Dr. Michele Piercey-Normore joined Algoma University as the Vice-President, Academic and Research on May 1, 2022.

Dr. Piercey-Normore brings with her more than 20 years of research and teaching experience within the professorial ranks and 12 years of progressive administrative experience at two multi-campus universities, including the roles of Associate Dean and Associate Head with the University of Manitoba followed by, Dean of the School of Science and the Environment, Grenfell Campus, Memorial University.

In the role of VPAR, Michele is a member of the University’s senior executive team. She leads the academic and research functions of the University, supporting excellence in teaching and learning and excellence in faculty and student research. She continues to work closely with the Academic Dean and oversees the directors responsible for the Registrar’s Office, the Library, and Experiential Learning and International Affairs.

[email protected]
Office: NW300
Phone number: 705-949-2301 ext. 4113
Fax: 705-946-7356

Tiffany Gallivan is the Accounting and Grants Officer at Algoma University. She offers a wide variety of post-award research supports to the University, including liaising between researchers and funding agencies for policies, procedures, and process, and providing budget support for grant applications. Gallivan reviews grant contracts and submissions sent to the President’s Office for final approval, provides monthly updates to researchers on all projects currently in process, and completes financial reporting and invoicing for all grant funds.

Email: [email protected]
Office: WW205
705-949-2301, ext. 4612

Tracy graduated from Laurentian University with an Honours degree in English Literature, after which she attended the Faculty of Education at the University of Western Ontario. After being a Teacher and a Teacher Librarian in the Simcoe County Board of Education Secondary School system for 6 years, Tracy came to work at Algoma University in 2007 in the library as a support staff member, teaching research skills and performing library duties. Recently, Tracy completed her Masters of Library and Information Science and is enjoying her new position as University Librarian.

Dr. Michele Piercey-Normore joined Algoma University as the Vice-President, Academic and Research on May 1, 2022.

Dr. Piercey-Normore brings with her more than 20 years of research and teaching experience within the professorial ranks and 12 years of progressive administrative experience at two multi-campus universities, including the roles of Associate Dean and Associate Head with the University of Manitoba followed by, Dean of the School of Science and the Environment, Grenfell Campus, Memorial University.

In the role of VPAR, Michele is a member of the University’s senior executive team. She leads the academic and research functions of the University, supporting excellence in teaching and learning and excellence in faculty and student research. She continues to work closely with the Academic Dean and oversees the directors responsible for the Registrar’s Office, the Library, and Experiential Learning and International Affairs.

[email protected]
705-949-2301, ext. 1078
Office: ECC 403

Credentials: BSc (National University of La Plata, Argentina), MSc (National University of La Plata, Argentina), PhD (Michigan State University)

Visit my website!

[email protected]
705-949-2301, ext. 4352
Office: CC 3033B

Dr. Jimenez-Estrada is Maya Achi (Guatemala), the EDI Academic Lead (2020-23) and an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, where she teaches critical and decolonizing sociology. She received her PhD from the University of Toronto and is dedicated to research, teaching, and learning while centering Indigenous knowledges, voices and perspectives in her efforts to decolonize academic and research endeavours. She has worked with Indigenous organizations in Guatemala and Mexico and has led projects that bridge institutional frameworks led by community-centered and Indigenous led needs. She works locally with the Indigenous Women’s Anti-Violence Task Force of Baawaating (Sault Ste. Marie) and internationally with the National Coordinator for Indigenous Women of Mexico (CONAMI) with ally academics on a project called ‘Indigenous Women Storying and Interweaving their Experiences of Gendered and Colonial Violence in Mexico and Canada” funded by SSHRC ($199,980 for 2021-24) Building on a prior SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant (25,000 for 2018-19). Her research centers the voices and recommendations of Indigenous women and gender-diverse individuals to address gendered and colonial violence. She also served as Principal Investigator (on behalf of the Indigenous Women’s Anti-Violence Task Force, in collaboration with NORDIK Institute), for the “Restorative Justice: Anti-Racism Youth Diversion Initiative” (2019-2022), funded by Heritage Canada’s Anti-Racism Action Program (2019-22). Her work has been published in the Canadian Journal of Native Education, the Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, the Canadian Journal of Native Studies, Dialogo: An interdisciplinary studies journal, Abya Yala and the Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies. In addition, she has also co-authored a chapter in Routledge’s Handbook of Central American Governance, in addition to two chapters co-authored with IWAVTF colleagues: Red Dresses on Bare Trees and Feminicide and Global Accumulation: Frontline Struggles to Resist the Violence of Patriarchy and Capitalism and has presented at various academic conferences including the World Indigenous Conference in Education (WIPC-E), the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, the Canadian Latin American Studies Association, Latin American Studies Association and others. QUOTE: “As an Indigenous Maya woman, mother, auntie and academic, I am especially bound by the teachings and responsibilities as reminded to us all by Chief Shingewauk’s words. I strive to achieve inclusive excellence, which entails carrying out the responsibility to open doors and create opportunities for historically marginalized voices, perspectives and Peoples for self-determination and social justice that includes individual and inherent/collective rights. My lifetime work is to serve Indigenous and underrepresented communities and I am humbled to call this territory home, with all of the relations that continue to guide me today and tomorrow.”

