CHASI’s experts

The CHASI team includes experts in a wide range of academic disciplines under our wide umbrella of community health and social innovation. Below you’ll find a listing of some of our knowledgeable researchers, their areas of expertise, and an email where you can reach them.


Photo of Satwinder Kaur BainsDr. Satwinder Bains
Email: satwinder.bains@ufv.ca

Expertise:

  • Race, racism and ethnicity
  • Sikh feminist ideology
  • Migration, language and identity
  • Cultural historiography
  • Anti-racist curriculum

Photo of Shelley Canning

Dr. Shelley Canning
Email: shelley.canning@ufv.ca

Expertise:

  • Aging & dementia
  • Person-centred care
  • Long-term care
  • Intergenerational connections
  • Age-friendliness

Headshot of Dr. Cherie Enns, CHASI Faculty Associate from the school of land use and environmental change.Dr. Cherie Enns
Email: cherie.enns@ufv.ca

Expertise:

  • Social and affordable housing
  • Child and youth friendly communities
  • Refugees and resettlement locally and within the Horn of Africa
  • Healthy communities, pandemics and climate change
  • Spatial justice and planning policy

Headshot of Karun KarkiDr. Karun Karki
Email: karun.karki@ufv.ca

Expertise:

  • Immigrants, temporary migrant workers, refugees, and asylum seekers
  • Biopower, necropower, sovereign power and global displacement
  • Anti-racism, anti-colonialism, intersectionality, and anti-oppressive social justice praxis
  • Sense of belonging among the racialized diaspora and minoritized communities, including LGBTQ+ people
  • Internationalization of higher education, and intercultural and cross-cultural education and learning

Photo of Iris LesserDr. Iris Lesser
Email: iris.lesser@ufv.ca

Expertise:

  • The role of physical activity for health benefits
  • The use of outdoor exercise for therapeutic benefits
  • Applying physical activity to the postpartum population
  • Understanding the role of self efficacy in physical activity engagement in special populations
  • Engaging cancer survivors in community based physical activity

Headshot of Dr. Mariano Mapili, CHASI Faculty Associate in physical geography, biogeography, and agriculture.Dr. Mariano Mapili
Email: mariano.mapili@ufv.ca

Expertise:

  • Spatial (GIS) analysis of hazards and risks from the physical and human environment in communities.
  • Mapping (GIS) support for environmental monitoring and stewardship in Indigenous communities.
  • Bioremediation and management of waste in agricultural communities.
  • Community (Citizen) science projects of the total environment (water, air, fire, earth) for monitoring forest health and well-being.
  • Agriculture biogeography of remote communities in the Philippines to identify possible heat-adopted crop varieties and farm animal breeds for introduction to BC communities.

Headshot of Alyson SealeAlyson Seale, MEd
Email: alyson.seale@ufv.ca@ufv.ca

Expertise:

  • Disability and intersectionality
  • Anti ableist practice in Education
  • Equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging
  • Invisible disabilities in academia
  • Employment practices and Disability

Photo of Amir ShabaniDr. Amir Shabani
Email: amir.shabani@ufv.ca

Expertise:

  • Application of modern technologies including artificial intelligence
  • Machine learning, and robotics in improving lifestyles
  • Integrating social robots into current projects
  • Augmented reality
  • Smart home automation to provide a smart environment for independent living