Academic Team

Ethel Tungohan is a Canada Research Chair in Canadian Migration Policy, Impacts, and Activism and an Associate Professor of Politics at York University. Her work looks at migrant social movements, immigration, labour and care work policy, and feminist and intersectional politics. She is a firm believer in socially-engaged research and works closely with migrant justice organizations in her advocacy and academic work.

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Cynthia J. Cranford is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto. Her research analyzes inequalities of gender, labor and migration, and collective efforts to resist them. She is author of Home Care Fault Lines: Understanding Tensions and Creating Alliances, published in 2020 by Cornell University’s ILR Press. Cranford a public sociologist, with a commitment to connecting research to social justice and to building bridges across academia and advocacy.  She is currently Co-chair of the Carework Network, an international and interdisciplinary organization of researchers, policymakers, and advocates who focus on the caring work of individuals, families, communities, paid care workers, social service agencies, and state bureaucracies.  

Dr. Sheila Novek (she/her) is an aging researcher and a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Nursing at the University of British Columbia. Using critical qualitative methods, Dr. Novek’s research explores the experiences of older adults, people living with dementia, family carers, and care providers across community and long-term care contexts. Her current research is focused on civic engagement in long-term care. 

Mary Jean Hande (she/her) is Assistant Professor in Sociology at Trent University, where her community-engaged research focuses on aging, disability, immigration, precarious work, continuing care systems, and struggles for social transformation. She currently leads the SSHRC-funded Towards Just Care project with the Disability Justice Network of Ontario. She recently completed a SSHRC Insight Development Grant, which collaborated with Migrante Manitoba, the policy landscape and experiences of im/migrant home care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Bharati Sethi is an Associate and a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Care Work, Ethnicity, Race and Aging in the Political Studies department at Trent University. Bharati’s scholarly trajectory is fueled by her lived experiences as an immigrant to Canada from India. She utilizes participatory action research and arts-based methods to highlight social determinants of health in immigrant/refugees’ lives and capture their relevance to social justice. She was interviewed by the Free Press, Sarnia and Lambton County, Globe and Mail, CBC, 980 CKNW, Toronto Star, and Conversations Canadian Press on her research with racialized personal support workers. Her advocacy work has earned her prestigious academic and community awards. 

In her research Funk has sought greater understanding of the complex ways that older adults and paid and unpaid carers interpret experiences, preserve identities, and negotiate normative ideals. Her scholarship a) addresses how these processes use and reinforce discourses surrounding age, care and responsibility, and b) interrogates the broader structures of care for older adults, including the pressing, often invisible impacts on paid and unpaid carers in the context of decades of health reform in Canada. 

Erika Katzman (she/they), PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Disability Studies at King’s University College (Western University). A neurodivergent occupational therapist and former personal care attendant, Erika learned about disability through experience before formal education. Erika’s research focuses on the everyday ‘work’ disabled people perform to survive life in inaccessible spaces and in pursuit of rights and justice. Erika strives to create safe and equitable spaces in teaching, research and beyond by centering disabled knowledge.

Christine Kelly (she/her), PhD, is an Associate Professor in Community Health Sciences and a research affiliate with the Centre on Aging at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. Dr. Kelly is a health policy researcher with expertise in home care services for people with disabilities and older people, especially directly funded home care. Dr. Kelly has published widely and worked as an expert witness and consultant on human rights cases related to home care and disability supports.