Faculty

Dr. Donna Jeffery

Acting Director / Professor
School of Social Work

Donna Jeffery’s research and teaching interests include: race and gender issues in the production of professional subjectivity; poststructural analyses of power and knowledge; intersectionality in the social organization of dominance and marginality; social work history. She completed her doctoral studies in sociology in education at OISE/University of Toronto. Her dissertation is entitled, A Terrain of Struggle: Reading Race in Social Work Education.

Donna's current research examines environmentalism, how ideologies of nature operate in social and political spaces, and particularly, how the physical environment is represented in social work discourse. The next phase of this research will extend this methodological approach to the intersections of food politics and forms of social difference.

Office: HSD B302a
Dr. Billie Allan

Associate Professor
School of Social Work
Dr. Billie Allan joined the School of Social Work in July 2016.
Office: HSD B342
Dr. Cheryl Aro

Assistant Teaching Professor
School of Social Work

Cheryl is from the Gitxsan Nation. Gutginuxw (Owl) House and the Gisgaast (Fireweed) Clan. She holds a BSW and MSW, and a PhD from the Social Dimensions of Health program at the University of Victoria. Her PhD research focussed on Indigenous Elder healthcare and dementia care.  Cheryl is honored and grateful to teach as a visitor on the traditional territories of the Songhees, Esquimalt and WS’ANEC’ peoples.

Office: HSD B340
Dr. Jeannine Carriere

Professor
School of Social Work

Jeannine Carriere is Metis originally from the Red River area of southern Manitoba and is honored to have worked in the territories of the Lekwungen, Songhees, Esquimalt and WSÁNEĆ peoples since 2005. Her research interests are in the areas of Indigenous child welfare particularly adoption, identity and wellbeing for Indigenous children. She also holds an interest in areas of Indigenous mental health and community services.

Dr. Carriere has extensive publications including books and films addressing her research outcomes with a particular emphasis on Metis children and families. Dr. Carriere is humbled to have received a number of awards and recognition of her academic and Indigenous community service.

Office: HSD B306
Dr. Gwendolyn Gosek

Assistant Professor
School of Social Work

Gwendolyn Gosek is a member of Lac La Ronge First Nations in Saskatchewan and has Cree/Dene and Norwegian ancestry. Dr. Gosek is honored to be a visitor to the unceded Territories of the Songhees, Esquimalt and WS'ANEC' peoples. Her community work centered around crisis intervention, working with Indigenous youth as well as women and children seeking shelter. She holds a BA in political studies, along with a BSW and MSW from the University of Manitoba and a PhD from the University of Victoria.

Office: HSD B344
Dr. Jacquie Green

Executive Director of IACE / Associate Professor
School of Social Work

Kundoqk, Jacquie Green is from the Haisla Nation. She is the Director and Associate Professor in the School of Social Work and holds a BSW, MPA, and a PhD through the Faculty of Human and Social Development. Her PhD focus includes an analysis of traditional teachings (Nuyuum) implemented within leadership, practices standards and policy.

Committed to decolonization and cultural renewal, her research interests involve strategizing programs and policies that incorporate a strong Indigenous focus and analysis. She currently is a project manager for the Indigenous Child Well-Being Research Network through the faculty of Human and Social Development.

Office: FPH 149
Dr. Rhonda Hackett

Associate Professor
School of Social Work
Dr. Rhonda Hackett joined the School of Social Work in July 2016.
Office: HSD B314
Dr. Cindy Holmes

Associate Professor
School of Social Work

Cindy’s interdisciplinary and collaborative research explores connections between wellbeing, belonging, storytelling and resistance in various communities. Her research and teaching interests include: Two-Spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer (2SLGBTQ+) belonging and wellbeing; critical race feminist theories of intersectionality; decolonization; violence; place and identity; food justice; spirituality and social justice; intergenerational storytelling; participatory action research and arts-based research. For over 25 years, Cindy worked in community organizations in the areas of violence intervention, community development, counseling and advocacy, social justice education and research.

Around the Table Research Project

On study leave
Office: HSD B304
Dr. Zaheera Jinnah

Assistant Professor
School of Social Work

Zaheera joined the School of Social Work in 2019. She has an interdisciplinary background in anthropology, development studies and social work. Her teaching and research interests include the global south, migration studies and decolonial theory.

Her current research explores migration and family in Africa, Germany, and Canada.

