About me
I am the 2021 recipient of the Forte International Postdoctoral Fellowship. My main research program at KI is: "A health systems approach to evaluating the impact of midwifery-led person-centred comprehensive abortion care in the Democratic Republic of Congo: A mixed method and quasi-experimental evaluation". This project is a scale-up of my doctoral research: "Midwives' integration of manual vacuum aspiration for post-abortion care in the Kinshasa and Kongo Central provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo".
Throughout my doctoral schooling, I was faculty with the Ontario Midwifery Education Program where I taught since 2007. I graduated with a BHSc in midwifery in Canada in 2006 and practiced throughout Canada until 2017. I moved to Haiti in 2010 and began my family there. I moved back to Canada with my two children in 2014.
Research description
My research is collaborative, rights based and intersectional. It involves many disciplines and organizations outside or overlapping with academia. Where possible, I incorporate capacity building for midwife researchers.
For example, I have been a supportive member of the midwifery association in the DRCongo since 2017 when I began working with them as a technical consultant via the Canadian Association of Midwives. My doctoral work was born from our relationship and I worked closely with the association and Congolese midwife researchers to understand how abortion care was being actively applied in the field by their members. Building research capacity for midwives and research by midwives is my underlying priority.
I am also an adjunct scientist at the McMaster Midwifery Research Centre (Canada). Most importantly, how I do my work is more important than what I do meaning I take a feminist and decolonizing intersectional approach to my research which largely aims to take a health policy and systems approach to improve the role of midwives in the providing broader sexual and reproductive health and rights globally. My collaborative work has been recognized by Global Affairs Canada and BMJ Global Health
Academic honours, awards and prizes
Ontario Graduate Scholarship, School of Graduate Studies, Laurentian University (2019)