Director
Assistant Professor
[email protected]

Biography

Dr. Rose Ann Torres is an Assistant Professor  and the Director of the School of Social Work at Algoma University. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology and Equity Studies in Education from OISE/University of Toronto. Prior to joining Algoma University, she was an Assistant Professor at University of New Brunswick. She has been a Lecturer in the MSW program at Wilfrid Laurier University and in the BSW program at Toronto Metropolitan University. She was also a Lecturer in the Master’s and Ph.D. programs in the Social Justice Education Department, OISE/University of Toronto. She is the principal investigator of the SSHRC Insight Development Grants research project entitled “Examining Access to Mental Health Care Service: The Impact of COVID-19 on Filipino Health Care Workers in Northern Ontario” and co-principal investigator of the SSHRC Institutional Grants project titled “Effects of COVID-19 on Teaching and Learning: Stories of Indigenous and Black and Asian Faculty Members and Students at Algoma University.” Dr.Torres has published her work in co-edited books, peer reviewed articles, book chapters, keynote speaking, conference presentations, webinars, workshops, and media commentaries. She currently serves as an Advisory Board Member for Sault College and First Nations Technical Institute. She has been instrumental in establishing pathways and partnerships with local and international universities and colleges in the School of Social Work at Algoma University. Dr. Torres’s work as an educator includes community engagement and organizing, as well as consultancy services in interdisciplinary research that crosses geographic borders with Asia, Canada, Africa, and other countries. Dr. Torres’s commitment to the community seeks to bring about transformative change and critical development in terms of health and social well-being, civic engagement, and ecological sustainability. At Algoma University, she teaches critical policy in the north, social work research, social work philosophy and ethics, critical social work practice: Anishinaabe, structural and feminist perspectives.

Research
Ethics, critical social policy, reflexive qualitative research methods, critical intersectionality of race, class, and gender; sociology of health, illness, and healing; sociology of everyday life; social movements; decolonization studies, critical Indigenous studies; social justice, community development/engagement; Asian Canadian studies; anti-Asian racism

Research Projects:

• Effects of Covid-19 on Teaching, and Learning: Stories of Indigenous and Racialized Faculty Members and Students at Algoma University. Sault Ste. Marie: Algoma University. May 2022-present. Funded by SSHRC Institutional Grants.
• Examining Access to Mental Health Care Service: The Impact of Covid-19 on Filipino Health Care Workers in Northern Ontario. Funded by SSHRC Insight Development Grants, June 2022-May 2024.
• Building Filipino-Canadian Youth Resilience During COVID-19 Project. Funded by the Canadian Red Cross, The Employment and Social Development Canada, and the Philippine Centre Canada.
• Marginalized Homeless Youth: A critical and grounded framework for understanding the impact and efficacy of policies and programs designed to support marginal youth experiencing homelessness in a time of Covid-19. Funded by Faculty of Community Services, Ryerson University.

Selected Publications:
Books:

• Onishenko, D., Doran, C., Torres, R., Nyaga, D. (Eds.) (Forthcoming). Critical Reflexive Research Methodologies. Calgary: University of Calgary Press.
• Torres, R., Tian, I., Chau, C. (Eds.). (Forthcoming). Asian Canada is Burning: Theories, Methods, Pedagogies, and Praxes. Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing.
• Torres, R., Leung, K., Soepriatna, V. (Eds.). (2021) Outside and In-Between: Theorizing Asian Canadian Exclusion and the Challenges of Identity Formation. Brill Publisher, Studies in Critical Social Sciences series. PA Leiden, The Netherlands https://brill.com/view/title/60048
• Torres, R., Nyaga, D. (Eds.). (2021). Critical Research Methodologies. Brill Publisher, Studies in Critical Social Sciences series. PA Leiden, The Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004445567
• Wane, N.., Torres, R. & Nyaga, D. (Eds.) (2019). Transversing and Translocating Spiritualities: An Epistemological, Theoretical, and Pedagogical Conversations. Ontario: Nsemia Publishing.
• Pavlos, C., Torres, R. (Eds.) (2013). “Engaging Aboriginal Perspective in Education”. Germany: Lambert Academic Publishing.

