Students and Trainees

PhD Candidate in Global Development Studies, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario

 

Under the supervision of Dr. Allison Goebel, I worked with the long-form DRC interviews to explore women's experiences of sexual encounters with MONUSCO agents. I explored the extent to which the experiences of local women 1) challenge the common victim-centric narratives of sexual interaction in the DRC, 2) complicate our understanding of consent in a peacekeeping economy, and 3) highlight the limitations of the UN's current Zero-Tolerance policy. 

After completing my PhD on the knowledge politics of youth peacebuilding in East Africa I joined the Department of National Defence as a Policy Officer. In this role I am also the Liaison Officer for the National Defence funding Collaborative Research Network on Women, Peace and Security

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Email: a.dixon@queensu.ca 

Second year resident in the integrated Family and Emergency Medicine Program at Dalhousie University

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While transitioning from my undergraduate studies at Queen's University to medical studies at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, I worked in the DRC during the summer of 2018 helping to develop and implement research assistant training, as well as oversee data collection to ensure quality and accuracy. In an attempt to broaden the impact of our work, I created short narrative videos in 6 languages that have been use to disseminate study results to host community partners in the DRC and Haiti. Although I have not been a Queen’s student for quite some time, my work and connection to the project has remained. 

 

Upon completion of my medical degree, I started residency in Sydney, Nova Scotia. I am 1 of 4 residents nationwide in the integrated Family and Emergency Medicine Program. Broad scope and rural generalist medicine has been the focus of my training, preparing me to continue serving under resourced and remote populations.

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Email: annievdube@gmail.com 

Population Health PhD Student at NYU

 

As part of my Masters of Public Health at Queens University, I assisted with field data collection and monitoring in Haiti. In addition, I contributed to a secondary analysis to understand the perceptions of local Haitian community members around sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeepers. 

 

I am currently pursuing my PhD at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. My research, funded by a 3-year CIHR Doctoral Foreign Study Award, focuses on improving hospital-based care for pregnant people with opioid use disorder. This work integrates skills and knowledge I developed in qualitative methodology and gender-based care while working on the SEA project in Haiti.

 

Email: kingc11@nyu.edu

Medical Student at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta

 

Under the supervision of Dr. Susan Bartels, I worked on two research projects using secondary data analysis based on SenseMaker data from Haiti and the Democratic Republic of Congo during my undergraduate degree at Queen's University. The first was a qualitative analysis of micronarrative data to explore local Haitian perceptions of the origins of the 2010 Haiti cholera outbreak, which was caused by United Nations peacekeepers. The second was a mixed-methods project that examined the perceptions of adolescents aged 13-17 on how the lives of women and girls have been affected by the presence of UN peacekeepers within the DRC.

 

Once entering medical school at the University of Alberta, I became the VP Community Engagement within our student council and lead 4 student-run electives on ethical engagement in global health, as well as inner city, reproductive, and Indigenous health. I recently completed a scoping review on the disparities in surgical morbidity and mortality between Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S. I've also had the opportunity to lead a 4-week elective on pediatric malaria in Kambuga, Uganda this past summer. Currently, I am undergoing clinical rotations as part of my 3rd year and hope to keep community-centered research and care as a priority within my future career as a physician and researcher.

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Email: gfraulin@ualberta.ca 

Economics PhD Candidate at North Carolina State University, AgBioFEWS Fellow

 

I was the In-country research manager for the 2017 Haiti field data collection. Supported mixed methods data analysis of Haiti data to present Haitian perceptions of the UN MINUSTAH mission.

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Following my work on the PP-SEA project, I received an MA in Political Economy from Fordham University, NY,  and completed a Public Policy Fulbright in Cote d'Ivoire. I am currently working on my Ph.D. in Economics at North Carolina State University, where I study agricultural decision-making, particularly in light of environmental effects like climate change, as well as the effects and prevalence of heavy metal pollution.

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Email: ghferraro@gmail.com

Postdoctoral Researcher at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario

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I joined the DRC SenseMaker project in September 2017, contributing to the survey design. I later assisted with research training and early data collection supervision in May 2018, and focus group discussions and meetings with MONUSCO personnel in March 2020, both in Goma.

