Dr. Nicole Santos Dunn received her PhD from the Clinical and Counselling Psychology Program at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and completed her CPA-accredited residency at the University of British Columbia. Nicole’s research is multidisciplinary and grounded in critical suicidology. She is a Registered Psychotherapist in the province of Ontario and is currently seeking licensure as a Psychologist in British Columbia. Clinically, Nicole works with a diversity of issues and is especially interested in working with painful and stuck emotions, as well as the stories that shape them. Nicole grew up on the Williams Treaties in Whitby, Ontario, and is an uninvited guest and grateful visitor on gorgeous xʷməθkʷəy̓əm land.
Scholarly Interests:
Dr. Nicole Santos Dunn’s research reckons with the ecological conditions that shape health and wellness. She is especially interested in the gendered experience of livability and community driven practices for everyday care. The questions Nicole asks demands a multidisciplinary approach. She is invested in critical, queer, anti-colonial, and feminist methodologies that are grounded in ethics, consent, and the utmost respect for lived experience. While Nicole tends to privilege qualitative research and social engagement, she is also interested in survey design and randomized controlled trials.
Theoretical Orientation:
Process-Experiential
Compassion-Focussed
Anti-Oppressive
Marleen Biggs Memorial Award, University of Toronto (2023)
Ontario Graduate Scholarship, declined (2020)
Doctoral Award, The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (2020-2024)
Jean Royce Fellowship, Queen’s University (2019)
Some of Nicole’s current projects include:
- Narrative and life course dimensions in understanding suicide;
- Socially engaged and arts-based methods exploring life promotion and community driven wellness;
- Co-theorizing livability with young women and femmes through a spatial, affective, and environmental analysis; and,
- Curriculum development for theorizing crisis, and anti-oppressive practices/principles in suicide risk assessment and safety planning.
Nicole’s scholarship is indebted to Indigenous feminisms, queer, Black, and abolitionist scholarship. Her research has been funded by public agencies such as the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and has received awards that recognize the advancement of women’s health and moves to end sexual violence.
Dunn, N. S, & Ansloos, J. P. (2024). Survival and resistance: A zine study with young women and femmes experiencing housing injustice in Canadian cities. Engaged Scholar Journal: Community-Engaged Research, Teaching, and Learning, 10(2), 104-126.
https://doi.org/10.15402/esj.v10i2.70842
Dunn, N. S., McVittie, J., Ansloos, J. P., Peltier, S. (2024). Mental health service providers knowledge of safety planning in the context of suicide risk assessments with Indigenous peoples. Practice Innovations. https://doi.org/10.1037/pri0000236
Dunn, N. S., McVittie, J., Ansloos, J. P., Obomsawin, A., & Azarshahi, S. (2023). First Nations and Inuit mental health and the Non-Insured Health Benefits program: Urgent priorities for evaluation. Canadian Journal of Public Health. 10.17269/s41997-023-00837-7