Team

Mylene Riva – Project Co-Leader/Co-Principal Investigator 

Mylene Riva is Canada Research Chair in Housing, Community, and Health. She is an Assistant Professor at McGill University, jointly appointed in the Institute for Health and Social Policy and the Department of Geography. She holds a bachelor degree in Geography and a doctorate in Public Health and Health Promotion from Université de Montreal, and was a postdoctoral fellow in Health Geography at Durham University in the UK. Mylene has long been conducting research for and with Indigenous communities to assess the impacts of housing conditions on health. Most recently, she co-led the community component of the Qanuilirpitaa? Nunavik health survey and is the co-PI of the Qanuikkat Siqinirmiut health survey.

Nathalie Boucher – Consultant/Methodology Expert

Nathalie Boucher is an anthropologist specialized in urban public spaces. She has a Master’s degree in anthropology from Université Laval as well as a doctorate in urban studies from the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique – Centre Urbanisation Culture Société. For the past 15 years, she has been working on public spaces, especially aquatic public spaces, and their urban social life role. She studied Los Angeles parks and squares, Australian beaches and pools, Taiwan thermal baths, and Montreal (upcoming) public beaches. She founded and leads REsPIRE, an organization offering qualitative research services for urban issues.

Mathilde Lapointe – Co-Project Coordinator/Research Assistant

Mathilde Lapointe completed her Bachelor’s degree at Université de Montréal (Montréal, 2017) and her Master’s degree at Université Laval (Québec, 2021), both in Anthropology. Her master’s study in critical medical anthropology focuses on urban Inuit’s perspectives of their health and well-being, as well as their capacity to maintain or restore them in Montreal. Since 2018, Mathilde has been working with Inuit in Nunavik (Puvirnituq, Kuujjuaq) as well as in urban settings, in Southern Québec. She is a research assistant at the research centre of the Centre hospitalier universitaire de Québec (CHUQ) and for the Research Chair on Relations with Inuit Societies (Sentinelle Nord, Université Laval). She is also a teacher assistant for different Indigenous health and wellbeing courses, at Université Laval. Mathilde is a research assistant and, with Marie-Claude Lyonnais, one of the project coordinators for the Qanuikkat Siqinirmiut health survey.

Ariane Benoît – Postdoctoral Researcher

Ariane Benoit is an anthropologist graduated from Inalco University. Her research focuses on interactional practices in educational and health institutions, and also on the place and the effects of interpersonal relationships on health, well-being and education. From 2008 to 2013, she followed a course about Inuit language offered by Michèle Therrien (1945-2017) at Inalco University. She also organised workshops about Inuit language and culture in primary schools in Créteil (France) for the Inuksuk association. Within the QS project, she works in collaboration with the members of the team at every step of the research. She is also conducting a project about the place of culture in fostered children’ health and well-being in urban settings. During her free time, she practices artistic and well-being activities, such as singing, dancing, poetry and meditation.

Alisha Tukkiapik – Community Coordinator

Originally from Kuujjuaq, Alisha lived for a decade in Kuujjuaraapik, where she worked as a community social worker for 7 years. She is the first Inuk woman to run in the provincial election, when in 2018 she sought to represent the Ungava region for Québec Solidaire. Alisha studied at John Abbott from 2015 to 2017, and she is also enrolled in Nunavik Sivunitsavut for 2021. She has lived in the South since 2019. Her main goal is to be a certified and registered social worker, and to pursue her political activities in the future. Alisha’s main interests are social justice, Inuit rights, politics, psychology and mental health services. She speaks English, French and Inuktitut.

Richard Budgell – Senior Advisor

Richard Budgell is a Labrador Inuk who was appointed a Professor of Practice in the Department of Family Medicine at McGill University in 2020. He had a background of more than 30 years as a public servant with the Government of Canada, including in the health field for close to 15 years. From 1994 to 2003, he led the Aboriginal Head Start in Urban and Northern Communities program, an early intervention program for preschool-age First Nations, Métis and Inuit children and their families which became very popular throughout Inuit Nunangat. He worked on self-government initiatives with Nunavik institutions in the early 2000s and in 2015 became the executive director of the Quebec regional office of the First Nations and Inuit Health Branch of Health Canada. As a proud member of the community, Richard is excited to join the QS team and continue to work to improve the lives of southern and urban Inuit in Quebec!

Morgen Bertheussen – Research Assistant

Morgen is currently finishing her master’s in Geography at McGill University under the supervision of Mylene Riva. She completed her BA Honours in Ecological Determinants of Health in December 2019 at McGill’s School of Environment with a minor in geography. Morgen’s research interests revolve around different conceptualizations of health and well-being, and how these are taken into account in quantitative studies. During her MA, Morgen is grounding quantitative work in qualitative findings through the operationalization the IQI model of Inuit health and well-being. She has been involved in QS since June 2021, to help with the creation and the administration of the health survey.