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WESTERN EXCELS WITH THE APPOINTMENT OF
THREE FUNDED POST-DOCTORAL FELLOWS!
T
he School of Occupational Therapy at Western has not
one, not two, but three post-doctoral fellows working
with senior faculty on funded projects. They are: Drs.
Liliana Alvarez, John Grundy and Evelyne Durocher. We are de-
lighted to introduce each of our emerging scholars to the readers
of this newsletter.
Dr. Liliana Alvarez
joined the School of Occupational Ther-
apy in July of 2014, and has since been working with Dr. Sherri-
lene Classen, Professor and Director of Western’s School of
Occupational Therapy. The first postdoctoral fellow to be re-
cruited by the SOT, Dr. Alvarez came
from the University of Alberta, where
she completed her PhD in Rehabilita-
tion Sciences. As an Occupational Ther-
apist and emerging scholar trained in
biomedical engineering and assistive
technologies at the graduate level, the
driving force behind Dr. Alvarez’s un-
folding research and academic career is
a desire to use technology as a power-
ful facilitator of participation for people
with neurological conditions. Her cur-
rent work with Dr. Classen focuses on clinical predictors of fit-
ness to drive for drivers with Parkinson’s disease and the
innovative use of in-vehicle technologies and simulation as inter-
vention strategies for this medically-at-risk population. Dr. Alvarez
is the Colombian delegate for the WFOT and is currently serving
as the deputy coordinator of the Research Program. Along with
Dr. Classen, Editor-in-Chief of the Occupational Therapy Journal
of Research (OTJR): Occupation, Participation and Health, she
serves as Assistant Editor of this eminent journal.
Dr. John Grundy
joined the School of Occupational Ther-
apy this past fall after completing a PhD at York University and a
SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship at Wilfrid Laurier University. He
works with a team of researchers led by Drs. Debbie Rudman
(Western University) and Rebecca
Aldrich (Saint Louis University) on a
SSHRC-funded study of the organization
of services for the long-term unem-
ployed in London, Ontario and Saint
Louis, Missouri. Dr. Grundy’s research
on this project involves collaboration
with community-based stakeholders to
improve our understanding of the lived
consequences of long-term unemploy-
ment, and to identify ways to enhance
services to the unemployed. The cross-national scope of this
study is providing Dr. Grundy with a unique opportunity to ex-
pand on his previous doctoral research on unemployment in
Canada. Further reflecting his interest in public policy and occu-
pational justice, Dr. Grundy is also a co-investigator on a SSHRC-
funded study of employment standards enforcement in Ontario.
Dr. Evelyne Durocher
is an occupational therapist, occupa-
tional scientist, and post-doctoral fellow conducting research in
the area of ethics and rehabilitation care, with a particular focus
on occupation and health, and how these relate to questions of
justice, autonomy and equity in healthcare service delivery. Dr.
Durocher is joining us fromMcGill University in Montreal, where
as a post-doctoral fellow, she has been a member of the Mon-
treal Health Equity Research consortium and the McGill Quali-
tative Health Research group. She will be working under the
supervision of Dr. Elizabeth Anne Kinsella. Dr. Durocher com-
pleted her doctorate at the University
of Toronto in the Joint Centre for
Bioethics and the Graduate Depart-
ment of Rehabilitation Sciences under
the supervision of Drs. Barbara E. Gib-
son and Susan Rappolt. She is a critical
qualitative health researcher. Her doc-
toral research stemmed from her expe-
riences working as an occupational
therapist with older adults in inpatient
rehabilitation settings. More specifi-
cally, her work took a critical feminist
perspective and used ethnographic case study methods to ex-
amine social and political influences on individual perspectives
and behaviours in discharge planning.
In completing these studies, Dr. Durocher engaged in an in-
depth review and critique of concepts of occupational justice.
This project culminated in the publication of two manuscripts
(Durocher, Gibson & Rappolt, 2014; Durocher, Rappolt & Gib-
son, 2014), which were included in a collection featuring the
three most downloaded articles published in Routledge Behav-
ioural Sciences journals in 2014. The review article (Durocher,
Gibson & Rappolt, 2014) is currently number five on the list of
the most read articles since 2011 for the Journal of Occupational
Science and is on reading lists of the universities of Alberta, Man-
itoba and Toronto, as well as McGill and Western Universities in
Canada, Ste-Catherine’s University in the US and Macquarie Uni-
versity in Australia.
Welcome to our Post-Docs, and as we say in the School “up-
ward and onward”!