Assistant Professor
Scarfe Library Block 281
Dr. Nicole Santos Dunn is a Psychologist and Assistant Professor in the Counselling Psychology program. She earned her PhD at the University of Toronto and completed her CPA‑accredited residency at the University of British Columbia. Her research is interdisciplinary and rooted in critical suicidology. Nicole is a settler of Portuguese and Irish ancestry and grew up on the Williams Treaties in Whitby, Ontario. She is an uninvited guest and grateful visitor on beautiful xʷməθkʷəy̓əm land.
Scholarly Interests:
Dr. Dunn’s research examines the ecological conditions that shape health and wellness, with a particular focus on suicide. Her current work investigates how structural violence shapes suicidality—especially among young women and girls, as well as communities experiencing marginalization, such as housing injustice. Her scholarship bridges clinical and counselling psychology, public health, and social policy. She is committed to critical qualitative inquiry and mixed‑methods research grounded in anti‑colonial, queer, and feminist methodologies. Across her projects, she prioritizes community‑identified needs, ethical engagement, and consent‑driven practices.
Theoretical Orientation:
Process-Experiential
Compassion-Focussed
Anti-Oppressive
The 2026 application cycle is now closed.
Dr. Dunn provides mentorship and research opportunities for students interested in working in educational, social, and healthcare contexts. Opportunities are based in multidisciplinary research that centers critical methodologies, ethicality, and community-driven priorities.
2025
2023
2020
2020-2024
2019
Canadian Psychological Association Award of Academic Excellence
Marleen Biggs Memorial Award, University of Toronto
Ontario Graduate Scholarship, declined
Doctoral Award, The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
Jean Royce Fellowship, Queen’s University
Board of Directors, Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention
Public Health Agency of Canada Expert Roster in Suicide Prevention
CNPS 524 Counselling Adults
CNPS 588 Supervised Clinical Experience in Counselling
Some of Nicole’s current projects include:
Engagements with life: Restorying suicide with young women and femmes experiencing housing injustice
- Narrative and life course dimensions in understanding suicide for transitional aged women and femmes experiencing housing injustice (e.g., tenting, survival sex, couch surfing, renoviction)
- Socially engaged and arts-based methods exploring life promotion and community driven wellness (e.g., harm reduction, safety planning across a variety of milieus)
- Curriculum development for clinical and counselling psychology trainees in the areas of theorizing crisis, anti-oppressive practices/principles in suicide risk assessment, and safety planning
- www.engagementswithlife.ca
Sensing Suicide and Survival in Cities: Spatializing the Relationship Between Gender, Housing, and Suicide
- Co-theorizing livability with young women and femmes through a spatial, affective, and environmental analysis. This project takes up concepts from geography and studies of affect to make sense of access to care
- Explorations of community driven care and land-based wellness against extractivism
Ph.D University of Toronto, Clinical and Counselling Psychology
M.Ed University of Ottawa, Counselling Psychology
Diploma, George Brown College, Assaulted Women’s and Children’s Counsellor/Advocate program (AWCCA)
BAH Queen’s University
Dunn, N. S. & Ansloos, J. P. (2026, in press). Sensing and spatializing survival: Affective geographies of gendered housing injustice and suicide in Toronto. Wellbeing, Space, and Society.
Dunn, N. S. & Ansloos, J. P. (2025). Living through the chaos: Rethinking ecological dimensions of suicide with young women and femmes facing housing injustice. Atlantis, Vol, 46.3, 46-64. https://atlantisjournal.ca/index.php/atlantis/en/article/view/5817/4884
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