Meet our Executive Committee! These are the members of the Mad Studies Hub that hold an executive position!
Marina Morrow, PhD is a Professor in the School of Health Policy and Management at York University and Director of the Mad Studies Hub. Marina uses mad and intersectional theoretical frameworks to better understand the social, political, and institutional processes through which mental health policies and practices are developed and how social and health inequities are sustained or attenuated for different populations.
Abraham Joseph is a doctoral student in the Health Policy & Equity program at York University. His research explores intersections of power, mental health/illness, and policy. He is interested in the ways that power dynamics influence our ability to live safe, healthy (physically, mentally, socially), fulfilling, and meaningful lives.
Simon's ongoing work focuses on mental health--its various institutional and discursive dimensions, the experience of the psychiatrized Other, and alternative and counter-hegemonic ways of conceptualizing 'mental illness,' suffering, and crisis. Simon's approach is informed by process ontologies and critical posthumanism. Central to Simon's work is theorizing the forms of subjectivity emerging at the intersection of the psychiatrized Other identity and the posthuman condition.
Dr. Gillian Parekh is an Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Disability Studies in Education within the Faculty of Education at York University. Gillian is also cross-appointed with York University's graduate program in Critical Disability studies within the Faculty of Health. As a previous teacher in special education and research coordinator with the Toronto District School Board, Gillian has conducted extensive system and school-based research across Ontario in the areas of structural equity, special education, and academic streaming. In particular, her work explores how schools construct and respond to disability as well as how students are organized across programs and systems.
Cindy is a PhD student in Critical Disability Studies at York University. Her work explores how Asian Canadians conceptualize disability, including mental health/'madness'. She is interested in the intersections of the diaspora’s cultural understanding of how mental health and distress are situated in racialized Asian bodies. She is an associate researcher at the York Center for Asian Studies and the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies, and on the Board of Directors for Eviance (formerly the Canadian Centre for Disability Studies).
Maria Liegghio is a Professor in the School of Social Work at York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Her main areas of research are social work epistemology in mental health; resilience to trauma; the stigma of mental illness in child and youth mental health, or more critically children's psychiatrization; critical social work education, theory, and practice; and collaborative, community-based and participatory action research. She has extensive experience working as a child and family mental health therapist. Her current work is focused on resilience as a socio-political construct, and in particular the resilience of children, youth, and families through the Covid19 pandemic. Adopting de-colonial research and practice approaches, she has two projects: 1) a study exploring the "mental health" experiences of Canadian children and youth, and their families accessing and using mental health services during and through the pandemic and 2) an international collaboration exploring resilience to trauma as an organizing framework for violence prevention and intervention in El Salvador, Central America. She recently concluded an IDRC supported project exploring innovation in resilience to trauma programming for fostering women's post-pandemic recovery in El Salvador.
I taught in York's Health & Society Program from 2003 to 2021. I was very lucky to teach at York in an interdisciplinary health program with such wonderful students. Now I am retired from teaching I find myself still very engaged in public-facing scholarship on mental health, COVID, eldercare and accidents. You can learn more about these projects by visiting the following websites: https://madnesscanada.com/ & https://covidinthehouseofold.ca/
Dr. Rachel da Silveira Gorman is Associate Professor in Critical Disability Studies at York University, and an artist working in dance theatre, performance, and curating. Da Silveira Gorman’s research engages theory and method from fine arts, humanities, and sciences. Their writing has appeared in Auto|Biography Studies, American Quarterly, Somatechnics, thirdspace, and the Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies. Da Silveira Gorman has created and choreographed 14 dance-theatre and site-specific productions, ten of which have been remounted or screened at festivals. Since 2009, Da Silveira Gorman has been on the curatorial committee at A Space Gallery in Toronto, where they have curated four exhibitions. In 2017, they received a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts for a performance-based research-creation project Year Five of the Revolution. Da Silveira Gorman spent the nineties working in social services and as a feminist and union organizer; and the aughties in anti-occupation organizing and in disability and queer arts scenes.