I am a Registered Nurse, with a background in healthcare with people who are experiencing homelessness. In 2004-2005 I did a Master’s in Nursing with a focus on health promotion. My Master’s research was a critical ethnographic study of relationships in home-based palliative care, focusing on power in relationships. In 2005 I fast-tracked into the PhD in Nursing program at Western University, and studied client-provider relationships in community based care with people who are experiencing homelessness. My PhD was completed in 2011.

I am currently Associate Professor at The Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing, and Assistant Dean EDIDA, Faculty of Health Sciences, Western University. I have cross appointments with Lawson Health Research Institute and the Department of Psychiatry, Western University, as well as serving as a member of the Centre for Research on Health Equity and Social Inclusion (CRHESI – http://crhesi.uwo.ca/). My teaching interests involve community health, mental health, global health, research methods/statistics, and advanced Nursing theory. My research interests include homelessness prevention, women’s homelessness, program evaluation, health promotion, refugee housing outcomes, critical ethnography, qualitative methods, participatory action research, poverty and health, critical theory, mental health, and others.

I am the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal on Homeless available at ijoh.ca and co-led the founding of the journal.