Our Members
Rachel Herron
DIRECTOR
Faculty of Science, Department of Geography and Environment, Brandon University
Dr. Rachel Herron is a Professor in the Department of Geography and Environment at Brandon University and a Canada Research Chair in Rural and Remote Mental Health. Her current research examines the vulnerability and complexity of care relationships, social inclusion and meaningful engagement for people living with dementia, and the diversity of lived experiences of rural mental health.
Tracy YOung
RESEARCH FACILITATOR
Faculty of Health Studies & Centre for Critical Studies of Rural Mental Health, Brandon University
Tracy Young is a Registered Psychiatric Nurse with extensive health system and community-based nursing experience. She is a Professional Affiliate with the Manitoba Centre for Nursing and Health Research and has a focused interest in the mental health support needs of the agriculture industry. She has expertise in grief-based education and counselling, and considerable clinical experience with mood and anxiety related disorders, trauma, and addictions. Her research interests continue to be shaped by her professional and clinical background, as well as her personal goals to fuel change in mental health care practices and systems of care. She is eager to strengthen capacity for Nursing Research, Nursing Leadership and Mentorship, and for the continued exploration of rural mental health concerns.
More Info Link, coming soon….
Founding Members
Jonathan allan
Canada Research Chair, Department of English and Creative Writing, Gender and Women’s Studies Program, Brandon University
Jonathan A. Allan is Canada Research Chair and Professor at Brandon University. He teaches in the Department of English and Creative Writing and the Gender and Women’s Studies Program. Dr. Allan is an editor for Journal of Bodies, Sexualities, and Masculinities.
Dean Care
Professor, Nursing Department,
Faculty of Health Studies,
Brandon University
Dr. Dean Care is former Dean of the Faculty of Health Studies and is now a Professor in the Nursing Department in that Faculty. Dr. Care is a Research Affiliate with the Manitoba Centre for Nursing and Health Research (MCNHR) in the College of Nursing, University of Manitoba. His current research is related to role stressors and coping strategies of nurse managers. He also was co-investigator on a grant in 2011 that funded the study ‘Living with dementia: The experiences of older couples in managing their lives together’.
Sheelagh Chadwick
Faculty of Music, Brandon University
Dr. Sheelagh Chadwick is an Associate Professor in the Joint Department of Music Education. She teaches courses in community music, high school music methods, foundations and graduate research. Her recent research interests include connecting with those who have dementia through music, and local community music practices.
Patricia Douglas
Faculty of Education, Brandon University
Patty Douglas is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education at Brandon University in Brandon, Manitoba, Canada. She specializes in disability studies, inclusive education, critical autism studies and critical approaches to care using arts-informed and critical methodologies as informed by interpretive, post-structuralist, decolonial, queer, feminist and post-humanist approaches. Among others, Douglas leads the SSHRC Re•Storying Autism in Education project, an international multimedia storytelling project committed to promoting access and disability justice in education, health and the arts.
More information can be found at @ReStorying and www.restoryingautism.com
Donna Epp
Faculty of Health Studies, Brandon University
Former Research Facilitator (CCSRMH, Faculty of Health Studies)
Donna has worked toward capacity building of research skills in the Faculty of Health Studies for the past 5 years. Her latest research spotlighted ‘diabetes distress’ in those with long term type 1 diabetes. She also assisted in analyzing qualitative data for and presenting on ‘Sustaining couplehood while living with dementia: Recommendations for public education, health care provision, and policy development’.
Breanna Lawrence
Faculty of Education, Brandon University
Dr. Breanna Lawrence is an Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology and a counsellor educator. Drawing on ecological resilience and relational developmental systems frameworks, her program of research centres on exploring intersections of mental health, career, and learning. Dr. Lawrence’s research interests have largely been shaped by her professional background working in educational and clinical mental health settings with children and their families.
Nancy Newall
Faculty of Science, Department of Psychology, Brandon University
Dr. Nancy Newall is an Associate Professor in the Psychology Department at Brandon University and a Research Affiliate of the Centre on Aging at the University of Manitoba. Her research focuses on social isolation and loneliness among older adults. Specifically, her work examines the causes of loneliness as well as the consequences of loneliness for older Manitobans in terms of health and longevity.
