dynamics and broader social structures was supported by Ontario Graduate Scholarship (2006), the General Scholarship from JIAS Canada (2006) and the Shindman and Sharna Scholarship from JIAS Toronto (2006).
 

Steven Morris
Citizenship and Immigration Canada
 

Robert Murdie
York University

Research Domain(s):
Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing

Research Interest:
1. Ethnic residential segregation
2. Housing experiences of immigrants and refugees

Bio:
Robert Murdie is a professor emeritus and senior scholar at York University. He is also a research associate at the Centre for Urban and Community Studies, University of Toronto and an affiliated member of CERIS – The Ontario Metropolis Centre. His research interests include the housing experiences of immigrants and refugees, ethnic residential segregation and social inclusion, and neighbourhood change. His current research projects include the housing experiences of homeless immigrant families in Toronto and York Region and participation in a CURA funded study of neighbourhood change in west-central Toronto.
 

Wangari Muriuki
Jiamini Community Consultants

Research Domain(s):
1. Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing
2, Health and Well-being
3. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration

Research Interest:
1. Social determinants of health in a relationship
2. Mental health
3. Civic engagement

Population(s):
1. Ethno-racial
2. Ethno-cultural
3. New Canadians from Continental Africa

Bio:
Wangari Muriuki has over 15 years of professional experience in health and human services, especially in the field of mental health. Wangari has significant skills in the area of knowledge transfer and exchange as well as in dept knowledge of social service deliver models. This encompasses managing the development of services, case management, supervision and training of staff, program development, and crisis intervention. She has a particular interest in diversity, equity, social determinants of health especially as it pertains to the health status of new immigrants. Her experience comes primarily from the not-for-profit sector. During her career, Wangari has held different positions with Central Neighbourhood House. Since 2001, she has held the position of Case Manager with Street Health Community Nursing Foundation. She is currently the Manager of Mental Health, Identification and Reception Teams at Street Health. She is also a Director and Lead Researcher for Jiamini Community Consultants which works primarily on health issues faced by new immigrants to GTA from social determinants of health perspective.

Wangari also has extensive volunteer experience including current affiliations with the Toronto Board of Health – Local Health Network and St. Michael’s Hospital – Mental health Community Advisory Panel. Wangari serves as the Chair of the Board of the Broad African Resource Centre. In June 2007, Wangari was appointed as a Citizen Member to the Toronto Board of Health for a four year term.

Wangari pursued a B.A. in Communication from City College, New York. In addition, she holds a certificate in Community Based research from Wellesley Institute and a Certification from St. Michael’s College University of Toronto for the Management for Human Services Program. Additionally, she has completed courses and seminars on topics including: media advocacy, policy development, knowledge transfer and exchange, crisis intervention and case management.

Sectoral Expertise & Skills

Wangari has significant experience in the following areas: community and social services, diversity and access and equity, health, immigration and women’s issues and services. Her core skills and competencies include advocacy, chairing meetings and leading committees, communications/marketing/PR, community development, conflict resolution, counselling, facilitation, program development, and research. She is fluent in Swahili.

Board Availability & Interests

The agencies, boards and commissions Wangari is interested in serving on include the City of Toronto, Province of Ontario, and boards of other public Institutions as well as Boards working with diverse communities. She is currently available to be considered for appointments requiring up to a 10-hour time commitment per month.
 

Kenise Murphy Kilbride
Ryerson University

Research Domain(s):
1. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration
2. Education
3. Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing

Research Interest:
1. Immigrant families and housing
2. Immigrant youth and children
3. Immigrant women and English acquisition

Population(s):
1. Immigrant families and their needs during settlement
2. Immigrant children and their educational success
3. Immigrant women and their access to acquiring English
 

Bruce Newbold
McMaster University

Research Domain(s):
1. Health and Well-being
2. Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing

Population(s):
1. Immigrant adjustment and acculturation
2. Immigrant health
 

Roxana Ng
University of Toronto

Research Domain(s):
1. Education
2. Economic and Labour Market Integration
3. Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing
 

Samuel Noh
University of Toronto

Research Domain(s):
Health and Well-being

Research Interest:
1. Health Health disparities and immigrant health
2. Social stress and health
3. Cultural and international mental health

Population(s):
1. Asian
2. Caribbean and African blacks

Bio:
Dr. Samuel Noh, David Crombie Professor of Cultural Pluralism and Health, is Research Scientist and Co-Head of the Social Equity and Health Research Section of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. He also Heads at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, the program of Culture, Community and Health Studies. Dr. Noh was trained in sociology and epidemiology at he University of Western Ontario. His research focuses on social stress processes affecting the mental health of new immigrants and racial and cultural minorities. Dr. Noh’s research on immigrant and minority health includes cultural sensitivities in assessing social stress and mental health, perceived discrimination and health, stigma and service utilization among Asian Canadians, cultural competence among mental health service care providers, and cross-cultural investigations of mental health.
 

Fernando Nunes
Mount Saint Vincent University

Research Domain(s):
1. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration
2. Family, Children and Youth

Research Interest:
1. Minority Academic Underacheivement
2. At-risk youth
3. Portuguese-Canadians

Population(s):
1. Portuguese-Canadians
2. Brazilian-Canadians
3. Other Portuguese-speaking communities

Bio:
Dr. Fernando Nunes is an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Child and Youth Study, Mount St. Vincent University, Halifax, Canada. He holds a Ph.D. (Education and Community Development), and a M.Ed. (Applied Psychology), from the Multicultural Focus of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. As a university educator since 1999, he has taught courses, conducted research and authored publications on at-risk immigrant youth, ethnoracial diversity, critical pedagogy, minority academic underachievement, the integration of the Luso-Canadian community and the Portuguese Diaspora. He has been employed by CERIS-Toronto and also participated in a CERIS Research project (Newcomer Youth at Risk). He currently sits on the editorial board of a number of international academic journals. His current research activities focus on minority academic underachievement, the civic and political participation of immigrant youth, at-risk young adults and the integration of the Luso-Canadian community.

Dr. Nunes has also acquired over 20 years of experience as a volunteer activist and consultant within the fields of education and social services. He has served as a Board member in diverse community organizations such as the Portuguese Interagency Network, the Portuguese-Canadian National Congress, Canadian National Institute for the Blind-Toronto and the Toronto Community Care Access Centre. He founded the first Luso-Canadian student association, the York University Portuguese Association.
 