Peer-Reviewed Journals:

•  Torres, R., Nyaga, D. (2023). Re-conceptualizing Victimhood and Resiliency: Transnational Narratives of Filipinas in Canada. Review of Women’s Studies Journal. Vol. 32, No. 2.
• Torres, R. & Nyaga, D. (2017). Gendered Citizenship: A Case Study of paid Filipino Male Live-in Caregivers in Toronto. International Journal of Asia Pacific Studies, Vol.13., No.1
• Torres, R. (2016). Aeta Women Indigenous Healers in the Philippines: Lessons and Implications. Journal of Global Citizenship and Equity Education. Vol.5, No. 1.
• Torres, R. and Nyaga, D. (2016). Discussion of power through the eyes of the margins: Praxis of post-colonial Aeta indigenous women healers in the Philippines. International Journal of Asia Pacific Studies 12 (2): 31–56, DOI:
  10.21315/ijaps2016.12.2.2
• Torres, R. & Nyaga, D. (2015). The Politics of Cultural Representation. Sociology Study Journal, vol. 5, no.9. doi: 10.17265/2159-5526/2015.09. Refereed Book Chapters:
• Torres, R. (Forthcoming). Ethics of Doing Research in the Indigenous Community. In Reflexive Critical Qualitative Research Methodology, Onishenko, D., Doran, C., Torres, R., Nyaga, D. (Eds.). Calgary: University of Calgary. Press.
• Torres, R. (Forthcoming). Remembering in Research: Doing Research in Asian Communities. In Reflexive Critical Qualitative Research Methodology, Onishenko, D., Doran, C., Torres, R., Nyaga, D. (Eds.). Calgary: University of Calgary. Press.
• Torres, R. (2021). Theorizing Asian Canada. In Torres, R., Leung, K., Soepriatna, V. (Eds.), Outside and In-Between: Theorizing Asian Canadian Exclusion and the Challenges of Identity Formation. Brill Publisher, Studies in Critical Social Sciences series. PA Leiden, The Netherlands.
• Torres, R. (2021). Filipina Activism from a Transnational Theoretical Framework. In Torres, R., Leung, K., Soepriatna, V. (Eds.), Outside and In-Between: Theorizing Asian Canadian Exclusion and the Challenges of Identity Formation. Brill Publisher, Studies in Critical Social Sciences series. PA Leiden, The Netherlands.
• Torres, R. (2021). Feminization of Pandemics: Experiences of Filipino Women in the Health Care System. In Torres, R., Leung, K., Soepriatna, V. (Eds.), Outside and In-Between: Theorizing Asian Canadian Exclusion and the Challenges of Identity Formation. Brill Publisher, Studies in Critical Social Sciences series. PA Leiden, The Netherlands.
• Torres, R., Nyaga, D. (2021). Critical Reflexivity Framework on Theorizing Asian Canada. In Torres, R., Leung, K., Soepriatna, V. (Eds.), Outside and In-Between: Theorizing Asian Canadian Exclusion and the Challenges of Identity Formation. Brill Publisher, Studies in Critical Social Sciences series. PA Leiden, The Netherlands.
• Torres, R. Nyaga, D. (2021). Un-mapping Diasporic Filipina Geographies. In Torres, R., Leung, K., Soepriatna, V. (Eds.), Outside and In-Between: Theorizing Asian Canadian Exclusion and the Challenges of Identity Formation. Brill Publisher, Studies in Critical Social Sciences series. PA Leiden, The Netherlands.
• Torres, R. et. al. (2021). Introduction. In Outside and In-Between: Theorizing Asian Canadian Exclusion and the Challenges of Identity Formation. Brill Publisher, Studies in Critical Social Sciences series. PA Leiden, The Netherlands.
• Damasco, V., Torres, R. (2021). Framework for Developing Resilience Among Filipino-Canadian Youth During Covid-19 Pandemic. In Torres, R., Leung, K., Soepriatna, V. (Eds.), Outside and InBetween: Theorizing Asian Canadian Exclusion and the Challenges of Identity Formation. Brill Publisher, Studies in Critical Social Sciences series. PA Leiden, The Netherlands.
• Torres, R. (2021). Critical Ethnography: Discussion of Principles and Ethics. In Torres, R., Nyaga, D. (Eds.). Critical Research Methodologies. Sense Brill Publisher, Studies in Critical Social Sciences series. PA Leiden, The Netherlands.
