Sepali Guruge, Toronto Metropolitan University
Project Director
Sepali Guruge is a Full Professor in the Daphne Cockwell School of Nursing. For the past 25 years, Sepali has demonstrated a solid commitment to increasing the visibility and highlighting the resiliency of marginalized populations. Her program of research focuses on immigrant health, with particular attention to the complex intersections between health, immigration, gender, violence, and aging. She has led related projects in several countries.
Michèle Charpentier, Université du Québec a Montreal
Québec Lead
Michèle Charpentier is Professor and Chair in the School of Social Work, internationally recognized for her expertise in social gerontology. After working for several years with the elderly in the health and social services network, she devoted herself to teaching and research on issues related to the exercise of rights and the empowerment of elderly people, particularly those in vulnerable situations
Sonia Ben Soltane, University of Ottawa
Quebec Co-Lead
Sonia Ben Soltane is a Professor of Social Work in the Faculty of Social Sciences. Her work explores female immigration with a feminist intersectional posture. She also has an extensive research experience in relation to immigration in Canada and in France.
Christine Walsh, University of Calgary
Alberta Lead
Christine Walsh is a Full Professor at the Faculty of Social Work. In her community based, action-oriented and arts informed research she partners with community-based agencies and older adults who are impacted by interpersonal violence, poverty, housing insecurity and homelessness and disaster. In addition, her research interests concern socially excluded older immigrants.
Ilyan Ferrer, University of Calgary
Alberta Co-Lead
Ilyan Ferrer is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Social Work. His research focuses on the intersections of aging, im/migration, labour, and care experiences of racialized communities in Canada. Ilyan’s work incorporates intersectionality, oral history, and antioppressive social work theory and practice.
Oona St-Amant, Ryerson University
Ontario Co-Lead
Oona St-Amant is an Associate Professor in the Daphne Cockwell School of Nursing. Oona’s program of research examines various forms of unpaid care work. She has used a variety of ethnographic methods to examine the various intersections of culture, sociopolitical intersections of culture, sociopolitica and economic aspects of care.
Rotating Members
Liza Chan, Calgary Chinese Elderly Citizens Association
Executive Director
Liza Chan is a registered social worker, is the Executive Director of the Calgary Chinese Elderly Citizens’ Association since 1994. Under Liza’s leadership, CCECA has grown from being a single service provider to a collaborator with over 30 agency partners offering a myriad of programs to 5,000 seniors annually. Liza is very active in community work. She is the founder of the Emotional Health Carnival, a collaborative project working with ten associations to raise awareness of mental health in the Chinese community since 2002.
Huda Bukhari, Canadian Center for Victims of Torture
Manager of Community Engagement
Huda Bukhari is currently the Manager of Community Engagement at the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture (CCVT). She has been working in the settlement-related field for over twenty years which has been both a journey of growing passion and a learning experience. Bukhari’s work is embedded in holistic, anti-racist and anti-oppression framework and she believes that anyone can make a positive contribution when given the opportunity.
Jill Hanley, McGill University
Research Stream Lead – Social Inclusion
Jill Hanley is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work and Scientific Director of the Sherpa Research Institute on Migration, Health and Social Services. Jill’s work focuses on closing the gaps between policies and practice concerning the social rights of migrant populations. Jill will lead the ICOI Social Inclusion Research Stream.
Sandeep Agrawal, University of Alberta Research Stream Lead – Political Inclusion
Sandeep Agrawal is a Full Professor & Director, School of Urban and Regional Planning and Associate Chair, Faculty of Science, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences. Sandeep is an urban and regional planner whose research interests include land use planning and design, international planning, multiculturalism and human rights and planning policy. Sandeep will lead the ICOI Political Inclusion Research Stream.
John Shields, Toronto Metropolitan University
Research Stream Lead – Economic Inclusion
John Shields is a tenured Full Professor with over twenty-five years of university teaching and research experience in the areas of public administration and public policy, Canadian politics, the political economy of labour market and welfare state. John is also a member of the Yeates School of Graduate Studies at Ryerson. John will lead the ICOI Economic Inclusion Research Stream.