Dr. Jessica Fields
Jessica 
Fields is Director of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Health & Society and Professor of Health Studies and Sociology at University of Toronto Scarborough. Fields’ research focus on racialized and gendered discourses of vulnerability and risk. In studies of high school communities, middle school classrooms, and jail-based HIV education, she explores the ways discourse curtails and produces sexual health education’s gendered and racialized lessons about the array of relationships, identities, desires, and behaviors that people imagine and pursue for themselves and others. With Laura Mamo, Nancy Lesko, and Jen Gilbert, Fields leads The Beyond Bullying Project (funded by the Ford Foundation), a community-based storytelling project that interrogates policymaking that challenge perceptions of LGBTQ sexualities and youth as problems and consider what is required for sexual health education to open up to the uncertainty, discomfort, and pleasure of learning from and about LGBTQ sexuality and lives. Fields is also the author of Risky Lessons: Sex Education and Social Inequality (Rutgers University Press), an ethnography of community responses to state legislation requiring school-based health education to promote abstinence until marriage. Risky Lessons received the 2009 Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Book Award from the American Sociological Association Section on Race, Gender, and Class. Fields is currently completing her second book, Problems We Pose: Feeling Differently about Qualitative Research (University of Minnesota Press), in which she welcomes emotion and feeling as a source of insight—not an obstacle to understanding—into the racialized, gendered, and sexual inequities that compromise health and well-being. As the principal investigator for QueerCOVIDTO, Fields leads the project and provide mentorship for other team members.
James Gibb
James K Gibb is a biological anthropologist and currently a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Health and Society at the University of Toronto, where he co-leads, along with Dr. Jessica Fields the Queers and COVID-19 TO study. His research program investigates how social-economic-political-emotional (SEPE) factors shape variation in development, physiological function, and health among sexual and gender minority (SGM) people; as well as the evolutionary, ecological and biocultural processes shaping global patterns of human sexual and gender diversity. Throughout his research program, he aims to ensure that his work is inclusive, culturally appropriate, and affirming to the biologies and experiences of SGM people. James is responsible for leading the project design, including data collection, analysis, and knowledge translation, and he leads quantitative publications that result from the research.
Dr. Marieme Lo
Marieme Lo, Ph.D. is Associate Professor in Women and Gender Studies and African Studies, Director of the African Studies Program and Associate Director (Education) for the School of Cities. Of particular relevance to this project are her prior work on the political economy of health service provision, biopolitics, and the implications for embodied vulnerabilities and gendered subjectivities, and her on-going scholarship at the interstices of urban poverty, socio-spatial inequalities, social exclusion and the dynamics of urban transformations; comparative urbanism, urban governance and inclusive urbanism; critical race, gender justice, intersectional vulnerabilities, resilience, economic justice and rights to livelihood; and social justice praxis. She has vast experiences leading and assessing interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral research and design projects including projects related to gender equality, the MDGS and the SDGs, more recently. Dr. Lo has also engaged in various collaborative research endeavors including in the aftermath of the Ebola epidemic, catalytic to a call to action, global awareness raising campaign and a co-published op-ed in Lancet in 2016 “Avoiding catastrophes: seeking synergies among the public health, environmental protection, and human security sectors” – https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(16)30173-5/fulltext#articleInformation. Dr. Lo holds a M.Sc. and Ph.D. from Cornell University and had been a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oxford and a visiting fellow at Georgetown University. As co-investigator, Dr. Lo will support the project’s overall goals, including research dissemination efforts.
Dr. Luseadra McKerracher
Luseadra McKerracher holds a postdoctoral fellowship at McMaster University, where she co-leads, along with Drs Deborah Sloboda, Tina Moffat, and Mary Barker, an inter-disciplinary DOHaD-based research and intervention program called Mothers to Babies. Mothers to Babies focuses on supporting prenatal wellbeing in the city of Hamilton, Canada. McKerracher is about to launch a research/ intervention program similar to Mothers to Babies in Aarhus, Denmark. Additionally, she is a collaborator on a number of other health equity-related projects in Canada. She has previously carried out biocultural anthropological research with Indigenous Maya women in Guatemala, and bioarchaeological research in Canada, Denmark, France, and Peru. Dr. McKerracher’s roles in the QueerCOVIDTO project include participation in qualitative data collection and analysis and supporting knowledge translation workshops.
Leela McKinnon
Leela McKinnon is a third-year PhD student in the University of Toronto Department of Anthropology. Her doctoral research focuses on the evolution of human sleep, specifically how environmental threat perception and social integration affect sleep behaviour. Leela is a co-investigator on a University of Toronto Student Engagement Award project examining how the sleep and dreaming of U of T students has been affected by the COVID-19 isolation period, with the goal of better understanding how dream content is shaped by stressful events. As a quantitative analysis research assistant on the Queers and COVID-19 project, she supports the collection, analysis and interpretation of data related to sleep, stress, and perceived vulnerability to disease.
Kaspars Mikelsteins
Kaspars Mikelsteins is an undergraduate student currently completing the mental health specialist program at UTSC. A returning student with a previous degree in sociology and political science, Kaspars’ research interests are in quantitative methods and their applications for measuring and understanding the social determinants of health and mental health outcomes. With these interests, Kaspars hopes to pursue a career in social epidemiology.
Dixon Pinto (he/him/his)
Dixon Pinto (He/Him) is an undergraduate student in the Bachelor of Health Sciences (Honours) program at McMaster University. His research interests include understanding the intersections between race, sexuality, and gender through community-based participatory research. His aim is to use his research outputs to inform equity-oriented health policy for sexual and gender minorities and highlight the unique and important experiences of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) folks within the 2STLGBQIA+ community. In addition to his research endeavours, Dixon is involved with the McMaster Pride Community Centre, where he has experience in peer support, community facilitation, and volunteer leadership.
