The Live Work Well Research Centre is made up of five intersecting Research Clusters: Sexual and Gender Diversity; Disabilities, Access and Inclusion; “All my Relations” Indigenous Ways of Knowing; Integrating Care and Livelihoods; and, Displacements, Emergence and Change. Below is a directory of the Centre Director, Cluster Leaders and Centre staff.
Staff
Dr. Deborah Stienstra, Director
Benedicta Hughes, Administrative Assistant to the Director
Kate Ducak, Project Manager, Engendering Disability-Inclusive Development
Kim Garwood, Manager, Research and Knowledge Mobilization
Victoria Watt, Undergraduate Research Assistant
Cluster Leads
Kim Anderson, Lead of "All My Relations"
Keywords: Indigenous health and social well-being; Indigenous masculinities; Indigenous feminisms; Indigenous identity; Indigenous youth; Indigenous traditional knowledge; Indigenous environmental knowledge; and urban Indigenous peoples
Contact: kimberle@uoguelph.ca
Telephone: 519-824-4120, extension: 58027
Leah Levac, Co-Lead of Displacements, Emergence and Change
Keywords: intersectionality and citizen participation; northern wellbeing; youth engagement; local politics; global citizenship education; community engaged scholarship
Contact: levac@uoguelph.ca
Telephone: 519-824-4120, extension: 56065
John Beaton, Co-Lead of Disability, Access and Inclusion
Keywords: Men's Health and Fatherhood; Fatherhood and Special Needs Children; Fatherhood and Autism; Adoptive and Foster Fathers of Children in Care; Solution Focused Therapy; Health & Well-Being
Contact: beaton@uoguelph.ca
Telephone: 519-824-4120, extension: 56256
Kim Wilson, Lead of Integrating Care and Livelihoods
Keywords: Social gerontology with a focus on health and mental health; LGBTQ in an aging population; ageism; stigma; educational gerontology; social and health policy; social determinants of health; social inclusion/equity
Contact: kwilso01@uoguelph.ca
Telephone: 519-824-4120, extension: 53003
Malissa Bryan, Co-Lead of Sexual and Gender Diversity
Keywords: women, work, education, race, Black Identity, diversity, culture, LGBTQIA2S+, gender diversity identities, BIPOC experiences of queerness, anti-oppressive practise, ethnicity, social change, marginalization, feminist theory, critical race theory, intersectionality, marxism, mixed methods, and community-based research
Contact: mbryan@uoguelph.ca
Adam Davies, Co-Lead of Sexual and Gender Diversity
Keywords: gender and sexual diversity; poststructuralism; queer theory; anti-oppressive practice; disability studies; inclusion; gay masculinities; digital media cultures; power; identity
Contact: adam.davies@uoguelph.ca
Ruth Neustifter, Co-Lead of Sexual and Gender Diversity
Keywords: survivors of intimate partner violence in new, non-violent relationships; providing sex-positive, pleasure-based education in shelters; working with sex workers to create new opportunities to share their experiences and knowledge in their own words; educating therapists on kinky and open relationships; experiences of queerness across adulthood; assisting parents with raising children to become sexually healthy adults
Contact: ruthn@uoguelph.ca
Telephone: 519-824-4120, extension: 53975
Centre Staff
Deborah Stienstra, Director
Deborah is a cluster co-lead for the Displacements, Emergence and Change cluster and the Disabilities, Access and Inclusion cluster.
The Director of the Live Work Well Research Centre, Deborah holds the Jarislowsky Chair in Families and Work and is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Guelph. She is the author of About Canada: Disability Rights (Fernwood, 2012). Her research and publications explore the intersections of disabilities, gender, childhood, and Indigenousness, identifying barriers to, as well as possibilities for, engagement and transformative change. Her work also contributes to comparative and trans/international research and theory related to intersectional disability rights.
Over the past fifteen years, she has led or co-led multiple community-engaged research partnerships. Between 2010 and 2016, Jane Stinson, from the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW), and Deborah Stienstra co-led FemNorthNet or the Feminist Northern Network. FemNorthNet included northern and southern community organizations, Indigenous and settler women, and researchers and community women. Its goals were to examine the consequences of economic restructuring for diverse women in Northern Canadian communities, support these women to engage in decision-making about the changes in their communities brought about by these developments and help to amplify and insert women’s voices into discussions, decision-making and planning processes.
Deborah is engaged in several initiatives across Canada, in Vietnam and with partners in countries including Haiti, South Africa, Ghana, Uganda, Vietnam and Canada.
Email: deborah.stienstra@uoguelph.ca
Phone number: 519-824-4120, extension: 54553
Website: https://www.deborahstienstra.com/
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dstienstra
Kate Ducak, Project Manager, Engendering Disability-Inclusive Development
Kate Ducak joins the Live Work Well Research Centre team as the Project Manager for the Engendering Disability-Inclusive Development partnership grant. Kate has a background in project management, community engagement, collaborative qualitative and mixed methods research, program evaluation, and knowledge mobilization. She applies an intersectional approach to health equity issues thanks to her honours undergraduate and masters education in Health and Aging from McMaster University.
Kate lives with invisible and intermittent disabilities and has extensive experience with people living with disabilities in health care and community settings. When not involved in social justice advocacy, Kate enjoys reading, hiking, cooking, camping, and spending time with her fur family.
Contact: kducak@uoguelph.ca
Kim Garwood, Research and Knowledge Mobilization Manager
In my work at LWWRC, I support a variety of community-engaged research projects and work with community partners to create meaningful knowledge-sharing resources and activities. I first encountered the concept of knowledge mobilization while completing my PhD research on plain language at the University of Waterloo. I was drawn to studying plain language because I believe that the quality of public communication can have an enormous impact on an individual's life chances. Working in knowledge mobilization has given me an opportunity to see the power of plain language in practice. What I appreciate most about this work is the engagement of community members in the process of developing resources and activities. Knowledge mobilization is all about creating communications with instead of for the community, and the outcomes are powerful and inspiring.
Contact: kgarwood@uoguelph.ca
Benedicta Hughes, Administrative Assistant to the Director
My name is Benedicta and I am the administrative assistant in the Live Work Well Research Centre. I have a B. Mus from Université Laval, and a M.B.A. from the Ivey Business School at Western University. I am thrilled to have joined U of G, and am really looking forward to learning more about the Centre and all the important research taking place.
You can find me in MacKinnon 501 between 8:30 a.m. and 3 p.m., on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. As part of living work well, I am very thankful to have this opportunity to contribute, while taking on the challenge of moving my parents from their house to a seniors’ residence/assisted living, and also taking care of my own family.
Please let me how I can help you, or your research team with administrative support – I look forward to working with you!
Contact: bhughe07@uoguelph.ca
Telephone: 519-824-4120, extension: 54930
Victoria Watt, Undergraduate Research Assistant
My name is Victoria Watt and I am the undergraduate research assistant at the Live Work Well Research Centre. I am currently completing my major in psychology and minoring in neuroscience at the University of Guelph. I enjoy learning about the effect greater environmental factors have on individual choices and how our culture plays a significant role in this. My previous co-op experiences working on the accessibility team at Guelph City Hall and working at a residential home for adolescent boys with disabilities made me passionate about helping people achieve their full potential in life.