Posted on July 2: Four new Canada Research Chairs study diverse topics

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BY Shelly Easton

July 2, 2003

Modern Jewish thought and government funding policies for education are some of the diverse areas of study for McMaster's newest Canada Research Chairs.

The newly-appointed social and health scientists will also examine the migration patterns of health-care workers in and out of Canada and the social and economic policies that affect children's health.

McMaster's newest Canada Research Chairholders are:

  • Dana Hollander, assistant professor of religious studies, Canada Research Chair in Modern Jewish Thought

  • Abigail Payne, associate economics professor, Canada Research Chair in Public Economics

  • Ivy Bourgeault, assistant professor of sociology and health studies, Canada Research Chair in Comparative Health Labour Policy

  • Michael Boyle, professor of psychiatry & behavioural neurosciences, associate member of clinical epidemiology & biostatistics, Canada Research Chair in the Social Determinants of Child Health.

This round of chairholders brings McMaster's total number of Canada Research Chairs to 41.

The federal government committed $900 million to the Canada Research Chairs program in the 2000 budget to establish 2,000 research positions at Canadian universities. The program helps universities attract and retain the best researchers and achieve excellence in natural sciences and engineering, health sciences, social sciences and humanities.

Mamdouh Shoukri, vice-president research & international affairs, said this investment is invaluable to the University's research enterprise and has contributed to McMaster's role as a leading research-intensive university.

“This program was designed to help us in our efforts to recruit and retain the most talented researchers and it is certainly working,” said Shoukri. “It has given us an edge to compete at the global level, thereby increasing our research capacity substantially.”

McMaster's newest Canada Research Chairs are studying various social and political topics:

  • Professor Dana Hollander has returned to Canada from the U.S. to investigate 20th-century European philosophy and modern Jewish thought within the context of French, German, North American, Israeli and other philosophical and cultural traditions. Hollander's research will highlight research in contemporary Jewish perspectives on political and ethical thought by examining critical texts of key Jewish and continental thinkers. In the process, she will be making some of these texts available in English for the first time.

  • Professor Abigail Payne is a recipient of the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Fellowship and comes to McMaster from the University of Illinois. Her research involves an analysis of the effects of government funding on student achievement at the public school and university levels, the impact of federal and provincial funding for universities and how that connects to the level and quality of research activity and the impact of government funding on charities.

  • Professor Ivy Bourgeault is an expert in women's health policy, rural women's health and midwifery. Her research will examine the effects of global migration patterns for physicians, nurses, midwives and psychologists in and out of Canada. She will examine how these patterns can influence health and social policy to address the critical shortage of health-care professionals in maternity, primary and mental health care in rural areas.

  • Professor Michael Boyle has been an advisor to the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth and the Canadian Centre for Studies of Children at Risk, now known as the Offord Centre for Child Studies at McMaster University. Boyle's research will focus on an international comparative study of child health and the impact of social, economic and cultural forces on children and families. He anticipates his work will help child advocates reinforce their argument that children everywhere have the right to healthy lives.