Welcome Aimable Nkurunziza, Berman Family Graduate Award recipient, Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing, Western University
I am a fourth-year PhD student at Western University. My doctoral work explores the experiences of adolescent mothers accessing perinatal services in Rwanda to inform the delivery of trauma- and violence-informed care using an interpretive description. Aimable is actively involved in research with 17 peer-reviewed publications and nine grants. While at Western University, Aimable has received competitive awards, including Ontario Graduate Scholarship, Berman Family Graduate Award, and Irene E. Nordwich Foundation.
Aimable’s research aims to improve health outcomes for women, their children, and their families, which are relevant to national and international populations. The primary focus areas of interest are:
• Adolescents’ sexual and reproductive health.
• Maternal and child health services access and utilization.
• Gender-based violence and equity-oriented care.
Welcome Danica Facca, Eugenia Canas Memorial Award 2022 recipient, Health Information Science, Western University
I am a full-time PhD student, part-time Graduate Fellow, and casual Research Coordinator at Western University and St. Joseph’s Health Care London. To date, my body of published scholarship traverses understandings of digital health literacy across the lifespan with particular attention given to the sociocultural effects and consequences of digital health technology use from a critical lens. In continuing my work within the critical digital health sphere, my doctoral research focuses on exploring how menstruating persons engage with menstrual-tracking apps; how their practices influence their relationship to their bodies and conceptions of selfhood; how menstrual-tracking apps further play a role in the development of norms and assumptions surrounding menstruation and menstruating persons; and lastly, the health information needs and healthcare needs of menstruating persons. I have been fortunate to study at Western for many years under the brilliant instruction of Humanities and Health Science scholars which has made me into the interdisciplinary digital health researcher I am today. I have published on topics related to: digital surveillance within the health research context; digital health literacy; women’s use of digital technologies to support their transition to parenting; children’s use of digital technologies and information sharing practices across social media; as well as theoretical approaches to qualitative inquiry including critical understandings of ‘voice’ in research with young people. My research areas of interest include, but are not limited to: digital health; child/youth health; digital health technologies (i.e., smartphones, apps, wearables); critical digital health literacy; health equity; surveillance (technologies) in the health context; critical theory; digital methodologies; and qualitative inquiry, among others.