Peter Nyers
McMaster University

Research Domain(s):
1. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration
2. Justice, Policing and Security

Research Interest:
1. Political Agency of Refugees
2. Non-Status Migrants
3. Anti-deportation/detention politics
 

Mika Oehling
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)
 

Manuel Armando Oliveira

Research Domain(s):
1. Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing
2. Education
3. Health and Well-being

Bio:
Manuel Armando Oliveira was born in the Azores, where he completed his secondary school education. He then moved to Portugal, where he attended University, having graduated in Cultural Anthropology. Then, he lived in Canada for a long period of time, where he conducted research on the Portuguese in Toronto, and studied and worked in the area of Quantitative Methods and Information Technology. After completing his PhD (Anthropology, University of Lisbon), he returned to Portugal where he is presently a Professor at the Portuguese Open University, and a researcher at the Center for the Study of Migrations and Intercultural Relations.
 

Timothy Owen
World Education Services, Canada
 

Parto Pajoohesh

Research Domain(s):
1. Education
2. Health and Well-being
3. Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing

Research Interest:
1. Academic achievement of minority language children
2. Settlement, integration of immigrant families, GTA
3. Integration of foreign-trained professionals

Population(s):
1. Iranian immigrants/Farsi speakers
2. Afghani immigrants/Farsi speakers

Bio:
Parto Pajoohesh is a research fellow for the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) at the International Institute of Qualitative Methodology, University of Alberta. Her current project is focused on the certification and integration problems of foreign-trained physicians in Ontario. With a background in the fields of education and applied linguistics, she is also interested in and has worked on the issues related to language and education of minority language children in school settings. Her specialization area includes lexicon, vocabulary enhancement of ESL learners, bilingual/multilingual acquisition, ESL instruction and academic outcomes of immigrant students.
 

Stella Park
University of Toronto

Research Domain(s):
1. Education
2. Economic and Labour Market Integration
3. Health and Well-being

Research Interest:
1. Socioeconomic incorporation of second generation
2. Immigration and health/mental health issues
3. Cultural assimilation of immigrants & their offspring

Population(s):
Second generation immigrants

Bio:
I am currently a doctoral student in Sociology at the University of Toronto. My research interest is on examining socioeconomic and cultural assimilation of the contemporary children of immigrants.
 

Dianne Patychuk
Toronto Public Health

Research Domain(s):
Health and Well-being

Bio:
I have had the opportunities to support the work of CERIS in the past, coordinating the pre-amalgamation City of Toronto support for the establishment of the centre and a letter on behalf of Toronto Department from the Medical Officer of Health; serving on a research grants review panel; meeting with SSHRC evaluators on the request with CERIS and being a co-investigator (Richard Glazier the lead) on CERIS funded projects (Time Trends, Immigration and Health Book Chapter). I have spoken on CERIS research panels on immigration and health research priorities.
I am currently supporting Access Alliance Multicultural Community Health Centre's evolving research program on "Racialsed Groups and Health Status." The focus of my work (at Toroto Public Health and in the community) is reducing health disparities in Toronto. I have access to many useful data bases at the City of Toronto and through collaborative research projects (Toronto Community Health Profiles Partnership, www.torontohealthprofiles.ca). I am one of the leads for establishing this health website for community access to information to support action to reduce health disparities.

I am interested in having a more formal relationship with CERIS and in qualifying for access to research data bases to support knowledge development on social inequalities in health that helps to reduce the current knowledge gap in ethnoracial health disparities.
 

Ravi Pendakur
University of Ottawa

Research Domain(s):
1. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration
2. Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing
3. Economic and Labour Market Integration

Research Interest:
1. Earnings differentials
2. Social capital

Population(s):
Minority groups

Wade Pickren
Ryerson University

Research Domain(s):
1. Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing
2. Health and Well-being

Research Interest:
1. Health access for immigrants
2. Culturally based health beliefs and actions
3. Cultural strengths and resources

Population(s):
1. Recent immigrants
2. Ethno-cultural
3. Ethno-race

Bio:
Wade Pickren received his training in clinical health psychology (MS) and the history of psychology (PhD), with a focus on twentieth century interactions between psychologists and physicians. After 8 years as the Historian of the American Psychological Association in Washington, DC, he accepted a position at Ryerson University. His work on race, ethnicity, and health care with psychologists of color led him to see the importance of culture in understanding human behavior. At Ryerson, he began the Cultural Strengths Research Group to investigate the role of culturally based health beliefs and actions among recent immigrants, who often encounter significant barriers to health care, even when there is universal health care. Recent immigrants are often at a serious disadvantage in their encounters with health-care providers, as providers often fail to understand the cultural context, including health beliefs and practices, of recent immigrants. Many immigrants continue to use health care approaches rooted in their home culture, even after several years in the new host country. However, many health care providers trained in the biomedical approach remain dismissive of such traditional health beliefs and practices. As a result unnecessary barriers to health care may be erected for immigrants who are rightfully discouraged from revealing their practices or even using the available health care services. The Cultural Strengths research program intends to help reduce the misunderstanding and barriers to health care for both providers and immigrant recipients. Central to this intention is the focus on cultural strengths. Human beings are resilient, even in the face of traumatic experiences. Without minimizing trauma, it is necessary to also seek to understand the core strengths of immigrants. These strengths lie in the cultural foundations of people’s lives.
 

Cesar Polvorosa
York University

Research Domain(s):
Economic and Labour Market Integration

Research Interest:
1. Cultural and institutional geography
2. Immigration and ethnic entrepreneurship
3. Geographies on the firm and region

Population(s):
Filipinos

Bio:
Cesar Polvorosa Jr. is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Geography Program of York University, Toronto. His main research interests are in the areas of immigrant entrepreneurship, geographies of the firm and region and institutional and cultural approaches to economic geography. His dissertation will be on the business practices, strategies and institutional framework of Filipino family enterprises in the Greater Toronto Area. He is a strategic planner and business plan consultant. He was Asst. Vice President of corporate planning and head of research of a major Philippine development bank as well as an economics instructor before coming to Canada for his Ph.D. He had been a Central Bank of the Philippines economist where he published articles in banking, finance and economic development and was also an economics/business consultant. His Master of Policy Science degree was taken at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies of Tokyo, Japan while his BA (Social Science)(cum laude) was garnered at the University of the Philippines.

Valerie Preston
York University
 

Sara Promislow

Research Domain(s):
Education
 

Heather Ramsay
Health Canada
 

Michael Reading
St. Olaf College

Research Domain(s):
1. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration
2. Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing
3. Justice, Policing and Security

Research Interest:
1. Naturalization and incorporation in Canada
2. Local institutions helping immigrants naturalize
3. Local naturalization policies and processes

Population(s):
1. Naturalized and non-naturalized immigrants in Toronto
2. Municipal and community immigrant service providers

Bio:
Broadly, my research interest lies in understanding the “North American naturalization gap,” the fact that while 72% of immigrants in Canada have become recognized legal citizens, only 38% of immigrants in the United States have done so. Professor Irene Bloemraad (2002) finds that this gap exists despite similar citizenship laws in Canada and the U.S. and that the gap persists even after accounting for differences in the populations of immigrants arriving in two countries; immigrants from the same country naturalize in greater numbers and more quickly in Canada. Bloemraad explains the “North American naturalization gap” as a function of the institutional determinants of naturalization, arguing that while the Canadian government and community organizations actively promote the acquisition of citizenship, actors in the U.S. maintain a more neutral, less interventionist stance.
 

