Dr. Stephanie Nixon is Vice Dean, Health Sciences, and Director of the School of Rehabilitation Therapy. Dr. Nixon has been a physiotherapist, global health researcher and activist scholar for over 25 years. Dr. Nixon co-founded the field of rehabilitation in the context of HIV in Canada the 1990/2000’s, and then Sub-Saharan Africa in the 2000/2010’s. This experience set the stage for the next phase of Stephanie’s research, which explores how systems of oppression shape health research, education and practice, and the role of people in positions of unearned advantage in disrupting these harmful patterns. In 2019, she published the Coin Model of Privilege and Critical Allyship: Implications for Health, an article that translates core concepts in anti-oppression with a focus on accountable action among people in positions of privilege. This work derived from Stephanie’s own learning and unlearning as a straight, able-bodied, white settler woman of English and Irish descent regarding the ways she is structured in history to uphold systems of inequality.
Research Interests
How systems of oppression shape health research, education and practice, and the role of people in positions of unearned advantage in disrupting these harmful patterns.