The CFR community warmly welcomes the new Centre for Feminist Research Director, Professor Christo El Morr, beginning July 1, 2024, for a five year term.

A message from Dr. El Morr:

I am humbled by the support I have received from colleagues throughout the application process for the CFR director position. As the incoming director of the Centre for Feminist Research (CFR), I am deeply committed to upholding the CFR's legacy of centering Indigenous, anti-racist, and Global South feminisms.

I envision the CFR as a vibrant hub that amplifies marginalized voices and perspectives including in new fields such as Artificial Intelligence. I firmly believe that centering marginalized experiences is essential for achieving meaningful social change and advancing intersectional feminist praxis.

To achieve this vision, we will continue to collectively create a truly inclusive and transformative feminist space by prioritizing Indigenous knowledge systems, dismantling systemic racism, and fostering transnational solidarity, including in new fields such as Artificial Intelligence. The CFR will continue to reflect the rich diversity of feminist thought and activism, both locally and globally, and expand its impact in new fields.

I am eager to work with colleagues and staff at the CFR. As I reflect on the immense talent and dedication of the CFR's colleagues and staff, I am filled with hope and a steadfast commitment to ensuring that the CFR remains a space that embodies anti-racist and "margins to center" feminisms and to working to foster a sustainable and innovative ecosystem of equity and justice for all.

Dr. Christo El Morr

Dr. Christo El Morr is a Professor of Health Informatics and the Director of the Center of Feminist Research at York University. He is the current Health Informatics Certificate Coordinator, and has served as the Graduate Program Director (Health) and Undergraduate Program Director (Health Studies) at the School of Health Policy and Management at York University. He is also a Research Scientist at North York General Hospital, Toronto. His research subscribes to an Equity Informatics perspective; it covers Equity AI (e.g., patient readmission, disability advocacy), Patient-Centered Virtual Care (e.g., chronic disease management, mental health), Global Health Promotion for equity (e.g., equity health promotion), Human Rights Monitoring (e.g., disability rights, Gender-Based Violence). As a theologian and a poet, his wider intellectual contribution to Social Justice subscribes to a defence of the human person against alienation, whether in the form of infringement of human freedom or dignity in the face of irrational powers and exploitation. His intellectual work encompasses work of freedom from oppression (e.g., analysis of exclusive identities, communion and solidarity, freedom, liberation of reason), freedom from exploitation (e.g., analysis of illusions of freedom, political and religious exploitation), and freedom to celebrate life (e.g., poetry).

To find out more about Professor El Morr and his work, please see: http://www.yorku.ca/elmorr/.