Patti Redmond
Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities
 

Jeffrey G. Reitz
University of Toronto

Research Domain(s):
1. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration
2. Education
3. Economic and Labour Market Integration

Research Interest:
1. Immigrant Employment and Economic Integration
2. Ethnic Groups and Social Cohesion
3. Comparative and Cross-national Research

Bio:
Jeffrey G. Reitz (Ph.D., Columbia 1972; FRSC) is Professor and former Chair in the Department of Sociology, R.F. Harney Professor and Director of Ethnic, Immigration and Pluralism Studies (www.utoronto.ca/ethnicstudies), and research associate at the Munk Centre for International Studies, at the University of Toronto.

Professor Reitz’ research has examined immigration, race and ethnic relations from a comparative perspective focussing on Canada, the United States, Britain, Australia, and Germany. His books include Warmth of the Welcome: The Social Causes of Economic Success for Immigrant in Different Nations and Cities (1998) and The Illusion of Difference: Realities of Ethnicity in Canada and the United States (1994); he is also editor of Host Societies and the Reception of Immigrants (2003), and Ethnic Relations in Canada: Institutional Dynamics (Essays by Raymond Breton, 2005), and co-editor of Canadian Immigration Policy for the 21st Century (2003), and Globalization and Society: Processes of Differentiation Examined (2003). Recent articles include “Canada: Immigration and Nation Building in the Transition to the Knowledge Economy,” “Immigration, Race and Labor: Unionization and Wages in the Canadian Labor Market,” and “Institutional Change and Emerging Cohorts of the 'New' Immigrant Second Generation: Implications for the Integration of Racial Minorities in Canada.”

Professor Reitz is also active in policy discussions, including publications such as “Tapping Immigrant Skills: New Directions for Canadian Immigration Policy in the Knowledge Economy,” “Diversity, Inequality, and the Cohesion of Canadian Society: Research Findings and Policy Implications,” and “Addressing Systemic Racial Discrimination in Employment: The Health Canada Case and Implications of Legislative Change.”

For a list with downloadable files from his most recent research, see
www.utoronto.ca/ethnicstudies/reitz.html
and for his complete c.v. see
http://www.utoronto.ca/ethnicstudies/CV_April2005.pdf
 

Robert Remis
University of Toronto

Research Domain(s):
1. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration
2. Health and Well-Being

Research Interest:
1. HIV-related mortality data in Ontario
2. HIV incidence and prevalence in Ontario
3. Modeling populations where HIV is hyperendemic

Population(s):
1. Persons immigrating from Africa and the Caribbean
2. Black population in Ontario and Canada
3. Immigrants from all regions of the world
 

Ted Richmond
Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration

Research Domain(s):
1. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration
2. Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing

Bio:
Ted Richmond has a Master’s degree in evaluation and policy analysis from OISE, University of Toronto. He has an extensive professional background in immigration and settlement research and policy work, and has served in a volunteer capacity on numerous community boards and advisory committees as well as with many community-academic research partnerships.

Ted’s research and policy interests include the service and equity implications of changing ethnoracial demographics, the restructuring of funding for community services, and community-based approaches to program evaluation.
 

Dominique Riviere

Research Domain(s):
1. Education
2. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration

Research Interest:
1. Critical multicultural education and policy
2. Arts-informed research methodologies
3. Social identity formations and intersections

Population(s):
1. Marginalized children & youth
2. Privileged (race, class, gender) children & youth
3. Elementary and high school students

Bio:
My research interests include critical multicultural education and policy; the ways in which students’ identity constructions mediate – and are mediated by – schools’ multicultural education initiatives; and, more generally, the effects that the intersectional nature of identity have on students’ everyday lived school experiences. In June 2006, I received my Ph.D. from the Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto. My dissertation was entitled Performed Identities: Drama and the Transformation of Multicultural Education, and explored the ways in which drama education could be used to facilitate a critical understanding of the ambiguous nature of social identity and identification, in order to transform how multicultural curriculum and policy were conceptualized and implemented. I currently hold the position of Research Officer at the Centre for Urban Schooling at OISE/UT. The Centre is an education, research, policy and advocacy organization with the purpose of working collaboratively with inner-city educators, parents, and community workers around issues that challenge asymmetrical power relations (based on class, race, gender, language, sexuality, and ability) as they are manifest in educational philosophies, policies, and practices.
 

Cecillia Rocha
Ryerson University
 

Dan Rodriguez Garcia
Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain

Research Domain(s):
1. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration
2. Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing
3. Education

Research Interest:
1. Inter-ethnic Relations and Transnationalism
2. Acculturation and Cultural Retention
3. Cross-cultural Families, Hybridity

Population(s):
1. African (Senegalese, Gambian and Moroccan)
2. Chinese
3. Muslim

Bio:
Dan Rodríguez-García is a professor and researcher in the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and is a member of the Migration Research Group (GRM). His research interests include international migration; interethnic relations and models of socio-cultural accommodation; socio-ethnic stratification; intermarriage and transnational families; and ethnic identity processes and intergenerational relations. He has conducted research in the Gambia, Africa; Catalonia, Spain; London, England; and Toronto, Canada, with an emphasis on international and transatlantic comparison. Recent publications include Immigration and Hybridity Today (UAB Press 2004); Policies and Models of Incorporation, a Transatlantic Perspective: Canada, Germany, France and the Netherlands (Fundació CIDOB 2007); ‘Mixed Marriages and Transnational Families in the Intercultural Context’ (Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 32/3, 2006); and ‘Intermarriage Patterns and Socio-ethnic Stratification among Ethnic Groups in Toronto’ (CERIS Working Paper Series 60, 2007).
 

Keith Rogers
Queens University

Research Domain(s):
1. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration
2. Economic and Labour Market Integration

Research Interest:
1. Evolution of control of the structure and outsourcing
2. Predicting economic success of immigrants
3. Effect of immigrants on international trade
 

Esther Rootham

Research Domain(s):
1. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration
2. Economic and Labour Market Integration
3. Justice, Policing and Security

Research Interest:
1. Racialized youth and the labour market
2. Identity

Bio:
I recently completed my Master’s thesis in Geography at York University on identity formation processes and labour market experiences of racialized youth in Toronto. I approached my study with feminist and anti-racist research methodologies that combined statistical analysis of Census and Toronto District School Board data with extensive qualitative interviews of second generation Vietnamese youth from the Jane-Finch neighbourhood. I completed my undergraduate degree in International Development Studies at the University of Toronto. My Honour’s thesis explored the complex identities and transnational ties of students at the Scarborough campus of the University of Toronto through an on-line survey completed by over 300 respondents. In addition to my academic experience, I have also worked as researcher for Pathways to EducationTM in Regent Park, an organization dedicated to support youth in the neighbourhood through their school to work transition and fostering a high level of participation in post-secondary education.
 

