Women Growing Older with Cannabis
Research Team
Dr. Saara Greene
Principal Investigator
Saara has been an active researcher for over 20 years, and she grounds her work in community-engaged and participatory action approaches to addressing community identified interests. She draws on narrative and creative methodologies to illuminate and put forward actionable responses to issues and concerns of importance to her community partners. Her research focuses on reproductive and maternal justice and barriers to care for women who experience marginalization along multiple axis of identity and across the lifespan. Since 2018, Saara has been involved in community-engaged participatory research that uses creative methodologies to co-create meaningful and ethical representations and responses to experiences and needs related to accessing cannabis information and support during pregnancy, infant feeding, and parenthood, and with and for older women who use cannabis. She is a Professor and Director of School of Social Work at McMaster University.
Dr. Nicole Dalmer
Co-Applicant
Dr. Nicole Dalmer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health, Aging, and Society at McMaster University and is the Associate Director of the Gilbrea Centre for Studies in Aging. Dr. Dalmer is a leading scholar in of older adult’s information practices, having taught, published, and presented on this topic in international venues. As a critical and social gerontologist, Dr. Dalmer examines the impact of digital infrastructures on feelings of connectedness in later life while reflecting on questions of social status and social inequality that surround aging and technology debates.
Dr. Chelsea Gabel
Co-Applicant
Dr. Chelsea Gabel is Red River Métis from Rivers, Manitoba and Associate Professor at McMaster University in the Departments of Health, Aging and Society and Indigenous Studies. She holds a Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Well-Being, Community Engagement and Innovation and is a research affiliate with the Rupertsland Centre for Métis Research. Dr. Gabel’s research primary research focus is on Métis women's health and well-being and is grounded in a community-based participatory framework. Dr. Gabel has contributed to recent research on cannabis information and support needs of Indigenous women in Canada.
Mary Vaccaro, MSW, PhD Candidate
Co-Applicant
Mary Vaccaro, MSW, PhD candidate, is a CLA in the School of Social work. She uses visual arts-based research methods with women who experience unresolved homelessness and engages in direct practice with women, including older women who use drugs. She is the coordinator of the supervised injection drug site for women, transwomen, and non-binary individuals at the YWCA Hamilton.
Dr. Amanjot Sidhu
Co-Applicant
Dr. Amanjot Sidhu practices Geriatric Medicine in Hamilton, through Hamilton Health Sciences and McMaster University. She has been working with seniors to safely use cannabis to help their pain as well as improve their quality of life and contributed to the women growing older pilot project.
Rochelle Maurice, MSW, MHSc (Bioethics), PhD Candidate
Co-Applicant
Rochelle Maurice has had over 17 years of experience working in healthcare, both in social work and clinical and organizational ethics. Her work in ethics was strongly influenced by her professional background in social work, the most significant of which was in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and Paediatrics department at a community hospital in Toronto. Rochelle’s professional experiences led her to pursue doctoral studies at the intersection of Black maternal care and cannabis consumption.
Dr. May Chazan
Collaborator
Dr. May Chazan is Canada Research Chair in Gender and Feminist Studies at Trent University and serves as an Executive Member for Trent’s Centre for Aging and Society. Chazan’s program of research, Aging Activisms: Storying Resistance, Resurgence, and Resilience, explores why and how activists of different backgrounds, genders, abilities, and ages work for change throughout their lives, how they connect across time and space, and how they narrate, circulate, and archive their own stories of resistance. Through Aging Activisms, Dr. Chazan works to redress the omission of underrepresented older adults’ stories, knowledges, and practices from dominant narratives of social change.
Dr. Kim Sawchuk
Collaborator
Dr. Kim Sawchuk is the Concordia University Research Chair in Mobile Media Studies. Dr. Sawchuk leads Ageing + Communication + Technologies (ACT): Experiencing a Digital World in Later Life. Sawchuk is the Principal Investigator of Aging in Data, a SSHRC Partnership Grant that brings together an interdisciplinary network of scholars and community-based activists and organizations to research the intersections of age studies, communications/media studies, and critical data studies. Dr. Sawchuk has and continues to engage in pivotal research on older women’s relationships with technologies (e.g., “Seniors and Cells”, “I'm G-Mom on the Phone: Remote grandmothering, cell phones and inter-generational dis/connections”).
Marisa Blake
Research Coordinator
Marisa Blake is the Research Coordinator for Dr. Saara Greene. She is mixed white settler and Ojibwe from Treaty 9 Territory and currently lives in Ottawa, Ontario. Her educational background is in Nutrition Sciences from the University of Guelph. She has experience working in medical clinics assisting physicians and providing nutrition counseling to patients. She has also worked in Indigenous community-based research and policy regarding cannabis and health and development of educational resources for public and professional audiences. She is passionate about advocating for better quality and access to culturally safe healthcare and supporting folks who use cannabis.
Community Advisory Board Members
Betty Millar, Jean Clyne and Charo DeVore are older women from across Canada who consume cannabis and who participate in leadership, activism and advocacy activities in their own communities relating to cannabis consumption for older adults.
