Dr. Mary Aspinall’s research interests focus on intimate partner violence (IPV), specialized domestic violence courts, intervention programs for IPV, and coercive control. In addition to the Awareness to Action project, Mary has worked with national research teams like the Canadian Domestic Homicide Prevention Initiative.

Mary continues to engage in research examining the efficacy of community-based IPV intervention programs, domestic homicide, and criminal justice system responses, with recent focus also concentrating on the police response and assessment of IPV and coercive control.

Research areas: Intimate partner violence; coercive control; domestic homicide; specialized courts; policing and justice responses; community-based interventions

Themes: Law; Sexual Violence; Gender

Dr. Katie Aubrecht leads an action-oriented research program uses sociological theory, qualitative research methods and an intersectional approach to analyze marginalization and mental health, rurality and resilience across the life span as health equity and social justice issues.

She directs the Spatializing Care: Intersectional Disability Studies Lab, a transdisciplinary health and disability policy research and training infrastructure.

Research areas: Mental health; health equity; disability and culture; rurality and resilience; care systems; participatory research; social justice

Dr. Mary Ann Campbell’s research focuses on the development and application of evidence-based strategies for crime prevention and reduction, with expertise in forensic psychology and police psychology. Her work includes risk assessment, program evaluation, and the enhancement of policing practices.

In collaboration with the New Brunswick Department of Public Safety, she is leading research to extend the predictive validity of the Ontario Domestic Assault Risk Assessment (ODARA) to more diverse populations, including women, Indigenous peoples, and newcomers.

Her research is highly collaborative and applied, involving partnerships with police, government, and community organizations, including the John Howard Society of New Brunswick.

She has contributed to training for probation officers and victim services professionals on IPV risk, intervention, and safety planning, and supports knowledge mobilization through the Research Advisory Committee with the New Brunswick Association of Chiefs of Police.

Findings from her ongoing work, including the CELIA project, are informing improvements to police responses to intimate partner violence and family violence.

Research areas: Forensic psychology; risk assessment; crime prevention; policing; program evaluation; domestic violence risk tools (ODARA)

Themes: Law; Health

Dr. Diane Crocker’s research addresses gender-based violence, including domestic and sexual violence, with a focus on prevention, policy, and justice system responses. Her work engages restorative justice, rape culture, criminal harassment, and campus sexual violence, often in collaboration with community and government partners.

Some of the collaborative initiatives she has been involved in include iMPACTS: Collaborations to Address Sexual Violence on Campus, the Canadian Domestic Homicide Prevention Initiative, and the Policy and Research Advisory Board for the Mass Casualty Commission. She is also co-editor of Violence Interrupted, a collection examining research related to campus sexual violence in Canada.

Research areas: Gender-based violence; domestic violence; campus sexual violence; restorative justice; violence prevention policy

Themes: Sexual Violence; Law; Violence Across the Lifespan

Dr. Kim Dubé’s research examines sexual and gender-based violence through an intersectional feminist lens. Her work includes studies on sexual violence in sport, media representations of sexual violence, and the experiences of older women facing intimate partner violence.

She is also engaged in advocacy related to reproductive justice, gender equality, and 2SLGBTQIA+ and BIPOC folks’ rights.

Research areas: Sexual violence; gender-based violence; violence in sport; aging and IPV; media representations; intersectional feminism

Themes: Sexual Violence; Gender; Violence Across the Lifespan

Dr. David C. Hofmann’s research examines terrorism, political violence, and extremist movements, with a focus on right-wing extremism, charismatic leadership, and illicit networks.

Using mixed methods, including social network analysis, his work analyzes how extremist ideologies and organizational structures develop and operate.

Given the culture of toxic masculinity that often goes together with groups and individuals involved in right-winged extremist groups, the latter is an environment where IPV/gendered-violence is likely to thrive.

Research areas: Terrorism; political violence; right-wing extremism; extremist networks; charismatic leadership; illicit networks; gendered dynamics of extremism

Mayme Lefurgeys’s research is grounded in intersectional feminist and postcolonial approaches, with a focus on community-based and policy-oriented responses to addressing violence on systemic, structural, community and relational levels.

Her current research examines rural barriers to accessing D/IPV shelters in a national study with the Canadian Domestic Homicide Prevention Initiative with Vulnerable Populations (CDHPIVP). She is also the Co-Investigator of a community-led research project, Nepilugig gjijaqamijinaq in Gespe'gewa'gi, Mi’gma’gi.

This research project centers lived experience and Indigenous knowledge to strengthen regional GBV services that support Mi’gmaw clients and aims to contribute to broader scholarship on decolonization efforts in the GBV sector and settler commitments to reconciliation and truth telling.