Joanna Anneke Rummens
The Hospital for Sick Children / University of Toronto

Research Domain(s):
1. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration
2. Health and Well-being
3. Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing

Research Interest:
1. Identity, diversity and wellbeing
2. Health and wellbeing
3. Early school leaving; school success

Population(s):
1. All diverse and/or marginalized populations
2. Ethiopian, Filipino, Hong Kong Chinese, Tamil
3. Jamaican, Mainland Chinese, Serbian, Somali

Bio:
Director, CERIS – The Ontario Metropolis Centre
Health Systems Research Scientist, Community Health Systems Resource Group and
Project Director, Child Health Evaluative Sciences, Research Institute, The Hospital for Sick Children
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
Fellow, Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean, York University

Dr. Anneke Rummens is a multilingual anthropologist and sociologist whose research explores the links between identity, diversity, health and wellbeing, with special focus on vulnerable and marginalized populations. She has undertaken fieldwork with a wide variety of cultural groups in different social contexts in the Caribbean, Europe, and Canada, and employs an interdisciplinary, mixed-methodological, comparative perspective. Her areas of interest and expertise include identity/diversity, immigrant/refugee health, child/youth health and wellbeing, cross-culturally competent health service delivery, international health research, and mixed-methodological research techniques. Recent research projects focus on: identity formation and negotiation among newcomer and among mixed heritage children and youth; impact and meanings of war trauma within diaspora communities; mental health of war-affected immigrant and refugee populations; child and youth well-being and school success. All policy and practice-relevant research initiatives entail collaborative partnerships with diverse communities as well as knowledge transfer/exchange.mobilization with a wide variety of stakeholders. Dr. Rummens has served in an advisory capacity in the areas of identity, diversity, citizenship and health to various governmental departments including Canadian Heritage and Statistics Canada, and was a Member of the Advisory Committee for Canada’s post-census Ethnic Diversity Survey.
 

Laine Ruus
University of Toronto
 

Shiva Sadeghi
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE)/University of Toronto

Research Domain(s):
1. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration
2. Family, Children and Youth

Research Interest:
1. Citizenship education
2. Biligualism
3. Literacy

Population(s):
1. Muslim communities
2. Iranian immigrants
3. Language minority students in Ontario classrooms
 

Roxana Salehi
York University

Research Domain(s):
Health

Research Interest:
1. Community based research
2. Primary health care
3. Sexual health (HIV/AIDS)
 

Nino Scavello

Research Domain(s):
Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration

Research Interest:
1. North American Immigration
2. Italian popular piety
3. American 19th C History

Population(s):
1. Italian diaspora
2. Irish diaspora
3. Chinese diaspora

Bio:
My current research interests include a comparative analysis of the migration and settlement patterns of skilled Italian immigrants to both Canada and the United States, in the latter nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Specifically, my research interests will focus on the experiences of Italian immigrants within the newspaper and printing industries, how this specialized segment of the Italian population adapted to life in the New World, and whether any distinct differences exist between patterns to Canada and the United States. The geographic focus of my current research interests is Western Canada (Vancouver) and California (San Francisco), a distinct departure from the more traditional north-eastern are of study devoted to Italian immigration patterns. Beyond the Italian immigration experience, my research interests include the collective experiences of both the Irish and Chinese Diasporas to North America during the nineteenth century.
 

Rosanna Scotti
City of Toronto
 

Lori Seeley
Industry Canada
 

Rocky Serkowney
Canadian Heritage
 

Uzma Shakir
South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario

Research Domain(s):
Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing
 

Yogendra Shakya
Access Alliance Multicultural Health and Community Services
 

Mary Shanes
Citizenship and Immigration Canada
 

John Shields
Ryerson University

Research Domain(s):
Economic and Labour Market Integration
 

Myer Siemiatycki
Ryerson University

Research Domain(s):
Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing
 

Laura Simich
University of Toronto

Research Domain(s):
Health and Well-being

Research Interest:
1. Cultural/medical anthropology
2. Refugees
3. Mental Health

Population(s):
1. Tamil
2. Sudanese
3. Latin American

Bio:
Laura Simich, Ph.D. is a medical anthropologist and a Scientist in Social Equity and Health at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto. She is an Assistant Professor in the Culture, Community and Health Studies Program, Department of Psychiatry, and in the Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto. Her recent research has focused on sociocultural determinants of mental well being among immigrants, particularly social support during refugee resettlement. She specializes in qualitative community-based research with an orientation to promoting health, supporting advocacy and improving policy. Dr. Simich helped develop the popular self-help guide for mental health promotion in diverse immigrant communities, Alone in Canada: 21 Ways to Make it Better, a Guide for Single Newcomers to Canada, which is available in 18 languages. Her ongoing research interests are resilience, social support and mental health among forced migrants, particularly Sudanese and Sri Lankan Tamil refugees and non-status immigrants in Toronto. Dr. Simich also collaborates in studies on immigrant family and children’s’ health and is currently involved in a CURA project about cultural diversity and community mental health.
 

Alan Simmons
York University

Research Domain(s):
1. Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing
2. Education

Bio:
Alan Simmons is Associate Professor of Sociology and Fellow at the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean at York University in Toronto. He specializes in research on policies and trends international migration from a transnational perspective, covering links between and impacts on sending and receiving countries, with a particular focus on the Americas. Past-President of the Canadian Population Society and a current member of Council of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, he serves on the editorial boards of several scholarly journals, including the International Migration Review, International Migration, Canadian Population Studies, and the Cahiers Québecois de Démographie. His most recent books are: International Migration, Refugee Flows and Human Rights in North America: The Impact of Trade and Restructuring (New York: Center for Migration Studies, 1996) and (jointly with Liisa North), Journeys of Fear: Refugee Return and National Transformation in Guatemala (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1999). Additional details on his research and publications may be found at: http://www.arts.yorku.ca/soci/asimmons/cv/cv.html

Rick Sin
McMaster University

Research Domain(s):
1, Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration
2. Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing
3. Health and Well-being

Research Interest:
1. Access to social and health care services
2. Supportive housing and issues of homelessness
3. Social capital and employment opportunities

Population(s):
1. Asian Canadians
2. Psychiatric consumer-survivors
3. People suffering from Problem gambling

Bio:
Rick Sin is currently teaching social work at McMaster University. His research interests include critical examination of domination and resistance in social relations with anti-colonial and anti-racism discursive frameworks; and effective research and practice strategies for social justice at local and global levels. He has been serving, both as staff and board member, a number of community organizations serving immigrants and ethno-racial minorities in Toronto, including the Chinese Canadian National Council, the Alternative Planning Group, Urban Alliance on Race Relations, and Edmond Yu Safe House Steering Committee.
 

