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A 2014 Recipient of a Dalhousie Diversity Faculty Award

The Faculty of Health Professions (FHP) welcomes Dr. Amy Bombay to Dalhousie. Bombay, who will hold a joint appointment between the FHP’s School of Nursing and the Faculty of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry, assumes her appointment in July.

A 2014 recipient of the Dalhousie Diversity Faculty Awards, Bombay’s research focuses on exploring determinants of mental health outcomes of aboriginal people in Canada. In particular, she has been examining the effects of exposure to various types of contemporary stressors such as childhood adversity, culture-related stressors such as perceived discrimination, and historical collective traumatic events, in particular the Indian residential schools.

Bombay’s interest in aboriginal health research stems back to her own family history; an Ojibwe from the Rainy River First Nation in Ontario, Bombay grew up in Ottawa. Her family didn’t talk about it much, but she knew that her grandparents had spent parts of their childhood at Indian Residential Schools.

“I moved to upstate New York to play university hockey,” reminisces Bombay. “It was the first time I’d lived outside Ontario and I was very homesick. I started doing research on the Indian Residential Schools as a way to feel connected to my family back home and to learn more about my heritage.”

What she learned appalled her and the more she researched the more she could see the impact of the residential school experiences on her grandparents’ lives and on extended family members. This research project fueled her interest in psychology and aboriginal mental health. A Masters, PhD and post-doc later, Bombay is an authority on aboriginal cultural identity and discrimination.

“I’m excited to get settled in Halifax and to work with Health Professions,” says Bombay. “My research draws from a lot of different fields and is very multidisciplinary so I can see my work fitting well in a number of departments and schools.”

Making Connections with Aboriginal Students

“I’m really interested in making connections with aboriginal students. One of my priorities at Dalhousie is to find some students to mentor who want to do graduate studies. I’d love to get a lab started that will foster graduate research on aboriginal health issues.”

With part of her appointment funded by the Atlantic Aboriginal Health Research Program (AAHRP), led by the School of Social Work’s Dr. Fred Wien, Bombay will be tapped in to a dynamic group of aboriginal health researchers.

“I am so happy that Amy is joining us,” says Dr. Fred Wien, Director of AAHRP and Professor Emeritus at the School of Social Work.  “For the past decade, the AAHRP has worked hard to support capacity development in the field of Aboriginal health research by providing scholarships, mentorship and other forms of support. This investment is now showing results, with Dalhousie faculty such as Debbie Martin, Heather Castleden and now Amy Bombay securing faculty positions… Along with other faculty and senior staff at Dalhousie, we have the nucleus of a strong and energetic Aboriginal health research team, one that works closely with Aboriginal communities in the region and with colleagues in other universities.”