 

My doctoral dissertation, supervised by Dr. Annie Bunting, draws on the SenseMaker data and qualitative interviews to elucidate conceptions of justice in relation to peacekeeper SEA. I uncovered a sense of ambivalence toward law and human rights paradigms in relation to sexual abuses, alongside serious barriers to reporting and accessing support. My SSHRC-funded postdoctoral research at Queen's University builds on findings related to complex conceptions of harm, care, and justice following SEA in the DRC.

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Email: heather.tasker@queensu.ca 

Community Impact Department  Program Manager at Kingston United Way

 

Under the supervision of Dr. Allison Goebel, I completed my Master's Research Project using the DRC SenseMaker data. Analyzing a small sub-set of the micro-narratives collected, I focused on the complex and varied sexual interactions and relationships between UN personnel and local Congolese women. In particular, my work explored the interplay between 'love', sex, and economics within the narratives, utilizing and expanding upon the Peacekeeping Economy framework. This work was further explored in collaboration with Dr. Susan Bartels, Dr. Goebel and Alina Dixon for a paper published in International Peacekeeping. 

Since November 2019, I have worked in the not-for-profit sector with the Kingston United Way. As Program Manager in the Community Impact department, my main portfolio is the administration and management of Federal “Reaching Home” Funds for addressing and ending homelessness. This provides support to the work being done in the Kingston community to improve the housing and homelessness system in collaboration with the City of Kingston and the frontline service providers. 

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Email: kaitdg2@gmail.com

Senior Mediator with B-Stock Solutions

 

Using both the SenseMaker data from Haiti and qualitative interviews with MINUJUSTH officials, I focused my research on the extent to which "peace babies" are considered victims both in theory and practice and in light of new UN policies based on a victim-centered approach, what legal responsibilities the UN may have toward peace babies specifically.

 

After completing my LLM and serving for a year as an AmeriCorps fellow in Baltimore, during which time I was involved in various community conflict resolution efforts, I am currently working as a mediator resolving disputes for a company committed to sustainability within the e-commerce industry.

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Email: katiealtar@me.com 

Masters Graduate, International Affairs, the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies

 

I have worked under Dr Annie Bunting since 2019, co-authoring “'Those MONUSCO agents left while we were still pregnant’: Accountability and support for peacekeeper-fathered children in the DRC” in the Journal of Peace Research. The qualitative data from the DRC cohort also contributed to my Master’s thesis at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies.

 

Since completing my Masters in International Affairs, I have begun working with the Global Survivors Fund, which was founded by Nobel Peace Prize laureates Nadia Murad and Dr Denis Mukwege. There, I work for and with survivors of conflict-related sexual violence around the globe, including in Türkiye, Ukraine, Nigeria, and Colombia.

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Email: kvdw@hotmail.ca

Post-Doctoral Researcher in Forensic Psychology, University of Birmingham, UK

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My doctoral research at the University of Birmingham explored the lived experiences of children fathered by peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This work, situated at the intersection of psychology and peace and conflict studies, showed the profound challenges of stigma and socio-economic marginalization these children face. It emphasized their needs and rights, aiming to amplify their voices for policy reform. Currently, as a post-doctoral researcher with the Rights for Time research network, I investigate the enduring impacts of conflict, focusing on how violence and humanitarian crises affect diverse populations over time. My role involves leading interdisciplinary research aimed at enhancing humanitarian protection. Among my key projects is a Rapid Evidence Assessment on children born of conflict-related sexual violence, commissioned by the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office. Additionally, I am synthesizing research findings for the Rights4Time network, focusing on the temporal dimensions of violence and trauma in conflict zones to drive policy and practice innovations.

