Ardath Whynacht Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Mount Allison University
She was a frontline youth worker for many years in organizations such as Leave Out ViolencE and Laing House and has more than a decade of experience conducting arts-based and participatory action research with youth with lived experience of mental illness. She was part of an adolescent psychiatry research and knowledge translation team at the IWK Health Centre and conducted a long-term study with survivors of inpatient care and incarceration who live with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. She is interested in how lived experiences with homophobia, white supremacy and settler colonialism manifest in self-harm, anxiety, and long-term, chronic mental health challenges for young people. She is currently the principal investigator on a SSRHC grant that explores transformative justice approaches for high-risk family violence and has a forthcoming book on abolition and intimate partner homicide. She is a past director on the board of the Nova Scotia Rainbow Action Project and a current board member of Avalon Sexual Assault Centre in Halifax.
