Researcher Bios

Dr. Risa Horowitz

Dr. Risa Horowitz is a visual and media artist, and Associate Professor in the Faculty of Media, Art, and Performance. Her practice blurs boundaries between expert-amateur, hobby-work, and leisure-productivity. Much of her work involves collecting and durational practices that pay attention to time and its representation. Works from her expanded practice are held in the collections of Global Affairs Canada and the Canada Council Art Bank, with works on permanent display at Canadian Embassies around the world. In 2021, Horowitz was inducted as an Academician of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.

Jérôme Melançon

Jérôme Melançon is an associate professor of French and Francophone Intercultural Studies at La Cité universitaire francophone, and an adjunct member of the Philosophy and Classics Department at the University of Regina. His research deals in part with relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada, with reconciliation and decolonization, and with the history of colonialism, especially where Francophone communities and institutions are concerned. He co-edited a special issue of the Cahiers franco-canadiens de l’Ouest titled “L’autochtonisation pour préparer un avenir commun.” He is the author of one book and the editor of four books or journal issues on the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, as well as three books and two chapbooks of poetry, the most recent being En d’sous d’la langue (Prise de parole, 2021) and Tomorrow’s Going to Be Bright (above/ground press, 2022).

Making accessible the Marieval Residential School records from the Provincial Archives
This multi-disciplinary, collaborative academic research project seeks to identify, copy, translate, and analyze the documents pertaining to the Marieval Residential School which are available at the Provincial Archives. It is a part of the wider research project led by Cowessess First Nation to find all the documents pertaining to the history of survivors of this school and of the school itself. After completing the documentary part of the research, I will turn to political philosophy and political sociology to study the relationships between the individuals, organizations, institutions, and ideas that made up the world of residential schools in the Qu’Appelle Valley region.

Stacey Bliss

Stacey Bliss is a researcher, educator, and sound artist. Her research interests include: critical studies in improvisation, sound studies in education, ethnography, communities of practice, sonic and performative ethnography, auto- and duo-ethnography. In 2019, Stacey earned a doctorate in Language, Culture, and Teaching from the Faculty of Education at York University, Toronto, Canada. In 2017, she began ethnographically studying with long-term meditators and gong teachers. From 2019-2021, she was a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Faculty of Media, Art, and Performance and curated a 10-day/10-theme presentation of her research, disseminated live at the Art Gallery of Regina, and achieved in online audio tours. She is currently an independent scholar, appointed adjunct academic colleague at the University of Alberta, and teaching at varying institutes. She also continues her sound-art practice, playing gong and percussion instruments, in collaboration with local and national scholars, musicians, and sound artists. Find out more about Stacey’s projects, events, and publications at www.blissresearch.org.

Stacey is a SSHRC Insight Development Grant recipient (2021-2023) and currently conducting research for her project titled: Toward a Sound Pedagogy: A Sonic and Performative Ethnography of ‘Sound Healers’ in Canada. The overall objective of this project is to explore how ‘sound healing’ as well as sonic events and experiences are currently offered in communities across Canada. This project queries and enhances discourse of sonic and improvisational practices as pedagogical toward individual and social wellbeing. This work takes a step toward bridging and integrating both sonic and performative ethnographic research methodologies. The research findings will be disseminated multimodally at multiple venues across Canada in 2023.

Dr. Gwen Grinyer (she/her)

Dr. Gwen Grinyer (she/her) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Regina who researches a wide variety of topics in experimental nuclear physics including the structure of short-lived radioactive nuclei, neutrinoless double beta decay, and nuclear astrophysics. In addition to her physics research, she is a prominent advocate for women and 2SLGBTQIA+ people in STEM fields and has done numerous outreach activities across Canada that have focused on visibility and inclusion of underrepresented identities in physics.

Dr. Alexandra Stoddart

Dr. Alexandra Stoddart is an associate professor in the Health, Outdoor, and Physical Education subject area in the Faculty of Education at the University of Regina. Her research is focused on physical education and physical literacy. She is fortunate to work collaboratively with pre-service teachers at the post-secondary level and with students and teachers in K-12 schools to explore these topics. Contrary to the “gym class” experience, she believes there is a place for everyone in physical education and that every individual should have the opportunity to engage in quality physical education that instills a lifelong love for movement.

Niya St. Amant

Niya St. Amant is a PhD candidate at Queen’s University in the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies in the discipline of sociocultural studies of sport, health and the body. She got into this field because she is interested in exploring the way that sport, health, and physical activity work to empower and disempower certain groups of people and to bring to the foreground the experiences of these groups.

Dr. Brenda Rossow-Kimball

Dr. Brenda Rossow-Kimball is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology & Health Studies at the University of Regina (Saskatchewan, Canada). Her area of research and teaching is in the field of adaptive physical activity. Her academic and community work recognizes dominant social narratives (policy, attitudes, infrastructure) and how they can intensify or alleviate the lived experience of disability. 

