Elisa Lacerda-Vandenborn headshot

Dr. M. Elisa Vandenborn

PhD
Pronouns: She, her, hers

Affiliations

Associate Professor

Werklund School of Education, Specialization, Counselling Psychology

Director, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

Werklund School of Education, Academic Support Offices

Academic Coordinator, MEd in School Counselling Program

Werklund School of Education, Specialization, Counselling Psychology

Contact information

Phone number

Office: 403.220.3631

Location

Office: EDT632

For media enquiries, contact

Clayton MacGillivray
Content and Media Specialist


Email: clmacgil@ucalgary.ca
Twitter: @UCalgaryEduc

Preferred method of communication

elisa.vandenborn@ucalgary.ca

Background

Educational Background

Ph.D. Educational Psychology, Simon Fraser University, 2020

M.A. Educational Psychology, Simon Fraser University, 2014

B.A. Psychology, Simon Fraser University, 2010

Biography

Dr. Elisa Lacerda-Vandenborn was born and grew up in Curitiba, Brazil, making Canada home in 2004. At Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, BC), she completed a BA in Psychology (2009), and an MA (2014) and PhD (2020) in Educational Psychology. 

Since joining the Werklund School in Education in 2018, Elisa has served as the Director of the Teaching Across Borders Program (2021-2023) and Academic Coordinator for several certificate and diploma program including Community Engagement: An Ethical Practice, Mental Health and Wellbeing in Schools: Social Justice in Practice Certificate, and Foundations in School and Counselling Psychology Certificate (2021-2025). 

Dr. Lacerda-Vandenborn is the Academic Coordinator for the MEd in School Counselling Program https://MEd in School Counsellling and Indigenous Wellness Certificate https://indigenous-wellness MEd

Professional & Community Affiliations

  • Board Member, Conjoint Faculties Research Ethics Board. University of Calgary
  • Member,  Research Advisory Committee - Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary.
  • Editorial Board Member, Journal of Indigenous Social Development. https://ucalgary.ca/journals/indigenous-social-development
  • Editorial Advisor. Canadian Journal of Child Psychology 
    https://journals.sagepub.com/home/cjs
  • Editorial Advisor. Children and Youth Services Review
  • Editorial Advisor. Interchange: A Quarterly Review of Education
  • Member of the Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology- Division 24 - American Psychological Association.
  • Member of the International Society for Dialogical Science (ISDS).
  • Member of the Indigenous Research Institute (IRI) - Simon Fraser University

Research

Areas of Research

Research Program

Dr. Elisa Lacerda-Vandenborn is an Associate Professor in Counselling Psychology and the Director of Apoema Research Circle, an international interdisciplinary group devoted to community-led initiatives. 

Dr. Lacerda-Vandenborn's research program closely aligns with the principles of DORA wherein meaningful engagement with communities, epistemic curiosity, and respectful engagement with plural systems of being, knowing, and doing are critical to enact impactful research, social action and reform. As a non-Indigenous scholar committed to equity, diversity, and inclusion, Elisa recognizes that the responsibility to decolonize and liberate psychological education, practice, and research rests heavily on non-Indigenous folks such as herself. In both her country of origin, Brazil, and Canada, she seeks parallel paths to honour Indigenous wisdom. Dr. Lacerda-Vandenborn leads several national and international projects with Indigenous communities in Brazil, Canada, and New Zealand to influence social institutional practices and legislation concerned with self-determination of mental health, child welfare, and youth justice. 

Adopting liberatory and decolonial lenses, Dr. Lacerda-Vandenborn's scholarship is centred around epistemological and social justice matters, such as whose ethical principles are upheld in the academy and society, whose knowledges are offered as valid and consequently implemented in social institutional practice and legislation, which research methodologies count as evidence, and the implications of colonial and neoliberal thought for children, families, and communities.

Her current projects include these areas of study:

  • communal selfhood and ethics
  • ethical community engagement with minoritized communities
  • culturally-safe and responsive practices
  • anti-oppressive and liberatory psychological education, practice, and research
  • Indigenous self-detemination of wellness, child welfare, and youth justice
  • Indigenous-led trauma-informed care and practices
  • intergenerational learning
  • relational and decolonial qualitative methodologies
  • equity, diversity, and inclusion
  • liberatory approaches to graduate supervision 

 

 

 

 

Broader areas:
  • Theoretical and philosophical psychology
  • Critical cultural hermeneutics
  • Communal selfhood
  • Communal ethics
  • Community-engaged scholarship
  • Relational and participatory methodologies
  • Intercultural understandings
  • Social policy and social justice
  • Equity, diversity, and inclusion
  • Child welfare systems
  • Indigenist philosophy and praxis
  • Indigenous and non-Indigenous relations and collaborations 

