UWinnipeg human rights researcher Dr. Kristi Kenyon (Global College) is one of only 15 career researchers to be selected by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) as a 2017 CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar. This prestigious two‐year appointment includes $100,000 for research support. Kenyon will be joining CIFAR’s Successful Societies Program.
Kenyon’s research engages the interdisciplinary intersection of political science, public health, development, human rights and law with a focus on questions of social well-being and belonging.
“I examine how civil society actors mobilize around human rights, health and development goals in sub-Saharan Africa,” said Kenyon. “CIFAR particularly values interdisciplinarity and public engagement,” added Kenyon, “I’ve been really fortunate at Global College to be in an explicitly interdisciplinary setting in both research and teaching.”
She intends to use the funding to expand the scope of her research and undertake collaborative projects bringing together theory, practice and scholars from from the social sciences, health sciences and law.
This competitive program funds and supports researchers within five years of their first academic appointment, helping them build research networks and develop leadership skills.
“This prestigious award exemplifies the quality of our faculty,” said Dr. Jino Distasio, UWinnipeg Vice-President, Research and Innovation. “Dr Kenyon’s. Research focuses on a critical area of study and this award will offer her the ability to continue working to make an impact.”
“One of CIFAR’s highest priorities is to nurture the careers of the next generation of emerging research leaders,” said CIFAR President and CEO Dr. Alan Bernstein. “The future of research depends on young people, and their energy and innovative thinking is key to developing new approaches for the challenges facing our world today. We are thrilled to provide opportunities for these emerging research leaders.”
Kenyon will join close to 400 fellow CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars. These scholars are some of the world’s best researchers who are addressing some of the most interesting and important questions facing the world today.
The CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars program is enabled by the generous support of the Azrieli Foundation, which funds scientific and medical research, higher education, youth empowerment and school perseverance, Holocaust education, music and the arts, architecture, and quality of life initiatives for people with developmental disabilities.
Biography
Kristi Kenyon is an Assistant Professor at Global College where she teaches in the human rights program. Her research and teaching is informed and inspired by more than fifteen years working in, on and with civil society organizations in Southern Africa, South East Asia and Canada. Her current research focuses on the role that non-governmental organizations play in promoting, protecting and interpreting human rights. She has particular interests in understanding why groups choose to frame their advocacy claims as rights, what role rights-based advocacy plays in HIV advocacy, and how human rights are understood by activists in different social and political contexts. Alongside these areas of research she has a strong interest in participatory, experiential, and interdisciplinary approaches to teaching and learning.
Prior to joining The University of Winnipeg, Kenyon held a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Political Science at Dalhousie University and a postdoctoral fellowship in the Centre for Human Rights in the Faculty of Law at the University of Pretoria (South Africa). She completed her PhD in Political Science at the University of British Columbia where she was a Trudeau, SSHRC and Liu Institute Scholar. She holds an MA in the Theory and Practice of Human Rights from the University of Essex (UK) and a BA in Political Science (UBC). She has worked as a human rights practitioner with groups including the Amnesty International International Secretariat (London), the Asian Institute for Development Communication (Kuala Lumpur) and the Botswana Network on Ethics, Law and HIV/AIDS (Gaborone), and has served on the board of local and international development organizations in Canada and Botswana. Her first book, Resilience and Contagion: Invoking Human Rights in African HIV Advocacy, is forthcoming in November 2017 with McGill-Queens University Press.
