Maureen Baker ( Ph.D.) is Professor of Sociology at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. She has taught in Canada, Australia and New Zealand and worked as a policy advisor for Canada’s Parliament. She has published numerous books and articles about comparative family policies, family trends and feminist issues.

Toba Bryant (Ph.D.) is a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Research on Inner City Health at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto. Dr. Bryant is coeditor of Staying Alive: Critical Perspectives on Health, Illness & Health Care, being published in March, 2006 by Canadian Scholars’ Press.

Tammy George (M.A.) is a doctoral candidate in Sociology of Equity Studies in Education in collaboration with Women’s Studies at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Education.

Chris Lockhart (Ph.D.) is Lecturer and Director of Community Development Programs for Round River Conservation Studies, a non-profit organization that works with indigenous peoples around the world to develop community-based conservation programs and social health initiatives. For the past 10 years, he has taught and conducted research involving applied/medical anthropology while being affiliated with various universities throughout East Africa, Western Australia and North America. His research areas include HIV/AIDS among socially and economically marginalized groups in East Africa and the intersection between community development programs, social capital and health.

Geneviève Rail (Ph.D.) is Professor and Vice-Dean (Research) at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Health Sciences. Sociologist by training, she is interested in poststructuralist, postmodern and postcolonial approaches to health. Her current funded projects focus on the discursive constructions of health and fitness among young men and women belonging to various ethnic groups in Canada, Australia and New-Zealand.

Aysan Sev’er (Ph.D.) is Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto. Her current research focuses on extreme forms of violence against women in India and in south-eastern Turkey. She is the founding editor of the Women’s Health & Urban Life Journal and the recipient of the Canadian Women’s Studies Book Award for 2004. Currently, she is serving as the Special Advisor to the Principal on Equity Issues at University of Toronto at Scarborough.

The Women's Health & Urban Life: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal is generously funded by the Wellesley Central Health Corporation and is permanently housed at the Sociology Department, University of Toronto. The founder and the first general editor is Aysan Sev'er, University of Toronto.