Denise L. Spitzer
University of Ottawa

Research Domain(s):
1. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration
2. Economic and Labour Market Integration
3. Health and Well-Being

Research Interest:
1. Immigrant and Refugee Women's Health
2. Transnationalism and Globalization
3. Social Capital, Identities, Agency and Resilience

Population(s):
1. Foreign Domestic Care Workers
2. Sub-Saharan African Refugees
3. SE Asian, Chinese, Chilean, Somali
 

Rani Srivastava
Centre for Addiction & Mental Health (CAMH)

Research Domain(s):
Health and Well-Being 
 

Lana Stermac
University of Toronto

Research Domain(s):
1. Education
2. Health and Well-Being

Bio:
Rick Sin is currently teaching social work at McMaster University. His research interests include critical examination of domination and resistance in social relations with anti-colonial and anti-racism discursive frameworks; and effective research and practice strategies for social justice at local and global levels. He has been serving, both as staff and board member, a number of community organizations serving immigrants and ethno-racial minorities in Toronto, including the Chinese Canadian National Council, the Alternative Planning Group, Urban Alliance on Race Relations, and Edmond Yu Safe House Steering Committee.
 

Donna Stewart
University Health Network

Research Domain(s):
Health

Research Interest:
1. Women's Health
2. Health performance and inequities
3. Population health and mental health

Population(s):
1. Latin America
2. Immigrant/refugee women's health
3. Reproductive health in newcomers

Bio:
Dr. Donna Stewart is the Lillian Love Chair in Women’s Health at University Health Network and the University of Toronto, where she is responsible for research, education, policy and health services delivery for women’s health. She is a University Professor at the University of Toronto with appointments to the Departments of Psychiatry, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Anesthesia, Surgery, Medicine, and Family and Community Medicine. She is a Senior Scientist at the Toronto General Research Institute. Her research and publications are in women’s mental health across the lifecycle and associated with violence and social determinants of health. Dr. Stewart is Scientific Officer for the CIHR Committee on Gender, Sex and Health. Her current grants are on depression related to immigrant health, postpartum depression, perimenopause, cardiovascular disease, work and chronic pain. She is co-principal investigator and author of Canada’s first Women’s Health Surveillance Report in which she wrote the chapters on depression, cardiovascular disease and eating disorders. She is President of the International Association of Women’s Mental Health and Chair of the Section of Women’s Mental Health of the World Psychiatric Association. She has written over 200 peer reviewed publications and edited five books on women’s mental health.
 

John Stone
State University of New York at Buffalo

Research Domain(s):
1. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration
2. Health and Well-being

Research Interest:
1. Culture and Disability
2. Cultural competence in rehabilitation professions

Bio:
John Stone, Ph.D. is the Director of the Center for International Rehabilitation Research Information and Exchange (CIRRIE), a NIDRR funded project whose mission is to facilitate the sharing of information and expertise between rehabilitation researchers in the U.S. and those in other countries (http://cirrie.buffalo.edu/). The project developed a database of 60,000 published articles on rehabilitation research conducted outside the U.S. Also as part of the CIRRIE project he served as the Editor of a 12-volume monograph series on the cultures of persons with disabilities who have immigrated to the U.S. from other countries, as well as a newly published book, Culture and Disability: Providing Culturally Competent Services (SAGE Publications).

Stone is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Science at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Prior to joining the faculty of the University of Buffalo, he worked for 17 years as a faculty member in several universities in Brazil. In 1991 he returned to the U.S. where he became Dissemination Director of the Center for Assistive Technology at the University at Buffalo and its NIDRR-funded Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Aging. He is also a former Peace Corps Volunteer (India, 1967-69).
 

Robert Sweet
Lakehead University

Research Domain(s):
Education

Research Interest:
1. School engagement of immigrant children
2. School achievement of immigrant children
3. Education and Employment

Bio:
Dr. Robert Sweet is a professor of Educational Psychology in the Faculty of Education at Lakehead University and for the past several years has been working with Dr. Paul Anisef of York University and others on school-work transitions and educational planning in families. This work has employed the Census and Survey of Approaches to Educational Planning (SAEP). One of the products of this partnership was a CERIS working paper: Labour Market Outcomes of Immigrant and Racial Minority University Graduates in Canada. The SAEP has since been modified to gather more detailed information on immigrant and racial minority status. Dr. Sweet and his colleagues anticipate developing further the transition and planning topics in the coming year.
Research interests include immigrant school experiences and transitions to employment. Current projects involve secondary analyses of survey data on the school engagement and achievement of immigrant children, parental involvement in children’s schooling, and a study of immigrant adult access to post-secondary training.
 

Busha Taa

Research Domain(s):
1. Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing
2. Education
3. Housing and Neighbourhoods

Bio:
Dr. Busha Taa obtained his doctorate degree from OISE/University of Toronto in 2003. His dissertation was s political and sociological investigation of the impacts of cultural knowledges on social variables such as race, religion, ethnicity, gender and family. He has extensive experience as a research assistant and guest lecturer in the areas of social inequality, immigration, and sociology of race and ethnicity.
 

Ming-Young Tam
United Way of Greater Toronto

Research Domain(s):
Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing
 

Phil Triadafilopoulos
University of Toronto

Research Domain(s):
Justice and Law

Bio:
Phil Triadafilopoulos is a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Department of Political Science. His research focuses on how immigration and citizenship policies intersect with and help define boundaries of national belonging in liberal democratic states – primarily Canada and Germany. He earned his PhD in Political Science from the New School for Social Research and conducted extensive field research in Germany as a DAAD Visiting Research Fellow. Triadafilopoulos is the co-editor of European Encounters: Migrants, Migration and European Societies since 1945 (with Rainer Ohliger and Karen Schönwälder, Ashgate 2003) and has published papers and reviews in the Journal of Historical Sociology, Citizenship Studies, Migration und Bevölkerung, the Journal of Politics, the Canadian Journal of Political Science, Canadian Public Administration, East European Quarterly, and the Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans. He is a contributor to the Oxford Dictionary of the Social Sciences and the Ethnopolitical Encyclopaedia of Europe (Palgrave 2004).
 

Adnan Turegun
Carleton University

Research Domain(s):
1. Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing
2. Economic and Labour Market Integration

Research Interest:
1. Access to professions
2. Racism
3. Welcoming communities

Population(s):
1. Internationally trained professionals and trades professionals
2. "Visible Minority" immigrants and refugees

Bio:
Dr. Adnan Türegün is Executive Director of the Research Resource Division for Refugees (RRDR) and an Adjunct Research Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University. His research interests include the labour market integration of immigrants and refugees with a particular emphasis on their access to regulated professions and trades.
 

