Dear MSVU faculty, staff, and students,
I'm writing to introduce the new faculty who have joined the MSVU community recently. I'm pleased to extend a special welcome to each of them.
Twelve individuals have joined MSVU in the roles of Assistant Professor, Laboratory Instructor and Librarian since July 1, 2020. Though many of these individuals are new to MSVU, a few have previously worked at the University and are taking on new roles. I am delighted to have each of them and know that our students, faculty, and staff will benefit greatly from their expertise and research.
Since we can't gather face-to-face at this point, we invite you to get to know these new MSVU faculty via the brief biographies below. I also encourage you to connect through remote means. Communications & Marketing will share longer stories about these individuals in the coming months.
Please join us in welcoming our new faculty to MSVU.
Sincerely,
Julie
Julie McMullin, PhD
Vice-President Academic and Provost
New faculty 2020/2021
Dr. Lori Borgal, Assistant Professor, Biology
Lori completed her Ph.D. in 2013 at the University of Cologne, Germany, after winning an interdisciplinary studentship supported by the Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics program, and was awarded a Koeln Fortune Fellowship to continue post-doctoral work studying molecular mechanisms underlying human cell proliferation. In 2015, she was awarded a Royal Society Newton International Fellowship and moved to the University of Exeter, UK, where she pursued independent research on stem cell mitotic spindle formation using Drosophila melanogaster as a research model. Originally from Halifax, she completed her M.Sc. in Anatomy and Neurobiology and B.Sc. (Honours) in Neuroscience at Dalhousie University.
Prof. Rhonda Bursey, Assistant Professor, Business and Tourism
Rhonda has been teaching at Mount Saint Vincent University for the past six years in both part-time and term positions. Rhonda graduated from MSVU with her BBA in 1994, and immediately began working in the oil and gas industry. After working several years in industry and family-owned businesses, Rhonda completed her professional accounting designation in 2013 and began teaching accounting at both the postsecondary and professional levels. In 2015, she continued her studies at Saint Mary's University and completed her MBA in 2017. She is a CPA, CMA and is actively involved in the profession in both an educational capacity and as a committee member with CPA Nova Scotia. Her research interests include Pensions and the potential impacts of AI (artificial intelligence) on the accounting profession.
Dr. Adrian Downey, Assistant Professor, Education
Adrian recently defended his Ph.D. dissertation at the University of New Brunswick in the Faculty of Education. His research works at the intersection of critical, posthuman, and Indigenous theories as manifest in curriculum studies, literature and literacies, Indigenous education, music education, and several related areas. Adrian is Mi'kmaw and has family ties in the Qalipu Mi'kmaq First Nation. He holds undergraduate degrees in music and education from Bishop's University and graduated from MSVU in 2017 with a Master of Arts in Education. He is very happy to be returning to MSVU as a faculty member.
Megan Fisher, Laboratory Instructor, Biology
Megan holds a Bachelor of Science (Honours) and a Master of Science in Biology from Acadia University. She has a diverse research background in plant physiology, plant microbial ecology, and pathogenic microbiology as it relates to food crops. She teaches a variety of courses in the biological sciences, focusing primarily on botany and ecology. Megan has worked as a lecturer and laboratory instructor in the past for Acadia University and Saint Mary's University. In the 2019/2020 academic year, she was awarded the SMUSA Faculty of Science Teaching Excellence Award.
Dr. Columba Gonzales Duarte, Assistant Professor, Sociology and Anthropology
Columba holds a Ph.D. in socio-cultural anthropology from the University of Toronto with a joint degree from the School of Environment. After graduation in 2019, she gained a postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Geography and Planning of the University of Toronto and the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity. Her research interests are related to monarch butterfly tri-national conservation dynamics exploring the connections between NAFTA's agri-food industry, labour migration, and monarch decline. She has also worked with Indigenous communities that co-habit with this butterfly across Canada, the United States, and Mexico documenting their knowledge and forms of relating with the migratory insect. Columba is currently working on her research project, "Convergent Migrations," and finishing a book based on her doctoral research.