Kristyn White (she/her)

Kristyn White (she/her) is a graduate student at the University of Regina and works full-time as the Literacy Facilitator for Creative Options Regina. Kristyn has worked within the disability sector for over ten years. Her time as a direct caregiver and sexual health educator for people with disabilities led her to pursue her MSc with a research focus on sexuality and disability. She is passionate about supporting the sexuality of people with disabilities and their support networks and dismantling the myths about sexuality and disability that our society frequently perpetuates.  

Bonnie Cummings-Vickaryous 

Bonnie is the Executive Director of a grassroots, user-led organization (Astonished!) that works to create inclusive community while addressing barriers facing young adults living with complex physical disAbilities. Bonnie works alongside young adults to create opportunities for teaching and learning, social, recreational and cultural engagement, and employment and housing. Bonnie recently completed a thesis-based MSc in Kinesiology & Health Studies exploring the perception and meaning of strength-based leadership in community-based organizations held by families and young adults living with the experience of complex physical disAbility. 

Dr. Jennifer Gordon

Dr. Jennifer Gordon is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and Director of the Reproductive Mental Health Research Unit. After obtaining a doctorate in Clinical Psychology from McGill University in 2012, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship in women’s reproductive mood disorders at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 2015, she began her position at the University of Regina and became a CIHR Canada Research Chair in the Biopsychosocial Determinants of Women’s Health in 2018. As principal investigator, she has received over $6 million in external research funding to date. Her research broadly aims to inform the prediction, prevention, and treatment of depression across the lifespan in women and individuals assigned female at birth, examining the ways in which biological and psychosocial factors interact to increase risk. Her recent work has focused on the experience of infertility and its associated mental health challenges. 

Dr. Claire Carter

Dr. Claire Carter is an Associate Professor and current Head of the Department of Gender, Religion, and Critical Studies. Her research focuses on gendered embodiment, movement, and community engagement. She teaches in the areas of queer theory and trans studies, feminist and social justice research methodologies, and popular culture. She is currently working on an edited collection with Dr. Chelsea Jones and Caitlin Janzen on vulnerabilities in research, with the University of Alberta Press forthcoming in 2024.

Caitlin Janzen

Caitlin Janzen is a doctoral candidate in sociology at York University.  Janzen has been involved in a number of community-based research projects and has taught courses on qualitative research for social change. She currently works in research administration at the University of Calgary. Janzen is the author of articles published in Hypatia, Somatechnics, Continuum, and, Psychoanalysis, Culture, and Society and is co-editor, along with Claire Carter and Chelsea Jones of the forthcoming, Contemporary Vulnerabilities: Reflections on Social Justice Methodologies (University of Alberta Press).

Dr. Nathalie Reid

Dr. Nathalie Reid’s research program centres the experiences of educators in conversations around wellbeing in schools, her role as the Director of the Child Trauma Research Centre has brought her to engage in research in five priority areas: child and youth mental health and wellbeing; educators, education, and students’ mental health and wellbeing in schools; the pre- and-post migration traumas of refugee and newcomer children, youth, and families; climate trauma; and, supporting cross-sectoral practitioners through trauma-informed/sensitive practices.  We engage in leading edge, strength-based, and responsive projects that seek to innovatively engage with, support, and sustain health and wellbeing across the life-span through creative intervention and prevention engagement.  We also focus on innovative knowledge translation and mobilization to ensure that the research serves those for whom it is intended.

Dr. Charity Marsh

Dr Charity Marsh (she/her) is Director of the Humanities Research Institute, Director of the Interactive Media and Performance Labs, and a Professor in Creative Technologies in the Faculty of MAP at the University of Regina. As part of her community and practice-based research, she created the Flatland Scratch Seminar & Workshop Series; has produced many collaborative hip hop and interactive media projects; hosts the GRR! youth and adult rock camps; and offers accessible, interactive community programming in the IMP Labs.

Marsh has published on popular music, hip hop cultures, gender and technology, media arts, and community arts activism. She is co-editor of We Still Here: Hip Hop North of the 49th Parallel, director and producer of the award-winning documentary, I’m Gonna Play Loud: Girls Rock Regina and the Ripple Effect, and creator and producer of Let’s Talk Research, a podcast series focusing on research supported by the Humanities Research Institute.

Currently, Marsh is working in partnership on two major research projects: First, Take Up Space, You Matter!: Re-Connecting Youth Through Trauma-Informed Community Arts Programs is a collaborative initiative between the HRI, CTRC, and community partners, GRR!, Vibes YQR, and Femmes Across the Board, and is funded by Mental Health Research Canada and the Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation. Second, is the SSHRC-funded Partnership Engagement project, “It’s More Than A Name Change: Rethinking the Culture and Priorities of GRR!.”

Evie Ruddy

Evie Ruddy is a trans non-binary white settler living in Treaty 4 territory. They are a socially engaged interdisciplinary artist, PhD Candidate in Cultural Mediations at Carleton University, and an instructor in Creative Technologies at the University of Regina. As a PhD Fellow with the Transgender Media Lab, Evie is researching feminist lab ethics. Their SSHRC-funded doctoral research investigates improvisation as an ethical method for co-creating portraits with trans collaborators.