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Email: k.w.wagner@bham.ac.uk

PhD Candidate in Public Health Sciences at Brown School, Washington University in Saint Louis

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Using qualitative and quantitative data collected in Haiti pertaining to women and girls' experiences with UN peacekeepers, I explored (i) The distribution and consequences of peacekeeper-perpetrated sexual exploitation and abuse, (ii) Gender-stratified differences in perceptions of sexual abuse and exploitation, and (iii) The lived experiences of mothers raising peacekeeper-fathered children in Haiti. The analyses supported my master's thesis in epidemiology and a separate research assistantship. I also had the opportunity to travel to Haiti in 2019 to conduct field work and contextualize findings with the Haitian community partners.

 

I am currently a global health researcher who applies the methods of social epidemiology to address the complex ways violence against women and children contributes to health disparities. My doctoral research is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Philanthropic Educational Organization. I also consulted on a research collaboration with UNICEF, exploring the nexus between violence and nutrition. My early research experiences with the peacekeeping project solidified research skills, critical analysis, and global health competencies as well as established my growing research trajectory.

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Email: 16LV6@queensu.ca 

BScH in Life Sciences, Queen's University

 

I completed my undergraduate thesis project at Queen’s University under the supervision of Dr. Susan Bartels and Dr. Melanie Walker. Using the SenseMaker data from Haiti, I examined the association between exposure to peacekeeper-perpetrated SEA and satisfaction with life among Haitian community members.

 

Since completing this project, I had the opportunity to spend four months in an underprivileged area of the Dominican Republic that has a large population of Haitian immigrants. Through a local non-profit organization, I was able to run a variety of educational and community outreach programs which primarily aimed to increase literacy in this community. Currently, I am working as a Program Coordinator for the Bow Valley Family Resource Network, which is a non-profit organization in Alberta that provides prevention and early intervention programming to children and their caregivers.

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Email: kenziemaskery@gmail.com 

Senior Analyst

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I worked with the DRC Sensemaker data for my master's thesis. My area of focus within the project was to use the mixed-methods data to understand the characteristics of peacekeeper sexual interactions, and develop an index to measure an individual's degree of exposure to peacekeeper-perpetrated sexual exploitation and abuse. The relationship between this index measure and the outcome of public and structural stigmatization was assessed for Congolese women and girls using regression modelling.

 

I am currently working at the Canadian Institute for Health Information to develop a health workforce indicator for the Pan-Canadian Shared Health Priorities project. 

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Email: salexgray@gmail.com 

Program Coordinator at a Non-Profit in the Northwest Territories that supports the 2SLGBTQIA+ Community

 

Under the supervision of historian Dr. Karen Dubinsky, I worked with the Haiti Sensemaker data to explore how the MINUSTAH peacekeeping operation impacted Haitian Governance efforts. 

 

Using a gender-based analysis, I interpreted the qualitative focus group interviews with Haitian women and girls raising peace babies to reveal their social reproductive experiences.  I argue that their social reproduction labour is shaped by, and re/shapes, the spatiotemporalities of violence in Haiti. By paying attention to the structural and embodied violence which operate throughout the spaces and routines of these women's everyday social reproduction, the contemporary effects of structures like colonialism, race, and gender are revealed. Additionally, in 2019, I partook in field work in Haiti as well as knowledge translation discussions with Haitian research partners regarding the results of the Sensemaker data.

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Email: 18trk1@queensu.ca 

Research Fellow, History at the University of Birmingham, UK

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My doctoral research focused on colonial histories of slavery and sexual and gender-based violence in the Belgian Congo during the early twentieth century. I am currently conducting research for the PPSEA Project, evaluating training programs aimed at UN peacekeepers on topics of gender and the Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA).

 

I have several years of research and impact-related experience and am a Trustee of GRACE International, a charity that supports children born of war and conflict-affected communities. I am also involved in producing a Rapid Evidence Assessment for the UK government on children born of conflict-related sexual violence.

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Email: t.smith.5@bham.ac.uk

PhD Candidate, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs in Ottawa

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My research interests are in the areas of international security and Canadian foreign policy. My work has focused on the AUKUS trilateral security pact, NATO and UN peacekeeping operations, and foreign interference in Canada’s political process. I also have research interests in the Canadian Armed Forces and intelligence studies, proposing to comparatively study foreign interference in civil society across Five Eyes countries for my dissertation. 

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Email: w.nicol@queensu.ca