Close-up photo of Jessica, standing outside in the snow with buildings and bare trees in the background. She is wearing a green jacket, has long brown hair and glasses on her head.

Dr. Jessica Shaw

PhD, MSW, BSW, BA (RSW)
Pronouns: she/they

Positions

Associate Professor

Faculty of Social Work, Calgary Campus

Graduate Program Director

Faculty of Social Work, Calgary Campus

SSHRC Adjudication member for 2021-2022; 2022-2023; 2023-2024

SSHRC

Contact information

Phone number

Office : +1 (403) 220-7361

Location

Office : MacKimmie TowerMT425

I'm looking for...

Research partners

NGOs, PhD, MSW Thesis, or other graduate students who are interested in community-based and self-managed abortion care and activism (particularly in Canada; open to herbal, medication, and procedural)

Learning opportunities

Offering social work research practicums to students interested in sexuality, gender, and reproductive justice and/or secondary data analysis opportunities (topics vary, please contact).

Background

Educational Background

B.A. Women's Studies and Psychology (Joint), University of Ottawa, 2006

B.S.W. Social Work, Lakehead University, 2009

M.S.W. Social Work and Women’s Studies (Joint), Lakehead University, 2010

Ph.D. Social Work, University of Calgary, 2015

Research

Areas of Research

Reproductive Justice

Especially abortion rights, including access to abortion outside of medicolegal systems (ex. self-managed abortion, home abortion provision, herbal abortion, lay providers, activist providers).

Medical Assistance in Dying

Especially understanding perceptions and experiences of end-of-life care - including MAiD - of people who have limited social and medical supports (ex. people experiencing poverty, prisoners), and qualitative experiences of MAiD provision.

Relational Research

Especially work that is rooted in and led by community, and as informed by: community-based participatory action research, standpoint theory, intersectional analysis, sex and gender based analysis, queer phenomenology, oral and narrative ways of knowing, decolonial and Indigenous ways of knowing, anti-racism.

Participation in university strategic initiatives

Projects

(Updated September 2024)

*Developing an Indigenous model of mental wellness (ongoing)

Creative

Abortion and mothering: Research, stories, and artistic expressions (completed)

The Calgary Homeless Memorial Project: Public art as an expression of community advocacy and research (completed)

2SLGBTQIA+ 

*Community-based peer support as a mitigating factor of transgender and gender non-confirming suicidality (ongoing)

Implications of Queer experiences of psychedelic states of consciousness on the development and practice of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy (completed)

Women's experiences of treatment-emergent sexual dysfunction (completed)

How waiting for medical care affects the well-being of trans* people in Alberta (completed)

Menstruation, Abortion, Birth 

*Self-managed abortion: Demystified, demedicalized, decentralized, decriminalized, destigmatized (ongoing)

Menstrual Product Programs and Free Vend Dispensers (completed)

What happens beyond the clinic?: New data on home abortion providers and practices in North America (completed)

Assessment, education, and outreach related to mifepristone knowledge and access among community-based abortion providers outside the formal healthcare system in the United States (completed) 

Physicians of conscience: A narrative inquiry with Canadian abortion providers (completed)

Pregnant peoples' experiences with birth doulas in Winnipeg, MB (completed)

The medicalization of birth and midwifery as resistance (completed)

A feminist discourse on how the concepts of choice, informed consent, and empowerment are constructed in medical birthing literature (completed)

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Bridging the university/community divide: Exploring ways to implement practice-based research in social work education (completed)

Making social work accessible through the airwaves: Developing podcasting as a pedagogical approach for experiential teaching and learning (completed)

The alignment of the Virtual Learning Circles program to university strategies and online program quality standards (completed)

Medical Assistance in Dying

Exploring palliative care and medical assistance in dying in Canadian prisons (completed)

Clinical presentations of suicidality in relation to medical assistance in dying (completed)

Acute advanced requests for medical assistance in dying: A pilot project (completed)

Perceptions and experiences of medical assistance in dying in marginalized communities: Including illicit substance users, people living in poverty, and people who have experienced homelessness (completed)

Physician assisted death: The experiences of patients, support persons, and physicians (completed)

Publications

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