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Leah Levac

 

  • 2007 Trudeau Scholar

    leah.levac@trudeaufoundation.net

    Current Research

    Ph. D. Interdisciplinary, University of New Brunswick

    Marginalized female adolescents: Developing leadership interventions for health

    Profile

    The Trudeau Foundation believes in its scholars and their ideas. It does not seem possible to overstate the contribution that this vote of confidence, along with the Foundation's provision of creative intellectual and practical resources, has made to my development. Because of the support of the Trudeau Foundation, I have been able to pursue two parallel research interests; young women's and young mothers' civic engagement, and public participation in policy development. Both of these projects were resource and time intensive, and resources and time are frequently in short supply for doctoral students. The Trudeau Foundation provided me with ample resources to create a project in collaboration with young mothers, and to engage in a project with the New Brunswick provincial government.

    Trudeau Foundation Themes

    Responsible Citizenship » 

  • Biography

    Leah Levac is an Interdisciplinary PhD candidate at the University of New Brunswick, a part-time instructor at Renaissance College, the interdisciplinary leadership faculty at UNB, and a triathlete.

    Her research focuses on engaging with young women and young mothers to enable them to participate in policy development, particularly to address social factors that hinder health. She uses an intersectional theoretical approach, which recognizes that an individual's identity affects her or his experiences of power and marginalization. The primary focus of Leah's research is young women, but the work also explores public engagement more broadly. In order to approach this topic, Leah is working with a number of sub-questions: (a) How can civic engagement processes be designed in order to facilitate the meaningful engagement of marginalized young women? (b) How do participants' experiences in public engagement processes vary by age and gender? (c) How does participation in public engagement processes contribute to leadership development? (d) How do participatory approaches to research enhance collaborative policy-making?

    As part of her doctoral research, Leah implemented a policy-focused, participatory research project with a group of young mothers, and a case study of the design and implementation of a provincial public engagement initiative that resulted in the development of a poverty-reduction plan. The Trudeau Foundation and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research graciously support Leah's research.

    In addition to Leah's academic work, she teaches a course about critical self-assessment and personal growth at Renaissance College, and serves as the Vice-Chair of Youth in Transition Inc., a small non-profit that operates a residential program for 16 - 19 year old young women who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. As well, she is a member of Equal Voice, NB, and is involved with 21inc., a network of young leaders committed to creating the capacity for change in New Brunswick through leadership development. As a founding member of 21inc., she traveled to the United Arab Emirates in 2006 for an International Women in Leadership conference to discuss the need for gender equity as a tenet of transformational leadership.

     

     

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