Research interests
My research seeks to understand how social, structural, and environmental contexts shape substance use, risks and harms, and related public health interventions. As a community-based researcher I use qualitative and ethnographic methods to understand how factors such as gender, built environments, poverty, criminalization, and drug policies affect the health and well-being of people who use drugs and how they shape the implementation and effectiveness of targeted interventions (e.g., supervised consumption services). I have examined a variety of interventions across Canada in various environments such as community health centres, inner-city drug scenes, housing environments, and rural, remote, and Indigenous communities.
In addition to this research, I also have many years of direct service experience working with people who use drugs. I have worked as a housing stability worker for a Housing First organization, at a needle and syringe program for an HIV/AIDS organization, and as a harm reduction street outreach worker. This direct service experience provided me valuable insights into the daily lives of people who use drugs and inspired me to pursue a career in drug policy research.
Graduate supervision and student opportunities
I am currently accepting applications from graduate students with research interests related to:
- Critical perspectives on substance use and addictions
- Drug policy
- Harm reduction
- Opioid agonist therapies
- Substance use in small urban, rural, remote, and Indigenous communities
- Gender and substance use
- Housing and homelessness
Graduate studies application details
Teaching interests
- Community-based and qualitative research methods
- Harm reduction
- Substance use
- Rural public health
- Social determinants of health
- Gender, sexuality, and health
Education
BA Women’s Studies and Sociology, University of Western Ontario
MA, Kinesiology (Sociocultural Studies), University of Western Ontario
PhD, Women’s Studies and Feminist Research, University of Western Ontario
Postdoctoral Fellowship, Department of Medicine (Division of Social Medicine), University of British Columbia and BC Centre on Substance Use
Selected publications
See Google Scholar for a full list of publications.