• Torres, R. (2021). Storytelling: A Critical Narrative Approach. In Torres, R., Nyaga, D. (Eds.). Critical Research Methodologies. Sense Brill Publisher, Studies in Critical Social Sciences series. PA Leiden, The Netherlands.
• Torres, R. (2021). Research Methodologies: History, Issues, Tensions. In Torres, R., Nyaga, D. (Eds.). Critical Research Methodologies. Sense Brill Publisher, Studies in Critical Social Sciences series. PA Leiden, The Netherlands.
• Torres, R. , Nyaga, D.( 2021). Critical Research as Inconsolable Mourning. In Torres, R., Nyaga, D. (Eds.). Critical Research Methodologies. Sense Brill Publisher, Studies in Critical Social Sciences series. PA Leiden, The Netherlands.
• Torres, R., Nyaga, D. (2021). Using Critical Research Methodologies: The significance of Reflexivity, Resistance, and Response. In Torres, R., Nyaga, D. (Eds.). Critical Research Methodologies. Sense Brill Publisher, Studies in Critical Social Sciences series. PA Leiden, The Netherlands.
• Torres, R., Nyaga, D. (2021). Introduction. In Torres, R., Nyaga, D. (Eds.). Critical Research Methodologies. Sense Brill Publisher, Studies in Critical Social Sciences series. PA Leiden, The Netherlands.
• Torres, R. (2019). Healing and Well-Being as Tools of Decolonization and Social Justice: Anti-colonial Praxis of Indigenous Women. In Wane, N., Todorova, M. & Todd, K. (Eds.) Decolonizing the Spirit: Resistance and Solidarity. New York: Palgrave Publishing.
• Wane, N., Torres, R. & Nyaga, D. (2019). Community Care as Praxis. In Wane, Torres, & Nyaga (Eds.) Transversing and Translocating Spiritualities: An Epistemological, Theoretical, and Pedagogical Conversations. Ontario: Nsemia Publishers.
• Wane, N., Torres, R. & Nyaga, D. (2019). Introduction. In Wane, Torres, & Nyaga (Eds.) Transversing and Translocating Spiritualities: An Epistemological, Theoretical, and Pedagogical Conversations. Ontario: Nsemia Publishers.
• Torres, R. & Nyaga, D. (2019). Re-Thinking Marx: Narrative of Indigenous Women Healers in the Philippines Healing as Love. In Wane, Torres, & Nyaga (Eds.) Transversing and Translocating Spiritualities: An Epistemological, Theoretical, and Pedagogical Conversations. Ontario: Nsemia Publishers.
• Nyaga, D., Torres, R. (2019). Education, Neoliberalism, and Decolonizing Curriculum. In Decolonization/Decolonial/Anti-Colonial Theory: Shared lineages and contestations, Zainub, A. (Ed.) Netherlands: Sense Publisher. Conference
• Torres, R. (2022). Keynote Speaker. Ethics in the Production of Knowledge During the Pandemic. 1st International Research Conference and Presentation 2022 Polytechnic University of the Philippines Santa Rosa Cus (PUPSRC) Universitas Singaperbangsa Karawang (UNSIKA), Indonesia.
• Torres, R. (2022). Speaker. Outside the Master Narrative and the Ethics of Disorder in Leadership. 2022 East Asia SIG Asian Heritage Month Symposium that is sponsored by OISE/University of Toronto. Toronto: OISE/University of Toronto.
• Torres, R. (2022). Keynote. Examining Access to Mental Health Care Service: The Impact of Covid-19 on Filipino Health Care Workers in Northern Ontario. Brown Bag Seminar Series, School of Social Work, Algoma University.
• Torres, R. (2022). Research Spotlight. Ethics in Doing Research in the Indigenous Communities. Research Week, Algoma University
• Torres, R. (2021). Keynote. Story work and Narratives of Aeta Women Healers: Contribution to Cultural Studies. In the 12 th National Conference of the Women’s and Gender Studies Association of the Philippines, a webinar sponsored by the University of the Philippines. May 26.
• Torres, R. (2021). Keynote Speaker. Healing Power of Post-Colonial Indigenous Women. Lessons from Aeta Women Healers in the Philippines and Implications. In Site of Convergence: Weaving Tapestries of Knowledge. Philippines: University of The Philippines Center for Women Studies and Center for Indigenous Decolonial Studies.

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