Doug Ramsey
Faculty of Arts, Rural Development,
Brandon University
Dr. Doug Ramsey is a Professor in the Department of Rural Development at Brandon University. His interest areas include agricultural restructuring, and rural community well-being His research concerns how individuals and communities are affected by, and respond to, external forces of change. He is a founding member of the Tourism Research Centre and is the founding editor of the Journal of Rural and Community Development.
Linda Ross
Acting Dean,
Faculty of Health Studies,
Brandon University
Dr. Linda Ross is the Acting Dean of Health Studies at Brandon University. Dr. Ross was the first Dean of Health Studies, having served in that role from 1997 through 2008, and returning in May 2020. She joined Brandon University in 1987 as a faculty member in the Psychology Department. From 2011 – 2014 Dr. Ross was seconded to University College of the North (Winnipeg site) where she served as Director of the kanaci otinawawasin Midwifery Program, overseeing the first graduating class in 2014. Outside of academia, she has served more than 25 years as an elected trustee on the Brandon School Board, including as Chairperson. She holds a PhD in Psychology from the University of Manitoba.
More information
CANDICE WADDELL-henowitch
Faculty of Health Studies, Department of Psychiatric Nursing, Brandon University
Dr. Candice Waddell-Henowitch is a Registered Psychiatric Nurse and an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatric Nursing at Brandon University. She holds a PhD in Community Health Science from University of Manitoba and a Masters of Psychiatric Nursing from Brandon University. Her research includes improving health care practice and systems through the lens of feminist, anti-racist, and decolonizing approaches; and understanding the perspectives of individuals living with histories of mental illness and trauma.
More Information
Research Affiliates
Nora Ahmad
Faculty of Health Studies, Department of Nursing, Brandon University
Bio Coming Soon
Kathryn Chachula
Faculty of Health Studies, Department of Nursing, Brandon University
Kathryn Chachula is a Registered Nurse with a diverse clinical background that includes community health nursing in a remote, fly-in First Nations community in northern Manitoba, nursing within a rural community in New South Wales, Australia, among other experiences that include medicine, post-operative nursing, critical care, and emergency nursing. Her research centres upon teaching and learning in nursing education, simulated learning environments, inter-professional education, the transition experience of Licensed Practical Nurses into undergraduate nursing education, as well as the experience of newly graduated Registered and Psychiatric Nurses entering the workforce.
Susan Chang Su
Faculty of Science, Department of Psychology, Brandon University
Dr. Susan Chang Su is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Brandon University and a psychotherapist at the Wellness Counselling Centre for Youth of Canada. Dr. Su completed three post-doctoral fellowships in the Department of Psychology and Lillian/Meighan Wright Women Mental Health Research Centre at York University. Her research interests include cross-cultural studies on parenting styles, mixed methods to study the experiences, and responses to shame and guilt, the effects of social and cultural factors on Chinese immigrant mothers of children with developmental disabilities, cross-cultural studies on perfectionism and mental health, study on the differences of self-concept, mental health and academic achievements on Junior school students from divorced families and entire families in China. Most recently, she has been involved in research which was about acculturation, loneliness, and mental health studies on Chinese older adults under COVID-19 in the Department of Psychology at Ryerson University. She is also focusing on the mental health and well-being of international students in universities/colleges in Canada under COVID-19.
Jan Marie Graham
Faculty of Health Studies, Department of Nursing, Brandon University
Jan Marie Graham is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health Studies, Department of Nursing. She has an extensive and diverse nursing career and has worked in rural, remote, and international settings as a clinician, administrator, and educator. Her career has been spent working with people who tend to be disenfranchised and stigmatized.
Eftihia Mihelakis
Department of Classical and Modern Languages (French and Francophone Studies); Gender & Women’s Studies Program
Dr. Eftihia Mihelakis is Associate Professor at Brandon University. She is originally from Montréal, Québec, Canada. She writes, researches and teaches in English and in French. She specializes in literary studies, critical theory, medical humanities, and feminist theory. She is also co-director of the Medical Humanities Research Group and research affiliate at the Centre for Critical Studies on Rural Mental Health at Brandon University as well as the Centre for Canadian Literature. She published La virginité en question in 2017. Her research-creation work has been published in various venues: a collection of essays in J’enseigne depuis toujours in 2020, and her autotheoretical essays and autofictional texts have appeared inMuseMedusa, Spirale, Liberté as well as in 11 brefs essais sur la beauté.
ashley pylpowich
Faculty of Health Studies, Brandon University
Bio Coming Soon
Philippe roy
Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences, Université de Sherbrooke
Philippe Roy is a Professor at the Université de Sherbrooke in Quebec, Canada. His research interests are men's mental health in the perspective of suicide prevention and health and wellbeing promotion. He is also interested in rurality and social marketing. Philippe has a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology, a Masters in Sociology and a Doctorate in Social Work.