Courses

Course number Course title Semester
EDER 655.20 Ethics of Community Engagement. Community Engagement: An Ethical Practice Certificate Fall 2021
EDER 655.18 LEC 02 02 Capstone Project in Indigenous Education 2021
EDER 655.15 LEC 02 02 Making a Case for Decolonization 2020
EDER 655.16 LEC 03 03 Decolonizing through Indigenous Arts and Media 2020
EDER 70306 LEC 01 01 Special Topics in Educational Theory 2021
EDUC 450 SEC 05 S05 Diversity in Learning 2020
EDUC 530 SEC 09 S09 Indigenous Education 2020
EDUC 450 SEC 06 S06 Diversity in Learning 2021
EDUC 520 SEC 03 S03 Interdisciplinary Learning 2020
EDUC 530 SEC 08 S08 Indigenous Education 2021
EDER 655.25 Community Engaged Project Spring 2022

Projects

Projects that Inform the Apoema Research Circle
  • Mapping social service provision: Communal intercultural perspectives and insights. 2021-2022, Principal Investigator

Funding: Werklund School of Education Office of Internationalization- Advancing Intercultural Capacity Grant ($2,500)

Co-Investigators: Dr. Patricia Danyluk & Dr. Tanya Mudry (Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary), Dr. Rita Helena Gomes & Dr. Denise Silva Vasconcelos (Community Psychology & Social Policy, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Brazil), Dr. Marta Patrão & Dr. Teresa Forte (Social, Political, and Territorial Sciences, Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal).

  • The experiences of Indigenous school psychology trainees working with Indigenous communities. 2020- 2021, Co-Investigator.

Funding: MITACS Accelerate ($300,000)

Principal Investigator: Dr. Meadow Schroeder (Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary). 

  • What does reconciliation mean to me? 2020- 2021, Co-Investigator.

Funding: ii’ taa’poh’to’p Grant Competition ($10,000)

Principal Investigator: Dr. Liza Lorenzetti (Faculty of Social Work, University of Calgary).

Co-Investigators: Dr. Yvonne Poitras Pratt & Dr. Patricia Danyluk (Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary), Mr. Mick Elliot (Industry).

  • Relational Pedagogies for Engaging Students in Online Indigenous Education. 2019- 2021- Principal Investigator

Funding: Taylor Institute Teaching and Learning- Development and Innovation Grant ($7,250)

Co-Investigators: Dr. Yvonne Poitras Pratt, Dr. Patricia Danyluk, Dr. Aubrey Hanson, Dr. Teresa Fowler, Dr. Jennifer Markides, & Jennifer MacDonald (PhD candidate) (Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary).

  • Ethical community engagement: A cross-cultural and Indigenous collaboration between Canadian and Brazilian Indigenous teacher education programs. 2019-2020- Principal Investigator

Funding: University of Calgary Research Grants (URGC) Development Stream ($9,975).

Co-Investigators: Dr. Yvonne Poitras Pratt (Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary), Dr. Denise Silva & Dr. Rita Helena Gomes (Community Psychology & Social Policy, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Brazil).

  • Walking Together: A mini-documentary of an Indigenous-non-Indigenous community-engaged research partnership to return children in care home (2019-2022- Principal Investigator

Funding: Werklund School of Education- Community Engage Grant ($3,000).

  • An Indigenist-based evaluation of Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata’s Family Group Conferencing Program. 2018- 2020, Co-Investigator.                                                                                                       

Funding: ($70,000) Winnipeg Foundation, Manitoba Provincial Government and Government of Canada (2018-2020).

Principal Investigator: Dr. Michael A. Hart (Faculty of Social Work & Vice-Provost Indigenous Engagement Office, University of Calgary).

Co-Investigator: Don Robinson, MA (Ma Mawi WiChi Itata Centre, Winnipeg, MB).

  • Apoema Project: Exploring a Communally-constituted Self Approach to Child Welfare. 2016- 2018, Principal Investigator.

Funding: ($40,000) SSHRC’s Doctoral Talent Award.

Awards

  • Doctoral Talent Award, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. 2016
  • Graduate Fellowship Award, Simon Fraser University. 2014
  • 10th Annual Awards, Douglas College. 2007
  • University Transfer Program Award, Douglas College. 2006
  • Erm Fiorillo - Hal Davis CKNW Award, Douglas College. 2006

Publications

More Information

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