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 white settler of Portuguese and Irish ancestry who 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 social, political, affective, and environmental conditions that shape health and wellness, with a particular focus on suicide. Grounded in this work is a strong interest in community‑driven practices of everyday care and resistance to structural violence. Across her research, she has explored a range of contexts, including housing injustice, Indigenous health, gender‑based violence, and harm reduction.
Dr. Dunn is committed to research that advances community‑identified priorities and approaches that privilege participant voice through critical qualitative inquiry and mixed‑methods research. Guided by anti‑colonial, queer, and feminist methodologies, her work is oriented toward justice‑doing. Across all of her research, she prioritizes ethical community engagement, consent‑driven practices, and deep respect for lived and living experiences.
Theoretical Orientation:
Process-Experiential
Compassion-Focussed
Anti-Oppressive
Dr. Dunn believes in the importance of mentorship and that higher education is for everyone! She provides mentorship opportunities in her lab and works with students across disciplines. Opportunities are based in interdisciplinary 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:
- Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) and the structural violence of homelessness: A scoping review
- Engagements with life: Restorying suicide with young women and femmes facing housing injustice. www.engagementswithlife.ca
- Sensing Suicide and Survival in Cities: Spatializing the Relationship Between Gender, Housing, and Suicide
- Theorizing crisis and anti-oppressive practices/principles in suicide risk assessment and safety planning in mental health provider training
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