Faculty of Health welcomes seven new faculty members

This story is published in YFile’s New Faces Feature Issue 2020, part one. Every September, YFile introduces and welcomes those joining the York University community, and those with new appointments. Watch for part two on Sept. 25.

Seven new faculty members join the Faculty of Health at York University this fall, with appointments in Kinesiology & Health Science, Psychology, Nursing and the School of Health Policy & Management.

Dean Paul McDonald welcomed the new faculty members to the University.

“We are delighted to welcome outstanding new faculty members this year who, along with our existing faculty, staff and students, will enable us to think of innovative ways of fulfilling our mission to improve health and health care through world-class education, creative research and strategic partnerships,” he said.

Agnès Berthelot-Raffard

Agnès Berthelot-Raffard joins York University as an assistant professor of critical disability studies and Health Studies in the School of Health Policy & Management. She earned her PhD from Pantheon-Sorbonne and Université de Montréal. Her PhD focuses on informal caregiving in public health, ageing and disability studies perspectives. Her research expertise is in the areas Black disability studies/Black health studies. She is interested in understanding the ways in which racism impacts all the dimensions of health. She studies how racial injustices are grounded in the Canadian public health system as a historical legacy of slavery and colonialism. Currently, she is leading one research on Black women’s health and another one on the socio-determinants of racialized students’ mental health.

Before joining York, she served as coordinator of the research ethics committee for the Health and Social Services Agency of Montreal. She taught bioethics, medical ethics for students enrolled in philosophy and medicine programs. She wrote a handbook in bioethics for the University of Sudbury. She was a lecturer in public health ethics for the community medicine practicum offered by the Direction de Santé publique de Montréal. She was also an assistant professor in feminist and gender studies at the University of Ottawa.

Catriona Buick

Catriona (Trina) Buick joins the School of Nursing, Faculty of Health as an assistant professor. She is an oncology specialized nurse with clinical, research and leadership experience at large academic cancer centres in Toronto and the U.K. and is a current member of the Ontario Cancer Research Ethics Board. Since the completion of her PhD (University of Toronto, 2017), she has held a nurse clinician scientist role at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre (Odette Cancer Centre), where her research has focused on understanding supportive care and psychosocial needs of women undergoing treatment for gynecological cancers. The overall focus of Buick’s research program is to understand the impact of HPV testing and diagnosis, promoters and barriers to cervical cancer prevention, and the role of HPV testing and acceptance as a basis for future interventions. As an advocate for patient care and (health care) system improvement, she is excited about collaborative opportunities that will continue to bridge research and clinical practice.

Amanda De Lisio

Amanda De Lisio is an assistant professor of physical culture, policy and sustainable development in the School of Kinesiology and Health Science. She is also affiliated with the City Institute at York University. Her research is focused on development and displacement in FIFA and Olympic host cities. Her Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)-funded dissertation examined the impact of event urbanism in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, particularly on women involved in informal, precarious labour. Prior to York University, she taught classes on urban geography, political economy, and the sociology of health and physical culture at the University of Toronto (2015-20) and held a postdoctoral fellowship at Bournemouth University (2016-18) as well as Brock University (2018-20). Her work has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council in England, Mitacs Canada and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and published in academic and popular presses in English and Portuguese.

Nadia Prendergast

Nadia Prendergast joins the School of Nursing as an assistant professor in the teaching stream. Since moving from England to Canada, Prendergast has worked as a public health nurse in the Toronto and Peel regions, as well as a clinical case coordinator and childbirth educator in the Maternal Infant Program at Mount Sinai Hospital. Prendergast has also taught as a clinical instructor and sessional faculty at Sheridan College and Ryerson University, and in England she was part of a collaborative initiative with social services and health in teaching domestic violence awareness to professionals. She completed her master’s and PhD degrees in education and women’s studies from the University of Toronto, where her area of research focused on the experiences of internationally educated nurses of colour working within Canada’s multiculturalism practices. Prendergast's areas of interests reside in primary health care, community development, women’s health and equity studies.

Heather Prime

Dr. Heather Prime joins the Department of Psychology at York University, following a CIHR-funded postdoctoral fellowship at the Offord Centre for Child Studies, McMaster University. She received her PhD in school and clinical child psychology from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto. Dr. Prime’s research program uses a family-based approach to understanding and supporting socio-emotional and cognitive development in young children, with a focus on family interactions and relationships. Dr. Prime is registered with the College of Psychologists of Ontario and she is a practicing clinical psychologist in the Greater Toronto Area, with expertise in working with the family unit to support children’s mental health and well-being. As a clinical psychologist, she is committed to using her clinical training to guide her research, and she emphasizes clinical utility in her research endeavours.

Chip Rowan

Chip Rowan joins the School of Kinesiology and Health Science as an assistant professor, teaching stream. His areas of expertise include the importance of physical fitness and lifespan physical activity participation to optimize performance and health. His doctoral work, completed at York, focused on the detection of prediabetes among high-risk communities and the utilization of culturally preferred physical activity programming as a chronic disease prevention strategy. He recently completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at the KITE Research Institute, part of the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute and University Health Network. This work focused on technology enabled solutions to increase accessibility to care for individuals with spinal cord injury and the creation of an eLearning module for health professionals about exercise prescription which was funded through the Paralyzed Veterans of America Education Foundation. Rowan previously taught in the Fitness and Health Promotion program at George Brown College and is passionate about health and fitness education that embraces experiential education and community integration.

Jeffrey Wardell

Dr. Jeffrey Wardell is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology. He received his PhD from SUNY Buffalo and was previously on the faculty at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the University of Toronto. He is a registered clinical psychologist with expertise in the assessment and treatment of addictive behaviour. Dr. Wardell’s research seeks to improve our understanding of substance use behaviour in at-risk populations (e.g., youth, people living with HIV). His current projects focus on the unique risks of simultaneous use of cannabis and alcohol, the (blurred) boundaries between medicinal and non-medicinal cannabis use, and the effectiveness of online interventions for substance use disorder. Dr. Wardell is also involved in research on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on substance use behaviour. His work is currently funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Canadian HIV Trials Network, and the CAMH Foundation. He also serves on the editorial board of the peer reviewed journal Psychology of Addictive Behaviors.