Leah Levac

Leah Levac holds a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of New Brunswick and a B.Ed. from Queen’s University. Through her community engaged collaborations, she is committed to building respectful and reciprocal relationships with community organizations and community members; emphasizing community knowledges and expertise; and building long-term research collaborations that focus not only on the creation of knowledge, but also on its application.

Recently, Leah has been working with Indigenous and northern women in three communities and Nations across present-day Canada, exploring women’s and young women’s wellbeing experiences and preferences for policy engagement in northern Canada. She is also part of a team that has undertaken a number of mixed-methods studies focused on intersectionality and the politics of resource extraction. Leah is also part of a team studying the Independent Assessment Process (IAP) – the out-of-court compensation process aimed at resolving serious physical and sexual abuse claims suffered at Indian Residential Schools (IRS). This research aims to better understand peoples’ experiences of the IAP, and how these experiences and insights can inform understandings of settler-colonial relationships, hierarchies of knowledge and power, and the politics of reconciliation.

In addition to Leah's academic work, she serves as a board member of the Community Research Ethics Office, which provides ethics review for research projects led by community organizations.