Vappu Tyyskä
Ryerson University

Research Domain(s):
1. Health and Well-being
2. Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing
3. Justice and Law

Research Interest:
1. Immigrant families
2. Immigrant youth
3. Immigrant women

Population(s):
1. Iranian
2. Tamil
3. South Asian

Vappu Tyyskä is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Ryerson University. Her present research deals with intergenerational and gender relations among immigrant and minority groups. In the last five years, she has conducted research projects on youth-parent relations in the Iranian and Sri Lankan Tamil communities in Toronto. Additionally, she participated in two large team research projects, on the needs of newcomer immigrant children. She is currently starting a research project on family violence in selected immigrant communities. Her most recent publications include “Teen Perspectives on Family Relations in the Toronto Tamil Community” (CERIS Working Paper Series No. 45, March 2006); Action and Analysis: Readings in Sociology of Gender (Toronto: Nelson Thomson, 2006); “Immigrant Adjustment and Parenting of Teens: A Study of Newcomer Groups in Toronto, Canada”, in Jatta Herranen, Vesa Puuronen, and Jarna Soilevuo-Grønnerød, eds. Youth – Similarities, Differences, Inequalities. Proceedings of the 4th International Youth Conference (Joensuu: Karelian Institute, University of Joensuu, 2005); and “Conceptualizing and Theorizing Youth: Global Perspectives”, in Helena Helve and Gunilla Holm, eds. Contemporary Youth Research: Local Expressions and Global Connections (London, U.K.: Haworth Publications, 2005). She is also editor of Action and Analysis. Readings in Sociology of Gender (Toronto: Thompson/Nelson, 2007).
 

Ebru Ustundag
Brock University

Research Domain(s):
1. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration
2. Welcoming Communities: Building Capacity in Regions, Cities, and Neighbourhoods

Research Interest:
1. Citizenship studies
2. Urban geography
3. Feminist geography

Population(s):
1. Turkish
2. Kurdish

Bio:
Ebru Ustundag is an Assistant Professor in Geography department where she teaches courses on community development, urban-social planning, cities and globalization. She completed her Ph.D. (Geography) at York University. Her doctoral dissertation ‘Turkish republican citizenship and rights to the city’ analyzes the constitutions, contestations and transformations of the Turkish republican project’s citizenship practices and strategies, through the spaces of Istanbul. Her major areas of interest are: theories of space and cities, citizenship studies, feminist geographies, urban geographies as well as political and cultural geographies of Middle East.
 

Mandana Vahabi
Ryerson University

Research Domain(s):
1. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration
2. Health and Well-Being

Research Interest:
1. Health disparity (gender, income and immigration)
2. Health communication and literacy
3. Population health

Population(s):
1. Middle East
2. Latin Americans
3. Asians

Bio:
Mandana Vahabi, PhD, MHSc, RN is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Community Services, Nursing Department. She also holds a cross-appointment with the University of Toronto as an Associate member of School of Graduate Studies and Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Nursing. Her research and teaching program focuses on health risk communication, literacy, and population health in general and health disparities by age, gender, SES, and immigration in particular. Dr. Vahabi has extensive experience in population-based assessment, planning and evaluation. She worked as a policy consultant at the Ministry of Health Long Term Care and as senior epidemiologist/ health planner at the Toronto District Health Council (TDHC) where she was involved in managing various system level projects such as "Heath System Monitoring and Evaluation", and "Toronto Small Planning Areas: A Population-Based Approach to constructing New Health Planning Areas in the City".
 

Lieng Van Hua

Research Domain(s):
Economic and Labour Market Integration
 

Biljana Vasilevska

Research Domain(s):
1. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration
2. Education

Research Interest:
1. Education of refugees and traumatized adults
2. Immigration policy
3. Citizenship and exclusion

Population(s):
1. Refugees of war and domestic violence
2. Immigrant women
3. Teachers in programs for immigrant adults
 

Anastasios Venetsanopoulos
Ryerson University

Research Domain(s):
Education

Research Interest:
1. Telecommunications
2. Signal Processing
3. Multimedia

Bio:
Anastasios Venetsanopoulos received the Bachelors of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering degree from the National Technical University of Athens (NTU), Greece, in 1965, and the M.S., M.Phil., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Yale University in 1966, 1968 and 1969 respectively. He joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the University of Toronto in September 1968. Prof. A.N. Venetsanopoulos has served as Chair of the Communications Group and Associate Chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering. Prof. A.N. Venetsanopoulos served in this position as Inaugural Chairholder between 1999 and 2004. Between 2001 – 2006 he served as the 12th Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering of the University of Toronto. He is now the VP of Research and Innovation at Ryerson University.
 

Olive Wahoush
McMaster University

Research Domain(s):
1. Health and Well-being
2. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration
3. Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing

Research Interest:
1. Immigrant child health
2. Health services delivery
3. Preschool child health

Population(s):
1. Refugees and refugee claimants settling in Canada
2. Muslim families
3. Arabic speaking peoples

Bio:
OLIVE WAHOUSH, RN, MSc, PhD is an Assistant Professor at the School of Nursing, McMaster University. Her PhD was completed at University of Toronto 2007 candidate in Health Policy Management and Evaluation (outcomes measurement & evaluation stream). Thesis title: When their preschooler is ill: The experiences of refugee & refugee claimant mothers She has expertise and research interest in health care systems particularly in the areas of Immigrant health, Maternal Child Health and Pediatrics. Olive is currently a Co-Investigator for a national study funded by CIHR in 2004. Childbearing health and Related Service Needs for Newcomers (CHARSNN) is a national study investigating pregnancy outcomes and health service needs of women who are refugees, refugee claimants, immigrants and Canadian born. Her thesis research is about refugee and refugee claimant preschool children and health care access in Hamilton. Olive has enjoyed nursing roles in; clinical practice, leadership and education in diverse settings with a specific focus on the Middle East and Asia.
 

Ingrid Waldron
Scadding Court Community Centre

Research Domain(s):
1. Economic and Labour Market Integration
2. Family, Children and Youth
3. Health and Well-Being

Research Interest:
1. Poverty of racialized groups
2. Labour and employment of racialized groups
3. Health of racialized groups

Population(s):
1. Ethno-racial
2. Poor and low income
3. Immigrant

Bio:
Ingrid Waldron was born in Montreal, Quebec. She obtained her Ph.D. in Education in 2002 from the Sociology and Equity Studies in Education Department at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto (OISE/UT). Her thesis examined the mental, emotional, spiritual and physical impact of discrimination on African Canadian women. In 2003 she was awarded a Postdoctoral Ontario Women’s Health Scholars Award to examine the impact of everyday discrimination on the mental health of African Canadian women. In addition, she holds a M.A in Intercultural Education: Race, Ethnicity and Culture from the Institute of Education, University of London (England) and B.A in Psychology from McGill University.

