Meet Our Teams
Canada Team
Dr. Liza Lorenzetti
Liza is from Italian heritage, born in Montréal, Mohawk Kanien’kehá:ka land (Montréal) and have been living in Mokhinistsis (Calgary) for many years, traditional territory of the Blackfoot Confederacy and people of Treaty 7 and Métis Nation Region 3. She lives in an intercultural and multilingual family with her partner Arya Boustani, who is from Iran, and the wonderful Parisa. She identifies herself with pronouns she or they. As an activist-educator in the Faculty of Social Work, her teaching and research is based on thirty years of social work practice and activism on interconnected social issues including gender-based violence, wealth inequality, peace-building, and anti-racism and reconciliation. As a founding member of Alberta Men’s Network and the Transformative Masculinities Project, she is excited to continue to support community-led and culturally resonating work.
Dr. Aamir Jamal
Dr. Aamir Jamal is Associate Professor of International Social Development and Social Policy at the University of Calgary. He is an esteemed international scholar, researcher, and activist for gender justice, girls’ education, and women’s rights with a focus on the Global South. His work, which emerges from a strong social justice perspective, has informed policy and practice for national governments and international agencies, and inspired social movements. He takes a community-oriented approach towards his work, by integrating his knowledge of Pashtun culture into conversations about advancing girls’ education and women’s rights with men from Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Sarah Thomas (She/Her)
Sarah is currently living as an uninvited settler on the Traditional Lands of the Treaty 7 Territory. She is a recent graduate from the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Calgary. Sarah now works within the Faculty of Social Work as a project coordinator with the Transforming Masculinities project. Her current areas of research interest include gender justice, decolonial research approaches, and mutual aid engagement. She is passionate about community-led work and engages as a learner committed to anti-racist, anti-colonial, and solidarity action. Sarah co-presented her research on sustainable virtual community action and advocacy at the 2020 Northern and Central Social Work Research and Practice Symposium, as well as her work on utilizing Men’s Sheds as a strategy for community capacity building at the 2020 Joint World Conference on Social Work Education and Social Development.
Jeff Halvorsen
is a PhD candidate at the University of Calgary Faculty of Social Work on Blackfoot and Treaty Seven territory and an uninvited settler on T’sou-ke territory. He is studying white men’s allyship focused on anti-domestic violence, anti-racism, and anti-colonization and is currently the research coordinator for the Canada site of the SSHRC funded international project, Stories of personal transformation: Men working for violence prevention and gender equity. He has 17 years experience in a community based settings working with individuals experiencing family violence and abuse, homelessness, and leaving sex work/exploitation and has been a credentialed evaluator with the Canadian Evaluation Society for five years. His research interest is in social justice, ally roles, masculinities, whiteness, and anti-oppressive practice.
Dr. Rita Dhungel
Dr. Rita Dhungel is from Nepali birth and is currently teaching at the School of Social Work at MacEwan University in Edmonton. Using a participatory action research as advocacy and transformative research approaches, Dr. Dhungel has been significantly involved in community-based research at promoting community and social change, through engaging with a wide range of communities, including immigrants and refugees, trafficking survivors and People Living with HIV, both in local and international contexts. By inviting research participants as peer researchers to a participatory action research, Dr. Dhungel has demonstrated her aspirations for social justice research, through engaging in photovoice and street dramas as empowerment and liberatory research tools. Dr. Dhungel strongly believes that personal and social transformation can be advanced through engaging in "social justice research" and "transformative learning" in teaching.
Dr. Christine Walsh
Christine Walsh is a professor Faculty of Social Work, University of Calgary. She conducts community-based, action-oriented and arts-informed research in collaboration with marginalized populations, including Indigenous people, newcomers, and older adults and youth to enhance social inclusion and well-being. Christine also conducts research in interpersonal violence, gender-justice and allyship.
Abbas Mancey
Abbas has worked in the areas of engaging men and boys in domestic violence and gender equity; mental health awareness; conflict resolution and community development as a researcher and project manager for over 13 years. He has worked on initiatives with the United Nations, local governments and non-profit organizations in Guyana, the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa, the US and Canada. He is a founding member of the Alberta Men’s Network which is a diverse community of Albertans committed to nonviolence and working across the gender spectrum to create healthy families and communities. Abbas has a degree (BA) in International Development from the University of Calgary and a BSc. from the University of Guyana. He is also a 2010 Fogarty’s Fellow in Research Practice & Program Evaluation from The Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami. Most of all he is a proud dad of two girls, 5 years and 11 months.
