Dr. Allie Slemon
Assistant Professor
School of Nursing
Accepting graduate students
- Contact:
- Office: HSD A420 allieslemon@uvic.ca 250-721-7966
- Credentials:
- PhD, RN
- Area(s) of expertise:
- social justice; health equity; mental health; 2S/LGBTQIA+ communities; stigma and discrimination; nursing philosophy; critical theory; qualitative methodologies; discourse analysis; social media
Biography
Dr. Allie Slemon [she/they] joined the School of Nursing in 2023. She began her nursing career as a Registered Nurse in mental health inpatient settings before completing her Master’s and PhD at the University of British Columbia. Her program of research focuses on remediating inequities in health and health care by enhancing capacity for equity and social justice within the nursing profession, nursing education, and the health care system more broadly. She utilizes community-engaged approaches across projects to ensure that efforts to enhance equity within health systems are foundationally driven by the voices of people impacted by structural inequities. Additional research interests include inquiry into mental health care, including addressing stigma and discrimination, and critical examination of safety and risk discourses. She is the co-founder of the AdJust Research Collective alongside Dr. Ingrid Handlovsky.
Click here for more information.
Selected projects include:
The 2SLGBTQIA+ Liaison Nurse Project
This project explores the novel 2SLGBTQIA+ Liaison Nurse role across healthcare contexts, including the impact of this role on queer and trans people’s experiences of health care. Utilizing mixed methods, our team is collecting observational, interview, and log data to understand how this role is conceptualized, practiced, and experienced – with implications for expanding this role across BC and nationally. Ultimately, the aim of this research is to remediate discrimination and inequities experienced by 2SLGBTQIA+ communities within healthcare encounters.
The Seclusion Project
This project is conducted in partnership with the Island Health Mental Health Program and Mental Health Recovery Partners -–South Island, a community-based peer-led organization supporting people experiencing mental health challenges and hospitalization. In the context of a novel Young Adult Mental Health Unit within Island Health, this community-engaged research builds on the insights of nurses and young adults who have experienced seclusion to develop novel strategies, education, and policy guidance for nurses and other mental health providers.
Nursing Students’ Experiences of Discrimination
This study aims to examine nursing students’ experiences of discrimination within their programs, across undergraduate and graduate education. Building on a prior pilot study conducted within British Columbia, this national survey of nursing students’ experiences of discrimination will broadly capture the intersecting dimensions and contexts in which discrimination occurs. Partnered with the Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing / Association canadienne des écoles de sciences infirmières (CASN/ACESI), this project aims to raise awareness about the impacts of discrimination on nursing students, and build educators’ capacity for preventing and remediating discrimination within nursing programs.
Courses taught within the last 5 years include:
- NURS 341 – Nursing Inquiry
- NURS 360 – Nursing Research
- NURS 425 – Qualitative and Quantitative
- NURS 520 – Philosophy for Advanced Practice Nursing
- NURS 525 – Disciplinary Research for Advanced Practice Nursing
A full list of Dr. Slemon’s publications can be found on her Google Scholar Link, and she is also a co-author of A Concise Introduction to Mental Health in Canada (3rd ed.)
Health Research BC – Scholar Award. Enhancing nursing capacity to promote equity: Remediating healthcare inequities through collaborative research partnerships. 2025-2030.
CIHR – Project Grant. Exploring a novel 2S/LGBTQIA+ Nurse Liaison role: A community-engaged mixed-methods investigation. 2025-2030.
SSHRC – Insight Development Grant. Conceptualizing and enacting social justice in nursing: A focused ethnography. 2025-2027.
SSHRC – Partnership Engage Grant. Enhancing equity: Addressing discrimination in Canadian nursing schools. 2025-2026.
Michael Smith Health Research BC – REACH Grant. Embedding research knowledge to prevent seclusion in a young adult inpatient mental health setting in British Columbia. 2024-2025.