Office: HSD B330
Dr. Amanda LaVallee

Assistant Professor
School of Social Work

Amanda LaVallee is a Red River Métis born and raised in Alberta and Saskatchewan in places such as Edmonton, Speers, North Battleford, and Saskatoon. She spent much of her childhood keenly attuned to the prairie landscape through the activities of hunting, trapping, fishing, gathering, and gardening. She holds a Bachelor degree of Indigenous Social Work from the First Nations University of Canada (2001), a Master’s degree in Social Work from the University of Regina (2006), and a PHD (2014) and Post Doctoral Fellowship (2018) in the department of Community Health and Epidemiology from the University of Saskatchewan. Her past research projects examined the health, well-being, and identity of Métis people, specifically their engagement within social systems and their impact on relationships. Currently, Dr. LaVallee holds a SSHRC Race, Gender, and Diversity Initiative Grant for her project titled, Indigenous Specific Racism in the Academy: Research towards Action Oriented Change. 

Office: HSD B306
Dr. Tracey Lavoie

Associate Teaching Professor
School of Social Work
Tracey has been teaching in the UVic School of Social Work since 2006. She completed her PhD at McGill University. Her teaching and research interests include critical, anti-oppressive and decolonizing practice and pedagogy; SOTL- scholarship of teaching and learning; expressive arts and social justice; mindfulness and contemplative practice and pedagogy; social work field education; arts-related qualitative research; and critical hermeneutic phenomenology.
Office: HSD B326
Mehmoona Moosa-Mitha

Professor
School of Social Work

Mehmoona Moosa-Mitha has worked for many years with children and their families, particularly in inner city, poor areas populated with people from visible minority communities. Her research interests include anti-oppressive practice and teaching; children's rights; child welfare practice and policy.

Office: HSD A330
Dr. Jenny Morgan

Assistant Teaching Professor
School of Social Work
Jenny Morgan is from the Gitxsan First Nation. Lax Gibuu (Wolf clan) from the House of Wii Muk'willixw. She joined the UVic School of Social Work in 2021. Her work experience included working directly with community in employment and health services, as well as leadership work with housing organizations and within health authorities. Dr. Morgan's latest role was with the BC Women's and Children's Hospitals as the Director for Indigenous Health. She holds a BSW (2003, UBC), an MSW with an Indigenous Specialization (UVic, 2014), and a Doctorate in Education (2019, UWO). Her research and teaching interests include addressing anti-Indigenous racism, Indigenous Health, and Evaluation.
On leave
Office: B324
Jennifer Nutton

Assistant Teaching Professor
School of Social Work

Jennifer's scholarship, social work practice and teaching pedagogy are rooted in relationality. By relationality, she means that she is a human being in an interdependent relationship with other people, all living things including the land and past and future generations, and with knowledge.​ Her areas of interest and knowledge specialization include: child welfare practice and policy; decolonizing and anti-oppressive practices and pedagogies; community-based participatory research; Indigenous epistemologies and research methodologies; program evaluation; and social work field education. ​Jennifer has worked with child welfare systems in Canada and the United States since 2005. Prior to her work in child welfare, Jennifer engaged in community-based social justice work in the UK and the United States.

On study leave
Office: HSD B334
Gayle Ployer

Associate Director Field Education / Associate Teaching Professor
School of Social Work

Gayle Ployer became a faculty member in the School of Social Work in 2014.

On study leave
Office: HSD B350
Gaben Sanchez

Assistant Teaching Professor
School of Social Work

Gaben Sanchez joined the School of Social Work in July 2022.

Gaben’s work experience includes over twenty years working with lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer people and immigrants in various community settings in the United States. He has many years of teaching experience at the University of Utah in the U.S. and his philosophical framework includes poststructuralism, critical theory, and post-colonialism. He pursues to implement anti-racist and inclusive classroom that examines and challenges academia’s over reliance on Western, European, and North American ways of knowing.

Office: HSD B310
Dr. Robina Thomas

Vice President, Indigenous / Associate Professor
School of Social Work / Office of the President

Qwul'sih'yah'maht, Robina Thomas is Lyackson of the Coast Salish Nation. She holds a BSW, MSW, and a PhD in Indigenous Governance.

Robina is committed to Indigenous education and her research interests include storytelling, residential schools and Uy'skwuluwun: on being Indigenous. She is dedicated to understanding anti-racism and anti-oppression and how these can be 'lived'.

Office: MWB A209
Dr. Bruce Wallace

MSW Faculty Advisor / Professor
School of Social Work
Office: HWB 291
Dr. Jaehee Yi

Professor
School of Social Work
Jaehee Yi was born and raised in Korea. She perceives that poverty in childhood shaped much of her personal experience and growth. She studied various disciplines in undergraduate and graduate programs in Korea, including literature and linguistics, pedagogy, and simultaneous interpretation and translation, and worked in diverse workplaces, such as school education, finance and accounting, and communication. With women’s rights advocacy in Korea and United Nations internship in Jakarta, Indonesia, she started her career focus on social work. Upon moving to the United States in 2003, she earned MSW in the University of Michigan and PhD in social work at the University of Southern California. After working as a professor at the University of Utah, College of Social Work for 11 years, she moved to Canada and joined School of Social Work, University of Victoria in 2022.
Office: HSD B336