This story is published in YFile’s New Faces feature issue 2024. Every September, YFile introduces and welcomes those joining the York University community.
The Faculty of Health welcomes three new full-time, permanent members this fall.
“It is my pleasure to welcome an outstanding group of new faculty members to the Faculty of Health who bring a rich set of experiences and skills in teaching, research and practice,” says Faculty of Health Dean David Peters. “Our goal, as leaders and partners, is to build a healthy world for all, and I look forward to the ways our new colleagues will amplify our impact in research and teaching, enrich the student experience, and advance social justice and health equity.”
Andrew Brankley
Brankley is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at York University, the director of the Sex and Violence Evaluation Lab and an adjunct faculty member at Carleton University. He completed his PhD in clinical psychology at Toronto Metropolitan University in 2019 and previously worked as a psychologist and research scientist at the Sexual Behaviour Clinic in the Centre for Addiction & Mental Health between 2019 and 2024.
Brankley’s research focuses on the prevention of harmful sexual behaviour and violence through three branches: improving models of risk-relevant psychological constructs, optimizing measures of those constructs and, ultimately, mobilizing knowledge from the first two branches into prevention programs. He has published on risk assessment, sexual offending, pedophilia and psychopathy, and frequently presents on these topics at scientific meetings and professional workshops.
He is an active member of the Society for the Advancement of Actuarial Risk Need Assessment, which maintains several prominent risk assessment tools, and the Association for the Treatment & Prevention of Sexual Abuse (ATSA). He is the lead author of the two most recent STABLE-2007 and ACUTE-2007 workbooks, and was previously a member of the ATSA Executive Board. Brankley shares his interest in knowledge mobilization through his YouTube channel.
Kate Dunn
Dunn joins the School of Nursing as an assistant professor of Indigenous health, history and healing. She is a member of the Mississaugi First Nation and a registered nurse, recently completing a doctorate in social sciences from Royal Roads University and postdoctoral training with the University Health Network. Dunn’s doctoral work engaged in knowledge seeking and co-creation with Indigenous knowledge keepers in Alberta to produce a film on the story of liver wellness related to hepatitis C to inspire increased engagement in hepatitis C screening and treatment within Indigenous communities.
Dunn’s research focuses on qualitative methods and relational, reciprocal and relevant participatory, transdisciplinary approaches incorporating Indigenous ways of knowing, being, doing and connecting with clinical and social science to support implementation science and holistic wellness with Indigenous community partners.
Kerry Scott
Scott joins York University as an assistant professor in the School of Global Health, specializing in implementation research and knowledge mobilization.
Her research focuses on power, gender, accountability and community health systems. She has examined these topics through a variety of studies, including on drivers of exemplary improvement in maternal and neonatal survival, the performance of India’s accredited social health activist community health workers, an impact evaluation of the world’s largest maternal mobile health messaging program, and implementation research on efforts to strengthen India’s village health, sanitation and nutrition committees. She has also contributed to methodological innovation on the use of cognitive interviewing to improve survey research in global health.
Scott received her PhD in international health from Johns Hopkins University and her MSc from the London School of Economics. She is a Commonwealth Scholar, Emerging Voice for Global Health and associate editor at BMJ Global Health. She is passionate about building a world where everyone enjoys the right to health.