Danial Jamal
Danial Jamal is a New York born, Pakistani Social Work student, currently residing on the Traditional Lands of the Treaty Seven Territory. Danial's current area of academic interest is behavioural science and developmental psychology, but with a more ethnocultural, "leader; not client" lens. Danial is currently helping the Faculty of Social Work in developing their "Transforming Masculinities: International Symposium for Well-Being & Violence Prevention". Danial is also helping in coordinating Men's Well-Being Groups to engage ethno-cultural men as community leaders in violence prevention. Aside from his work with the Faculty, Danial runs the Mental Health Awareness (MHA) Organization and the Breathe Easy Organization.
Caribbean Team
Dr. Peter Weller
Dr. Peter Douglas Weller is a Jamaican Community Clinical Psychologist who brings to his work more than thirty years’ experience as a Clinician and Consultant. He is a member and Past President of the Jamaica Psychological Society and a member of the Trinidad and Tobago Association of us Psychologists. He sits on the Council of Presidents and Elders of the Caribbean Alliance of National Psychological Associations (CANPA. He co-chairs their Committee on Disaster Mental Health and Psychosocial Support responding challenges such as COVID-19, Volcanic activity, and the hurricane seasons. He is the Founder and a former Chairman of the Caribbean Male Action Network (CariMAN) and represented CariMAN on the Board of MenEngage Alliance (Washington, D.C.). He sits on the Board of The Coalition Against Domestic Violence in Trinidad and Tobago. Dr. Weller is currently involved in developing an intersectional and lifecycle Caribbean Model for Behavioural and Cultural Change. His clinical focus is on Behaviour Change Interventions: Adult Psychotherapy, Group Psychoeducation, EAP and Public Health/ Community Interventions for Social Change.
Dr. Gabrielle Hosein
Dr. Gabrielle Hosein is Senior Lecturer at the Institute for Gender and Development Studies, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus. She is the co-editor of two collections, Negotiating Gender, Policy and Politics in the Caribbean: Feminist Strategies, Masculinist Resistance and Transformational Possibilities, and Indo-Caribbean Feminist Thought: Genealogies, Theories, Enactments. She is co-Executive Editor of the journal, The Caribbean Review of Gender Studies, published since 2007 by the IGDS. In 2018, she authored the qualitative study of intimate partner violence, Gender Based Violence in Trinidad and Tobago, published by UN Women. In 2019, she authored the study Gender Mainstreaming in National Development Planning, published by UN ECLAC. Part of Caribbean feminist organising for twenty-five years, her current work focuses on masculinities, gender-based violence, adolescent sexualities, and Caribbean feminisms. Her blog, Diary of a Mothering Worker, has been published as a weekly newspaper column since 2012.
Kevin Liverpool
Kevin Liverpool is a men and masculinities practitioner and a champion for gender equality across the Caribbean. He is an Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity with the London School for Economics and Political Science where he focuses on "intimate inequalities” – the ways which person choices with the family are influenced by broader disparities of power. He serves as a Director of the Coalition Against Domestic Violence and works with NGOs to design gender transformative programs. As a GBV educator and a freelance columnist, Kevin hopes to inspire change through culturally-relevant and accessible content.
Nepal Team
Dr. Rita Dhungel
Dr. Rita Dhungel with Nepali birth is currently teaching at the School of Social Work at the University of Valley, Abbotsford, British Columbia. Using a participatory action research as an advocacy and a transformative research approach, Dr. Dhungel as PI and Co-PI has been significantly involved in community-based research at promoting community and social change, through engaging with a wide range of communities, including immigrants and refugees, trafficking survivors and People Living with HIV, both in local and international contexts. By inviting research participants as peer researchers to a participatory action research, Dr. Dhungel has demonstrated her aspirations for social justice research, through engaging in photovoice and street dramas as empowerment and liberatory research tools. Dr. Dhungel strongly believes that we as a group can promote personal and social transformation through “engaged pedagogy” in teaching, research and services.
Dr. Bidur Dhungel
Dr. Bidur Dhungel is as an Executive Director supporting PhD students in their research and co-editor of the interdisciplinary journal (Journal of Advanced Academic Research, JAAR) which is published every six months. His higher education focused on Biology and Environment Science. He completed his Master and PhD from the University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa, Japan under the MEXT Scholarship and a Post-doc from the University of Turku, Finland under the Erasmus Mundus Scholarship. Dr. Dhungel is an expert at Policy Research Institute, and life member at Nepal PhD Association and Japan University Alumni Association Nepal (JUAAN), Kathmandu, Nepal. He is also a recipient of the Presidential Award by Nepal Government, Zoological Science Award and Fuji Award by Zoological Society of Japan.
Saroj Khanal
Saroj Khanal is studying his Masters in Sociology. His areas of interest and practice include gender equality, women empowerment, gender-based violence’s, feminism, spirituality, self-consciousness, time management, animal rights, human rights. He is excited and motivated to work with national and international projects related to gender and is happy to be a part of this project and to learn about sensitive approaches in practice. He has an experience of banking especially in the credit sector. He has written articles addressing gender issues have been published in E-papers. He has a good command of English, Nepali, and Hindi as a medium of communication. He also has achieved training in cooking, first aid and CPR techniques, AML and KYC training in banking.