Kimberly ryan
Faculty of Health Studies, Department of Psychiatric Nursing, Brandon University
Kimberley Ryan’s expertise in undergraduate psychiatric nursing education spans more than three decades while concurrently engaged in active clinical practice initially as a front line psychiatric nurse and later in Administrative/Management capacity as an Evening Supervisor at the Brandon Regional Health Centre. Kimberley currently offers Equine Assisted Psychotherapy services through not-for-profit, private practice. Her areas of research interest include: equine assisted psychotherapy/learning, undergraduate and graduate psychiatric nursing education, curriculum development, teaching and learning, mental health psychiatric nursing, mental health of rural and isolated populations, dementia, distance education, ongoing continuing competency, and issues encountered by our aging population.
Nadine Smith
Faculty of Health Studies, Department of Psychiatric Nursing, Brandon University
Nadine Smith is an Assistant Professor within the Department of Psychiatric Nursing. Nadine is committed to high-quality instruction and has taught in a variety of clinical and academic settings. Nadine is dedicated to advancing learning opportunities for psychiatric nursing students and is proud to have the opportunity to influence the education of psychiatric nursing. Nadine’s research interests include: mental health and well-being, nursing and psychiatric nursing education, clinical education, peer mentorship, and the lived experience of nurses and students.
Andrea Thomson
Faculty of Health Studies, Department of Psychiatric Nursing (Winnipeg Site), Brandon University
Andrea Thomson has psychiatric nursing experience in a variety of areas including an acute care nurse, nurse educator, and mental health counselor. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatric Nursing, Faculty of Health Studies, Brandon University at the Winnipeg Campus. Andrea actively engages in research regarding the care of mental health clients and psychiatric nursing education. Areas of her research interest include acute care psychiatric nursing practices and recovery-oriented mental health care provision. In addition, Andrea’s research has focused on undergraduate education such as teaching strategies to foster critical thinking and peer mentorship initiatives.
Post-doctoral fellows
Shahina Parvin
Opioid Crisis: History, Science, Regulation, Department of Sociology, Brandon University
Bio
Dr. Parvin obtained a Ph.D. in Cultural, Social, and Political Thought at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta. She also holds an MA in Sociology (ULeth), and an MSS and a BSS in Anthropology from Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Her research interests focus on Mental Health and intersectionality, with a focus on racialized immigrant women’s mental health and challenges in Canada and women’s reproductive health and justice in Bangladesh.
Undergraduate Students
Margaret de Jager
Undergraduate Student, Brandon University
Bio Coming Soon
Stephanie Spence
Undergraduate Student, Brandon University
My name is Stephanie Spence and I am an undergraduate in Pre-Psychiatric nursing. As a Swampy-Cree and Metis woman, I have found a great interest in community-based quantitative and qualitative research, particularly around Indigenous well-being, reconciliation and Indigenization, connection to culture, equity, and anti-racism.
Professional & Community Affiliates
Mairo Ahmadu
Rural Community Health Lab/Norwest Community Co-op
Catherine Beaupre
Veterinary Student at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine
Chris Bromley
Prairie Mountain Health - Director, Mental Health Services
Rita Cahal
Mood Disorders Association of Manitoba
Gerry Friesen
Niki Gagnon
Prairie Mountain Health/ Suicide Prevention Implementation Network
Corinne Hamilton
The Addictions Foundations of Manitoba
Wendy Lynch
Brandon University/ Faculty of Health Studies - Department of Psychiatric Nursing
Lois MacDonald
Westman Immigrant Services
Richard Whitfield
Mental Health Advocate
Kim Moffat
Maple Grove Counselling and Consulting
Laura Van Mulligan
Instructional Associate Brandon University