Heather Young-Leslie, MA (McMaster), PhD (York)

Area of Study / Keywords

Medical Anthropology Research Development Knowledge Mobilization Research Impact Ethnography Qualitative Methods Feminist Research Culture of Biomedicine Tonga Papua New Guinea International Development

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About

Experienced in academic and applied research, with a history of competitive grants success, peer-reviewed publications, mentoring, change management, and of envisioning and enabling strategic research success within the portfolio of the Vice-President (Research & Innovation), University of Alberta, as well as liaising for the university at Research Impact Canada, I am currently the inaugural Senior Research Partner, Social Sciences and Humanities, using ethnographic, human-centred design, and professor-oriented principles in the new Research Partner Network at the University of Alberta. I am University of Alberta's SSHRC Leader (2025-2028), an Adjunct Professor in Anthropology, a Board Member for the International Institute for Qualitative Methodology, and have served as a Merit Review Committee member for SSHRC and NIH.
Pronouns: She/Her. 
As a fifth generation settler of Irish and Scots ancestry, raised in Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee territories covered by the Upper Canada Treaties, and a first-in-family university graduate and feminist, I am grateful to acknowledge I reside and work in ᐊᒥᐢᑿᒌᐚᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ (Amiskwacîwâskahikan), in the lands of the Pâpâsces, the Neyihaw, Nakota Sioux, Denesuline, Anishinaabe and Niitsitapi peoples, and the homeland of the Métis Nation. I am honoured to recognize the authority of, and my ongoing responsibility to, Treaty 6.

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Research

I am a medical anthropologist with ethnographic expertise in Tonga and Papua New Guinea. With interests in gender, health and power dynamics, my SSHRC, Wenner-Gren, Rockefeller Foundation, Canada Council for the Arts and CIHR-funded research career has focussed on cultural responses to public health messaging in major international campaigns, from WHO's maternal-child health initiatives in Tonga, to the global fight against HIV in Papua New Guinea, and most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. I have peer reviewed publications on: facemasks in Covid-19, medicine and modernity, ecological knowledge, Indigenous women's textiles, mothering, and ethnography of Oceania (Tonga, Papua New Guinea).

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Teaching

Past teaching includes anthropology of health, culture of biomedicine, gender and globalization, and Oceanic ethnography.

Happy to say the Research Partner Network has three Research Partners dedicated to pre-award research development: Dr. Craig Taylor specializes in major Humanities and Social Sciences research proposals; Dr. Sylvia Madueke supports Legal and Business research et recherches en français. Ayantika Mukherjee's speciality is Creative and Community-Engaged Research. Please visit this link to learn more about the Research Partner Network, including the competition supported by the Research Partners, and about the latest addition to the Vice-President Research and Innovation`s portfolio, the Research Administrative Secialists (who support all post-award needs). 

Ying Shan Doris Zhang, Kimberly A. Noels, Heather Young-Leslie, Nigel Mantou Lou

Frontiers in Psychology. 2022 March; 13 (Online) 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.853830

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Nigel Mantou Lou, Kimberly A Noels, Shachi Kurl, Ying Shan Doris Zhang, Heather Young-Leslie

Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology. 2022 January; 10.1037/cdp0000519

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Nigel Mantou Lou, Kimberly A. Noels, Shachi Kurl, Ying Shan Doris Zhang, Heather Young-Leslie

Canadian Psychology. 2021 July; 63 (3):279-297 10.1037/cap0000305

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Ying Shan Doris Zhang, Heather Young-Leslie, Yekta Sharafaddin-Zadeh, Kimberly Noels, Nigel Mantou Lou

Journal of Community Health. 2021 February; (Online)

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Heather E. Young-Leslie & Sean E. Moore

Springer, Dordrecht.. 2012 January; Happiness Across Cultures. Science Across Cultures: the History of Non-Western Science (Vol 6) 10.1007/978-94-007-2700-7_13

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View additional publications

• Adjunct Professor, Anthropology
• LinkedIn
• ORCID
• Research Partners Network (Staff Directory)