Ingrid is currently a lecturer at the University of Toronto, where she has taught courses on antiracism education, ethnicity in social organizations, gender relations, race, ethnicity & identity and ethnicity and immigration in Canada. In addition, she is currently setting up a research praxis unit at Scadding Court Community Centre to look at the racialization of poverty in Toronto. The Unit will conduct policy-relevant research that draws together multiple stakeholders; organize forums, speakers’ series and conferences; and engage in community mobilization.

Ingrid has developed and coordinated numerous other community-based and academic research projects on antiracism, equity and diversity issues affecting racialized communities, including projects on equity, access and diversity for the Halton Diversity Advisory Committee at the Regional Municipality of Halton; race, immigration and schooling for the Center for Integrative Antiracism Studies at OISE/UT; gender inequalities in health for the National Network on Environments and Women’s Health at York University; bullying and school violence for the Kids Help Phone; and human rights and mental health for the World Health Organization.

Ingrid has been a committee and board member for various organizations, including the Urban Alliance on Race Relations, Across Boundaries – an Ethno-Racial Mental Health Agency, the Congress of Black Women of Canada, and the Human Rights, Discrimination and Harassment Task Group of the Toronto District School Board. She has also worked as a human rights and antiracism trainer at COSTI Immigrant Services.
 

Maria Wallis

Research Domain(s):
1. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration
2. Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing
3. Education

Bio:
Dr. Maria A. Wallis has been a community activist in the Toronto area for fifteen years. Her community involvement includes volunteer work with the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC), and the National Organization of Immigrant and Visible Minority Women of Canada (NOIVMW). She is also a past executive director of the Toronto-based Urban Alliance on Race Relations.

Dr. Wallis is currently an Assistant Professor of Sociology at King’s University College, University of Western Ontario. Her research areas include Race and Ethnic Relations, Social Inequality, Globalization, Transnational Migration and Child Labour.

Margaret Walton-Roberts
Wilfrid Laurier University

Research Domain(s):
1. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration
2. Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing
3. Economic

Research Interest:
1. Transnational networks
2. Gender and migration
3. Immigration to second tier cities

Population(s):
1. South Asian
2. Sikh
 

Edith Jacobet Wambayi
Health and Life Promotion Research Consultancy (HELP)

Research Domain(s):
1. Welcoming Communities: Building Capacity in Regions, Cities, and Neighbourhoods
2. Family, Children and Youth
3. Health and Well-Being

Research Interest:
1. HIV/AIDS social/behavioural issues
2. Social determinants of health
3. Newcomers families

Population(s):
1. Ethno racial
2. Ethno cultural
3. Religious

Bio:
I started my career in the late seventies. Starting as an Assistant Scientist I rose in rank over 20 years to the level of Senior Research Officer in the Ministry of Health, Kenya. I worked on disease control projects focusing on major tropical diseases like malaria and intestinal parasites. I led teams in countrywide disease surveillance and monitoring. When HIV/AIDS became endemic in Kenya I started working with NGOs, CBOs and other groups conducting national campaigns to spread awareness and sensitize people. We organized national and community workshops on HIV/AIDS targeting community leaders, opinion leaders, administrators and members of the civil society. The programs influenced the Kenya Government in bringing about tangible changes in legislation on HIV/AIDS. I have continued the fight against the scourge in Canada since 2001.

EDUCATION
I am a holder of a PhD and MSc in Medical Sciences, a Bachelor’s degree in Education/Science, a Diploma in Community-Based Program Planning and Management, and numerous certificates in the Health and related fields.

CONSULTANCY
My consulting career in Canada started in 2002 with “Health and Life Promotion Research Consultancy (HELP).” I provide research and community education and support services to hospitals, local and international organizations, and individuals.
 

Lu Wang
Ryerson University

Research Domain(s):
1. Economic and Labour Market Integration
2. Health and Well-being

Research Interest:
1. Economic geography
2. Retailing and consumption
3. Immigration and access to health care

Population(s):
1. Chinese immigrants in Canada
2. Mainland Chinese immigrants in Canada
 

Steven M. Webber
Ryerson University

Research Domain(s):
1. Housing and Neighbourhoods
2. Economic and Labour Market Integration

Bio:
Steven Webber is an instructor in the Ryerson University School of Urban and Regional Planning as well as urban planning and housing policy consultant. Dr. Webber is currently working with Dr. Kenise Murphy Kilbride on a National Secretariat on Homelesness funded study that is investigating the factors contributing to homelessess among recent immigrants in Toronto, Hamilton and Peel Region. Additionally, he has worked on homelesness and settlement issues in the Los Angeles area. His urban planning graduate work includes a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California and an M.A. from UCLA. He is also a Member of the Canadian Institute of Planners and a Registered Professional Planner with the Ontario Professioal Planners Institute.
 

Melissa Autumn White

Research Domain(s):
Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration

Research Interest:
1. Queer migration and movements
2. Critical citizenship studies
3. Anti-racist feminist theory

Population(s):
LGBTTIQ communities

Bio:
Melissa Autumn White BA (Calgary), MA (York).
Research Interests: Queer im/migration; critical citizenship and security studies; theories of affect; space and embodiment; psychoanalysis and politics; queer cosmopolitics. Her dissertation explores transnational queer migration in a comparative metropolitan Canadian context, and is specifically interested in theorizing the affective interface between state regulation and migrants' accounts of queer intimacies.
 

Kathi Wilson
University of Toronto, Mississauga Campus
 

Beth Wilson
Community Social Planning Council of Toronto

Research Domain(s):
Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing

Research Interest:
1. Housing
2. Economic insecurity
3. Labour market

Population(s):
1. Toronto residents
2. Immigrant communities
3. Non-profit sector workers
 

Matt Wood
Ontario Association of Youth Employment Centre

Research Domain(s):
Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing
 

Patricia K. Wood
York University

Research Domain(s):
Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration

Research Interest:
1. Citizenship, multiculturalism, identity politics
2. Public space
3. Identity construction, memory, attachment to place

Population(s):
Italian Canadians

Bio:
Patricia K. Wood is Associate Professor and Chair of Geography at York University. She does research on citizenship, diversity and identity politics, particularly in cities in Western Canada. She has focused on the cultural and political negotiation of identities among immigrant communities and among Native groups. Her work often investigates the relationship between local community organization and state policies, such as Multiculturalism and the Indian Act, to explore the tensions between different understandings of the practices of citizenship and belonging. She is the author of Nationalism from the Margins (McGill-Queen's, 2002) and co-author, with Engin F. Isin, of Citizenship & Identity (Sage, 1999). She has also published in The Canadian Geographer, The Journal of Historical Geography and The International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.
 