Namrata Gautam
Namrata Gautam is an operation manager and researcher at Southwestern Centre for Research and PhD Studies. Additionally, she is also working as a Lecturer in different colleges of Nepal. She completed her master’s degree in business studies from Global College of Management affiliated to Tribhuvan University, Nepal. Namrata’s key areas of interests include business studies, entrepreneurship, management and leadership, strategic management, communication, and corporate social responsibility. Previously, she worked in with a waste management project in Nepal in collaboration with graduate students of Aoyama Gakuin University, Japan. She also worked with Rotaract Nepal along with UNICEF and Nepal Government, promoting Safe Hand washing projects in Nepal.
Amrit Bikram Rai
Amrit Rai is working as a Consultant at National and international NGOs, Research Agencies, and Academic Institutions. Rai completed his MPH in 2012 from Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Science of India. He has served as a Program Manager for National Program of HIV, TB and Hepatitis C at NAP+N. He has 15 years of experience and extensive knowledge on HIV. He is the key person to ensure the free health insurance scheme of Government for PLHIV in Nepal and initiator of “Empowering Women Living with HIV (WLHIV) Project,” to reduce the violence on WLHIVs through economic empowerment in 2016. He also has work experience as a Program Manager for COVID-19 Relief Project. He regularly participates in different international and national conferences. Recently, he published a research paper, “Community led testing among people who inject drugs: A community centered model to find new cases of HIV and Hepatitis C in Nepal.”
Pakistan Team
Dr. Aamir Jamal
Dr. Aamir Jamal is Associate Professor of International Social Development and Social Policy at the University of Calgary. He is an esteemed international scholar, researcher, and activist for gender justice, girls’ education, and women’s rights with a focus on the Global South. His work, which emerges from a strong social justice perspective, has informed policy and practice for national governments and international agencies, and inspired social movements. He takes a community-oriented approach towards his work, by integrating his knowledge of Pashtun culture into conversations about advancing girls’ education and women’s rights with men from Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Dr. Muhammad Ibrar
Dr. Muhammad Ibrar is working as Assistant Professor and Coordinator for the Master’s program in Social Work, in the Department of Social Work, University of Peshawar, Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan since June 2010. He did his PhD in Social Work, with the main focus on Health Services in Pakistan and PGD in International Environmental Law. He has done his Master in Social Work back in 2005 from the Department of Social Work, University of Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Before joining the University, he was working with Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) for the 4years and as a consultant for 1 year. He has vast and enriching experience of working at grass root level in most of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, FATA and Afghanistan.
Adnan Ashraf
holds both a Master’s and M. Phil degree in Social Work along with an NGO Management Certificate from the University of Peshawar, Pakistan. He currently works as Social Welfare Officer and adjunct lecturer in the College of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (CPMR) at the Paraplegic Center Peshawar, which is a state-of-the-art institute providing comprehensive physical rehabilitation to people with spinal cord injuries, post-polio paralysis, and children with clubfoot. Adnan Ashraf has 13 years of experience in the Social Work field including roles as a child protection officer and social welfare officer. His core areas of interest include child protection, child welfare, public policy, social welfare, gender justice, post-conflict intervention, disability, and social inclusion. Additionally, he has extensive experience as an academic fieldwork as a supervisor of BSW/MSW students and qualitative research. He has published 8 research articles in national and international journals which reflect approaches to gender empowerment and gender mainstreaming. His recent accomplishments include completing Qualitative Research Methods course with the Faculty of Social Work, University of Calgary, and two publications, “Domestic and Gender‑Based Violence: Pakistan Scenario amidst COVID‑19,” and “Socio-Cultural Barriers to Empowerment: A Study of Working Women in Vocational Training Institutes of District Kohat.”
Dr. Waqar Ahmad
is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science & International Relations Qurtuba University of Science & Technology Peshawar and a Visiting Lecturer at the Department of Political Science University of Peshawar Pakistan. Having Ph.D. in political science he specializes in governance with a focus on the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pakistan. His research interests include discourses in governance, the intersection of religion and politics, encounters of religious organizations with secular formations, religious political groups and religion and state-formation with a focus on the Islamic perspective. He has published nine articles in various journals and presented a few papers in various international conferences. He received various merit scholarships and awards like the prestigious HEC Indigenous Scholarship, Ministry of Foreign Affairs China Award and IRSIP Award giving him the opportunity to stay in various international institutes: China Institute of International Studies Beijing China, School of Religious Studies McGill University Montreal Canada etc. for academic pursuits.