Prof. Jennifer Guy, Assistant Professor, Business and Tourism
Jennifer is a two-time MSVU graduate who holds a Master of Education (Lifelong Learning) and a Bachelor of Applied Human Nutrition. As a current student in the Nova Scotia Ph.D. Program in Educational Studies, Jennifer's dissertation explores how concepts of adult education and learning are understood and applied by educators and students in foodbased courses in tourism and hospitality programs within Canada. Jennifer is also a registered dietitian with experience working as a territory manager for a multinational corporation as well as in health care, academia and the food and beverage industry. Her research interests focus on food-based learning (nutrition), cross-cultural learning (adult education), and the food and beverage industry (tourism). In 2018, Jennifer received a doctoral award from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
Dr. Phillip Joy, Assistant Professor, Applied Human Nutrition
Phillip is a registered dietitian with the Nova Scotia Dietetic Association and holds a Ph.D. in Health from Dalhousie University. His doctoral research, completed in 2020, explored the social and cultural constructions of eating practices and body image for gay men. His research, often based within LGBTQ+ communities, utilizes arts-based methodologies and knowledge translation approaches, such as photography and comics. Arts-based research can challenge and subvert nutrition, sexuality, gender, and body norms while contributing to social transformation through the expression of new perspectives.
Dr. Jennifer Khoury, Assistant Professor, Psychology and Tier II Canada Research Chair in Interdisciplinary Studies in Neuroscience
Jennifer received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Ryerson University in 2017. She completed postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard Medical School/Cambridge Hospital (2017-2019) and at the Offord Centre for Child Studies at McMaster University (2019-2020). Jennifer recently became an Assistant Professor and Tier II Canada Research Chair in Interdisciplinary Studies in Neuroscience, in the Department of Psychology at MSVU. Her five-year appointment has been funded by the Canada Research Chairs Program, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, and Research Nova Scotia. Dr. Khoury's research program adopts an interdisciplinary and multi-method approach to understand how early life stress impacts the brain and behaviour of parents and children, at different stages of development.
Prof. Maria Matthews, Assistant Professor, Business and Tourism
Maria holds a Master of Business Administration (Tourism and Hospitality Management) from the Australian Institute of Business, where she is also in her final year of her Doctorate. She has 10 years' experience working as a guest lecturer at Memorial University and has been teaching at MSVU in the Department of Business Administration and Tourism and Hospitality Management since 2015. She has extensive business and tourism industry experience in the areas of tour operation, destination management, and airline and hotel management, and has served on numerous boards of directors in various roles over the years. Her research interests focus on tourism disruption responses, tourism technology, tourism marketing, tourism funding models, destination development, and private and public tourism partnership models.
Dr. Amna Mirza, Assistant Professor, Education
Amna holds a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Wilfrid Laurier University and completed a post-doctoral fellowship with Dr. Jan Frijters at the department of Child and Youth Studies, Brock University. Among her many research interests, the most important is to study language and reading development and learning disabilities among English language learners. More specifically, her research looks at learning to read in different languages across different orthographies. Part of her research work also looks at reading disabilities (Dyslexia based) in connection to genetics and potential remediation in the form of reading intervention among young children. Lastly, her research work includes running a program outside of Canada which involves training elementary level teachers on "Principles of Teaching Literacy."
Dr. Amos Nkrumah, Assistant Professor, Sociology and Anthropology
Amos received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Saskatchewan, M.A. in Social Justice and Equity Studies from Brock University, M.Phil. in Sociology from the University of Ghana, and B.A. (Honours) in Sociology and Political Science from the University of Ghana. Before joining MSVU, he taught at the University of Saskatchewan for one year and the University College of the North (UCN), The Pas, Manitoba for four years. His research focuses on transnational migration, immigrants' socio-economic activities in Canada, immigrant entrepreneurship, specifically immigrants of African descent, as well as issues on race and racism. He has published on issues of immigrants' social and economic activities in Canada.
Alina Ruiz, Librarian
Alina joined MSVU in August 2020. She completed her Master of Information Studies degree at McGill University's School of Information Studies in 2018 and previously worked as an archivist at the Royal British Columbia Museum and Archives. Prior to this, Alina earned a master's degree in Modern Languages (French) from Oriel College, Oxford. Her interests include teaching with special collections, descriptive bibliography and the history of books and printing. Alina looks forward to arranging and describing the archival holdings at MSVU, making them more accessible to the community. She will also be involved in records management for the university.