Dr. James Owen
Dr. James Owen is a family physician at St Michael’s Hospital and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine. His clinical practice focuses on HIV primary care and prevention, LGBTQ2S health, and the care of vulnerable populations. He is the LGBTQ2S Health Theme Lead for the U of T MD Program, as well as the director of the second-year “Complexity and Chronicity” course in the MD Program. As co-investigator on the QueerCOVIDTO project, Dr. Owen will participate in quantitative data collection and analysis, and he supports knowledge translation efforts, including workshops.
PHOTO CRED: Arash Moallemi
Dr. Lori Ross
Dr. Lori Ross is an Associate Professor in the Social and Behavioural Health Sciences Division of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, and Affiliate Scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto. She is the leader of the Re:searching for LGBTQ Health Team.
Lori uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches in her research work, with a strong focus on integrating the principles of community-based research. Much of her research focuses on understanding the mental health and service needs of marginalized populations including lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and two-spirit (LGBTQ2S+) people, in order to improve access to services for these communities. She will focus on mixed-methods aspects of data collection, analysis, and interpretation for the QueerCOVIDTO project, especially as it relates to within sexual and gender minority heterogeneity.
Lori’s most important job is being a Mom to her two kids, ages 13 and 5. Back when she used to have free time, she enjoyed gardening and reading Canadian fiction. She feels immensely privileged to get paid to do work that she loves, in the service of her own community, and together with a fabulous team who are all so passionate about social justice.
Dr. Matti Siemiatycki
Matti Siemiatycki is Interim Director of the School of Cities and Professor of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto. He holds a Canada Research Chair in Infrastructure Planning and Finance. His work focuses on delivering large-scale infrastructure projects, evidence based infrastructure investment decisions, and the effective integration of infrastructure into the fabric of cities. His recent studies explore transit policy decisions, the value for money of public-private partnerships, the development of innovative mixed-use buildings as a form of place based infrastructure policy, and the diversity gap in the infrastructure industry workforce. Matti consults widely on infrastructure policy and is a frequent media commentator on infrastructure and city planning. As co-investigator on the QueerCOVIDTO project, he supports the project’s overall goals, including the dissemination of research results.
Pamela Tsui
Pamela Tsui is a second-year Ph.D. student in Sociology at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on the intersection of political economy, emotions, and intimate practices. She received her Master’s degree from the University of Hong Kong, for which she conducted an ethnographic study in a sex party club to explore the new sexual ethics among heterosexual-identified people. She has also engaged in community projects to combat sexual and gender-based violence. She assisted in a research project about the help-seeking experiences of women who have experienced child sexual abuse for Rainlily, a crisis centre in Hong Kong. She also collaborated in a forum theatre project that addressed domestic violence issues in the Indian-Australian community in Melbourne. Before pursuing her graduate studies, Tsui worked in theatres and won the Hong Kong Public Library’s award for children fiction writing. As a research assistant for QueerCOVIDTO, she supports the qualitative interviews and data analysis.
Dr. Sarah Williams
Sarah A. Williams holds a Ph.D. in Medical Anthropology from the University of Toronto and is currently the Louise Lamphere Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Gender Studies. Her dissertation, Re/producing Legitimacy: Midwifery and Indigeneity in the Yucatán Peninsula, was based on eighteen consecutive of ethnographic fieldwork and over ten years of engagement and research in Quintana Roo and Yucatán, Mexico. She is the author of several peer-reviewed publications, including an essay in Social Science & Medicine entitled Divergent narratives of blame: Maternal mortality rates, reproductive governance, and midwifery in Mexico. Dr. Williams is currently the Co-Investigator and Qualitative Research Lead on the QueerCOVID-Toronto project, which is examining the impact of the pandemic and public health policy on queer people’s mental and physical health. She is also working with her collaborator and Co-Investigator, Dr. Kathleen Rice (McGill University), on a project investigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on experiences and outcomes in maternal health in Canada and their early analyses have been published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal and Women & Health.
Laura Beach
Laura Beach is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto. They are a broadly trained scholar with expertise in the areas of criminalization, incarceration, mental health/illness, regimes of care, humanitarianism, settler-colonialism, gender and sexuality, and queer theory. Mx. Beach’s doctoral research focuses on experiences of care and caring relations within prisons in Saskatchewan where they have conducted interviews and research sharing circles with folks who have been incarcerated and with correctional staff. Laura has been volunteering in federal and provincial prisons for over five years, including as a facilitator for the Inspired Minds All Nations Creative Writing Program. Through this program, they have helped to edit, format, and publish prisoners’ artwork and writing. Laura is ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training) certified. They are excited to join the Queer COVID TO team as a Research Assistant and Administrator.
Jada Charles
Jada Charles is an M.A candidate in the University of British Columbia’s Sociology Department and a recent B.A. (Hons.) graduate (Sociology and English) from the University of Toronto. Her main research interests are within the areas of intersectionality, mental health, higher education and minority stress. She is passionate about understanding health disparities in marginalized populations. Her thesis research aims to examine how variation in social and academic cultures across different university environments affects the mental health and well-being of students of colour. Jada’s role in the QueerCOVID-TO project is as a qualitative researcher who supports the collection, analysis and interpretation of data.
Zarin Tasnim
Zarin Tasnim (They/ Them) holds a master’s degree in socio-cultural anthropology from the University of Toronto. Her interests include understanding how queer women understand their sexual and gender identities through community participation, online and offline. Zarin is aiming to start her doctoral work on exploring how “credibility” and “proof” of an individual’s queer identity is determined in the process of who can claim refugee status in Canada or enter through another visa process. She will be a qualitative research assistant in the QueerCOVID Toronto project.
Jennifer Peruniak
