Former Graduate Student
How do you know Emilia?
I reached out to Dr. Nielsen in August 2020 and am so grateful that she agreed to supervise my M.A. thesis in York University’s Department of Communications and Culture. Working with a health-oriented project and my personal introduction to incorporating research creation into my work, I am indebted to Dr. Nielsen for sharing her extensive cross-disciplinary expertise. Dr. Nielsen brings a high ethics of care and level of attention to the both the research process and her commitments as a supervisor, making working with her invaluable to my journey as an early career researcher.
Since graduating from York, I have had the distinct pleasure of continuing to work with Dr. Nielsen as a Research Assistant on her SSHRC-IDG funded podcast, On Being Ill. I have learned so much through Dr. Nielsen’s’ commitment to engaging a community of thinkers in her research mobilization efforts and deeply appreciate the connections and conversations that have come out of this work.
Dr. Nielsen brings a high ethics of care and level of attention to the both the research process and her commitments as a supervisor, making working with her invaluable to my journey as an early career researcher.
– Emily R. Blyth
What have you been working on lately?
I completed my PhD in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University where I focused on community-engaged and arts-based approaches to health equity. My SSRCH-CGS funded doctoral research turned to community to examine media coverage of lethal force, and envision more inclusive and critically embedded reporting standards. I have been honoured to work alongside Unlocking the Gates Society to form the Community Voices Research Team and center perspectives from people who have been impacted by police violence. Our team is made up of individuals with incarceration experience and we are grateful to be guided by a robust Community Advisory Board which includes Indigenous Elders and members of Justice for Jared and the Transformative Health and Justice Research Cluster.
I am passionate about co-creating accessible knowledge which I explore in my dissertation through public-facing reports and leveraging art to showcase our findings. In my PhD, I was most excited about sharing my research through art at Walk in Gratitude; Write in Empathy, a show I curated at Gallery Gachet, a justice driven institution operating out of so-called Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
In doing this work, I am enduringly grateful to my outstanding committee including Dr. Lyana Patrick, Dr. Paola Ardiles Gamboa, Dr. Krista Stelkia, and Dr. Syrus Marcus Ware, as well as to Dr. Emilia Nielsen, for their ongoing guidance and support.