SHE/HER

I have an Honours BSc from the University of Guelph in Biomedical Sciences, an MSc from the University of Waterloo's School of Public Health & Health Systems and am presently a PhD student at the University of British Columbia at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability in the Law, Governance, Justice and Policy Stream.

My MSc thesis aimed to discern the knowledge and understanding of climate change-related health risks by public health authorities, and evaluate local mitigation, adaptation and risk communication strategies. This work is of interest to Health Canada, as it aims to address existing knowledge gaps they have previously identified. Consequently, I was an expert reviewer on the latest Federal Government report on climate change and the health of Canadians. 

For my doctoral research, I will be looking into the role of values in decision-making and implications upon sound environmental governance that is meaningfully inclusive of racially and ethnically minoritized peoples, in particularly Indigenous and racialized women and gender diverse peoples who are most disproportionately burdened with negative health impacts as a result of exposure to environmental hazards, pollutants and toxins. This work is of interest and involves collaboration from relevant departments at Health Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada, alongside community leaders and non-profit/ advocacy groups.

I have experience teaching, mentoring and designing educational curricula in academic settings. Examples include delivering lectures on being a youth changemaker and finding political infiltration points, at the University of Guelph in UNIV2200 (Towards Sustainability) and at McMaster University in Dr. Ingrid Waldron's Course, as well as on Environmental Justice and Racism at the University of Waterloo, in HLTH280 (Public Health Ethics) as well as at Wilfried Laurier University. I have previously been a teaching assistant for HLTH202 (Principles of Public and Population Health) and HLTH245 (Canadian Health Systems) at University of Waterloo. I have also mentored undergraduate students in their thesis research as part of the Climate Justice Research Collaborative at UBC, and aided with the supervision of over 100 undergraduate co-op students who completed their community research placement at my non-profit, Shake Up The Establishment.

I am also highly proficient in clinical, wet lab, qualitative and quantitative research methods, having had over 4 years of experience in conducting research at institutions including the University of Guelph, the Hospital for Sick Children, and University of Waterloo.  I presented original findings as first author, during the third year of my undergraduate degree, via an oral podium presentation at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) conference in Florida in 2018. I am a published author in translational medicine, and I have also worked on a systematic review where I was co-lead author; our findings were presented in June 2019 at the European Pediatric Surgery Association (EUPSA). I was lead research assistant on a CIHR-funded study looking into sociocultural and behavioural factors affecting communities' response to countermeasures for the COVID-19 pandemic. This research is of interest to the Ontario Ministry of Health, as it aims to identify interventions to build trust in public health authorities and to improve compliance to health measures.

Through my non-profit work, I've been a storyteller through a variety of mediums, including a National Geographic documentary, news engagements, podcasts interviews, social media campaigns, public speaking and written content. Throughout all of this, I have gained the skills to write, design, produce, edit and efficiently share/promote content centred around stories, causes and action-oriented campaigns centred in social good. At the moment, I am working on a number of creative storytelling projects in audiovisual formats as an executive producer.
 
These selection of experiences stand as a testament to my interdisciplinary knowledge, high skill set in conducting different types of research and my high level of proficiency in communicating these findings to any audience.

My main areas of interest at the moment are in the intersections of health policy, climate justice, behavioural science, risk communication and social determinants of health/equity-focused research.