The Live Work Well Research Centre is made up of five intersecting Research Clusters: “All my Relations” Indigenous Ways of Knowing; Disabilities, Access, and Inclusion; Displacements, Emergence, and Change; Reimagining Livelihoods; and Sexual and Gender Diversity. Below is a directory of the Centre Staff and Cluster Leads.
Centre Staff
- Dr. Deborah Stienstra, Director
- Lenore Latta, Research and Knowledge Mobilization Manager
- Sharon Findlay, Project Manager, Engendering Disability-Inclusive Development
- Benedicta Hughes, Administrative Assistant to the Director
- Kerri Shimmon, Administrative Assistant
Cluster Leads
- Kim Anderson, Lead of "All My Relations"
- Leah Levac, Co-Lead of Displacements, Emergence, and Change
- Roberta Hawkins, Co-Lead of Reimagining Care
- Amy Kipp, Co-Lead of Reimagining Care
- Malissa Bryan, Co-Lead of Sexual and Gender Diversity
- Adam Davies, Co-Lead of Sexual and Gender Diversity
- Orion Neustifter, Co-Lead of Sexual and Gender Diversity
Centre Staff
Deborah Stienstra, Director
Deborah is a cluster co-lead for the Displacements, Emergence and Change cluster and lead for 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.
Contact: deborah.stienstra@uoguelph.ca
Telephone: 519-824-4120, extension: 54553
Website: deborahstienstra.com
Twitter: twitter.com/dstienstra
Lenore Latta, Research and Knowledge Mobilization Manager
Lenore Latta (she/her) started May 2023 as the Research and Knowledge Mobilization Manager (RKMbM). She comes to the Live Work Well Research Centre from Writing Services at the University of Guelph, where she supported the development of academic writing skills for students, staff, and faculty. She worked with writers individually to review and advise on assignments, theses and dissertations, proposals, and research articles. In that role, she also developed and taught writing workshops for native and non-native speakers of English. In addition, she has worked as a freelance writer and editor and has taught business and technical communications courses at Conestoga College.
In the RKMbM position, Lenore provides strategic and operational leadership to raise the profile and impact of the Centre in the University and in the local, national, and international community. She initiates, develops, manages, and evaluates research and knowledge mobilization plans with and for the Centre and its diverse academic and community partners. She applies collaborative, intersectional approaches to research projects and knowledge mobilization activities to ensure all work connected to the Centre is aligned with its goals and priorities for cultivating and connecting thriving communities and environments.
Lenore lives in Guelph and enjoys spending time with her children in Guelph, Ottawa, and Dartmouth, NS.
Contact: llatta@uoguelph.ca
Telephone: 519-824-4120, extension: 53487
Sharon Findlay, Project Manager, Engendering Disability-Inclusive Development
Sharon Findlay is the Project Manager providing leadership and support for the day-to-day activities of the Engendering Disability-Inclusive Development (EDID) partnership, as well as the complementary WAGE-funded Canadian Feminist Disability Coalition. Sharon has a background in project development and international collaborations in secondary and post-secondary education. Her research at the University of Guelph, where she earned her BA and MA in European Studies, centred around connecting people and their stories; her work looks at migration, oral history, individual and collective memory and the concept of home.
With a particular interest in the representations of narratives through art and performance, Sharon has experience managing an international chamber music festival in southern Italy and co-founding Italian Heritage Projects in collaboration with the Italian Studies program at the University of Guelph to collect and curate stories from Italian immigrants to Canada. Additionally, Sharon consults as a freelance grant writer and project developer in the heritage and arts sectors.
When not at work, Sharon can be found hiking with her daughter and dog, biking, exploring areas of natural beauty and spending quality time with friends and loved ones.
Contact: sfindl01@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 BMus from Université Laval, and an MBA 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.
I work part-time Tuesdays to Fridays, working either from home or on campus (typically Thursdays) in MacKinnon 501.
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
Kerri Shimmon, Administrative Assistant
Kerri joined the Live Work Well Research Centre as Administrative Assistant in September 2024. With over ten years of administrative and management experience supporting production teams in the media industry, Kerri is eager to support the research and operations of the Centre at the University of Guelph.
Kerri works part-time Tuesday to Thursday, working either from home or on campus (typically Thursdays) in MacKinnon 501.
Contact: kshimmon@uoguelph.ca
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
Roberta Hawkins, Co-Lead of Reimagining Care
Keywords: feminist geography; ethical consumption; social justice; international development; slow scholarship; feminist academia
Contact: rhawkins@uoguelph.ca
Telephone: 519-824-4120, extension: 58166
Amy Kipp, Co-Lead of Reimagining Care
Keywords: feminist geography, social practice, public health, critical development studies, ethics of care, social change, community care, and wellbeing
Contact: akipp@uoguelph.ca
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
Orion 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