Shaunda Wood
St. Thomas University

Research Domain(s):
1. Family, Children and Youth
2. Economic and Labour Market Integration
3. Welcoming Communities: Building Capacity in Regions, Cities, and Neighbourhoods

Research Interest:
1. Women and non-traditional pops' in engineering
2. Non-traditional participation in sciences
3. Best pedagogical practices

Population(s):
1. Women
2. International/immigrants students in public school
3. International/immigrant students in higher education
 

Scot Wortley
University of Toronto

Research Domain(s):
Justice and Law
 

Cynthia Wright
University of Toronto

Research Domain(s):
Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing
 

Matthew G. Yeager
King's University College

Research Domain(s):
Justice, Policing and Security

Research Interest:
1. Crime and immigration
2. Dangerousness and immigration
3. Rehabilitation under the Immigration Act

Population(s):
All immigrant groups
 

June Ying Yee
Ryerson University

Research Domain(s):
1. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration
2. Health and Well-being
3. Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing

Research Interest:
1. Racialized minority groups in health, services, education
2. Anti-racist methodology
3. Employment of internationally educated professionals

Population(s):
1. Ethno-racial minorities
2. Newcomers to Canada
3. Diverse populations

Bio:
June Ying Yee, Associate Professor, Ryerson University, School of Social Work
B.A., B.S.W., M.S.W., Ph.D.

June’s scholarly research focuses on race and racism and on access and equity issues for ethno-racial minority clientele in the areas of health, education and social services. As an Associate Professor, she has been an investigator on various studies, including a SSHRC funded study entitled “Examining the Experiences of Visible Minority Social Work Professionals,” a Canadian Institute of Health Research funded study entitled, “Racialised Groups and Health Status: Exploring Poverty, Housing, Race-Discrimination and Access to Health Care in Toronto, and a Canadian Heritage and Human Resources and Skills Development funded projected, “ Examining Systemic and Individual Barriers By Ethno-Racial Minority Social Workers in Mainstream Agencies: A Community Project.” She has authored the article, “Critical Anti-Racism Praxis: The Concept of Whiteness Implicated” and co-authored an article titled “Whiteout: Looking for Race in Canadian Social Work Practice” in Multicultural Social Work in Canada. In 2002, she received the Professor of the Year Award for her excellence in research, teaching and scholarship at the university. In 2008, for her contribution to the development of the Internationally Educated Social Work Professionals Bridging Program, she was co-awarded the Ontario Association of Social Workers Social Work Leaders Award.
 

Ahmad Yousif

Research Domain(s):
Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration
 

Gökçe Yurdakul
Brock University

Research Domain(s):
1. Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing
2. Justice, Policing and Security
3. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration

Research Interest:
1. Political engagement of immigrants
2. Violence against immigrant women
3. Citizenship

Population(s):
1. Turkish immigrants in Germany
2. Muslim populations
3. Kurds in Turkey

Bio:
Gökçe Yurdakul is an assistant professor at the department of sociology in the Brock University, Ontario, Canada. She has a Ph.D. from the department of sociology at the University of Toronto. Her dissertation is an ethnographic research on the mobilization of Turkish immigrants and their political representation in Germany. Her teaching and research interests include migration, citizenship, race and ethnicity, gender and women. She is the author of State, Political Parties, Immigrant Elites: Turkish Immigrant Associations in Berlin (2006, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies), co-editor Migration, Citizenship, Ethnos (with Michal Bodemann, 2006, Palgrave Macmillan).
 

Qiang Zha
York University

Research Domain(s):
Economic and Labour Market Integration

Research Interest:
1. Globalization and its impact on education
2. "Brain Circulation"
3. Internationalization of Higher Education

Population(s):
1. Chinese
2. Asian

Bio:
Qiang Zha holds a PhD in Higher Education, earned at OISE/UT. As a Chevening Scholar, he received a Master of Art degree in Comparative Education from the University of London Institute of Education in 1994. In 1996, he was a visiting scholar to the Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong. His research interests include comparative higher/education, international academic relations, globalization and education, internationalization of higher education, East Asian and Chinese higher education, differentiation and diversity in higher education, theories of organizational change, and research methods in education. He has written and published widely on these topics. In 2004, he was a co-recipient of the UNESCO Palgrave Prize on Higher Education Policy Research, which is sponsored by Palgrave-Macmillan Ltd.

Currently and as a co-investigator, Qiang Zha focuses his research on a SSHRC-supported project, China's Move to Mass Higher Education: Implications for Democratization and Global Cultural Dialogue. This project looks at China's move to mass higher education in terms of the policy making process and the empirical experience, and also considers the implications for the growth of civil society and democracy, through a survey of students and focus group meetings with faculty and students at six public and six private universities. It will further probe the ways in which China's universities may contribute to global cultural dialogue, as they become more active on the international stage. The principal investigator on this project is Professor Ruth Hayhoe with OISE/UT.

Concurrently, Qiang Zha is also a research fellow with the Institute of Higher Education Studies at Fudan University, and a research fellow with the Center for Development Studies of the Anhui Provincial Government in China. Apart from his academic appointment and obligations, Qiang Zha serves now on the board and as Secretary of Canadian China Society.
 

Y. Rachel Zhou
McMaster University

Research Domain(s):
1. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration
2. Health and Well-being

Research Interest:
1. Globalization
2. Social policy
3. Health, HIV/AIDS

Population(s):
1. Chinese communities, mandarin-speaking
2. Asian immigrant communities
 

Hong Zhu

Research Domain(s):
1. Citizenship and Social, Cultural and Civic Integration
2. Community, Neighbourhoods and Housing
3. Education

Research Interest:
1. Language socialization and immigrant education
2. Human capital & socio-economic commitment
3. Family, community, participatory citizenship

Population(s):
1. Chinese and other Asian ethno-racial immigrants
2. Mandarin speaking immigrants
3. Non-native English/French speaking immigrants

Bio:
Hong Zhu earned her Ph.D. in June 2005 in Second Language Education from OISE/University of Toronto, with a research focus on recent immigrants from the People’s Republic of China to Canada. Her dissertation, Capital Transformation and Immigrant Integration: Chinese Independent Immigrants’ (CIIs) Language Practices and Social Practices in Canada, is an ethnographic study on CIIs’ integration experience in Toronto, Vancouver, and Regina. Her research interests include language, education, citizenship and multiculturalism in Canada. In addition to her doctoral research, Hong Zhu participated various research projects on education and immigrant settlement across various disciplines, such as Student Experiences in Toronto Classroom and Citizenship Learning and Participatory Democracy. Currently, she is working for a SSHRC funded project, a university-community cooperative research, Women’s Alternate Pathways into IT in ACTEW (A Commitment to Training and Employment for Women) and a Citizenship and Immigration Canada funded project, Investigate Best Practices and Resources Supporting LINC Literacy Learners by Surveying Ontario LINC Assessment Centers and Language Instruction Providers.