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.
Dr. Satwinder Bains
Email: satwinder.bains@ufv.ca
Expertise:
- Race, racism and ethnicity
- Sikh feminist ideology
- Migration, language and identity
- Cultural historiography
- Anti-racist curriculum
Dr. Shelley Canning
Email: shelley.canning@ufv.ca
Expertise:
- Aging & dementia
- Person-centred care
- Long-term care
- Intergenerational connections
- Age-friendliness
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
Dr. 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
Dr. 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
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.
Alyson 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
Dr. 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