Mayme also collaborates on projects that examine the impacts of violence community health and wellbeing in post-conflict settings and the instrumentalization of sexual and gender-based violence discourses in war.

Mayme currently teaches the Intersecting Violences: Critical Perspectives on Gender, Power and Violence course, which is part of the Certificate in Family Violence Issues and is a member of the Board of Directors of the MMFC.

Research areas: GBV in rural communities; trauma-informed approaches; structural/systemic violence; postcolonial and intersectional feminist research; GBSV in war/post-conflict, community-based methods

Themes: Gender; Health

Research Manager, Restigouche Family Services

Dr. Linda C. Neilson is a leading scholar specializing in domestic and family violence and legal system responses. Her work focuses on family law, court processes, and the impacts of violence on children. She has advised governments and contributed extensively to policy reform.

Her scholarship includes widely used legal resources and leadership in international advocacy, including a memo submitted to the World Health Organization (WHO) calling for the removal of all references to “parental alienation” from the ICD-11. Other work includes the 3rd 2025 edition professional law practice e-book published by Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII)  Responding to Domestic Violence in Family Law, Civil Protection and Child Protection Cases, (originally written for judges on behalf of the National Judicial Institute); Analysis of Social and Institutional Factors that Prevent Access to Justice.

Family Violence & Family Law Brief #25 (en | fr); Empirical analysis of parental alienation claim cases across Canada (2018, FREDA Centre for Research on Violence Against Women and Children |en). She co-authored Interpreting the New Divorce Act, Rules of Statutory Interpretation and Senate Observations  (English and French, LEAF/FAEJ).

She regularly reviews articles for academic journals in Canada and the United States; and was the principal investigator of a coordinated court file research project in the Moncton Judicial District tracing information about risk and danger in family violence cases with court responses in Provincial and Queens’s Bench (criminal, child protection, civil protection, family) court files when families were involved in multiple legal systems. Final Report (2022): en | fr.

Her work has now been referenced extensively by the Supreme Court of Canada in Ahluwalia v Ahluwalia and, earlier, in Barendregt v. Grebliunas.

Research areas: Domestic and family violence; family law; court systems; child impacts of violence; legal reform; parental alienation

Themes: Family Law; Professional Practice; Domestic and Family Violence

Dr. Karla O’Regan’s research focuses on sexual violence, consent, and the relationship between law and social norms. Her work critically examines how legal frameworks shape understandings of sexual harm, with particular attention to feminist legal theory and the regulation of consent across contexts.

She has collaborated with community and justice partners, including the Fredericton Sexual Assault Centre (now SVNB), the Fredericton Police Force, and the New Brunswick Department of Justice, contributing to applied research and the development of trauma-informed educational resources.

Most recently she was the project lead of the Atlantic region for the Awareness to Action (A2A) Project. Her book, Law & Consent: Contesting the Common Sense, is available through Routledge Publishing.

Research areas: Sexual assault law; consent; feminist legal theory; socio-legal studies; legal discourse

Themes: Law; Sexual Violence; Gender

Dr. Lucia O’Sullivan studies the intersection of sexuality and intimate relationships, with a focus on adolescents and young adults. Her research addresses sexual health, risk behaviours, intimate partner violence, and the impact of digital technologies on sexual and relational decision-masking.

Her work includes Identifying Scripts and Norms Guiding Young Men’s Use of Sexual Aggression Against Women, a large-scale Canada–U.S. study involving over 3,100 participants. This project uses anonymous, in-depth reporting methods to examine patterns of undetected sexual aggression, generating insights grounded in young men’s own accounts. The findings aim to inform prevention strategies, public education, and training initiatives to reduce rates of sexual violence among young people.

Research areas: Sexuality; intimate relationships; adolescent and young adult development; sexual health; IPV; digital technologies

Themes: Sexual Violence; Health; Violence Across the Lifespan

Dr. Kelly Scott-Storey’s research examines the interconnections between gender, violence, and health across the lifespan, with a particular emphasis on how cumulative lifetime exposure to violence shapes physical and mental health outcomes for both women and men.

One component of her work focuses on men’s experiences of violence as both targets and perpetrators, and how these experiences intersect with health, gender, and social determinants of wellbeing.

Dr. Scott-Storey has contributed to the development and validation of measurement tools for assessing intimate partner violence in population-based surveys, including instruments currently used by Statistics Canada in the Gender-Based Violence Survey.

She is a co-lead and co-investigator on multiple major intervention studies, including iCAN Plan 4 Safety, and her work has led to the development of the iHEAL app, a free, secure, and bilingual digital tool designed to help Canadian women who have experienced abuse from a current or past partner find personalized ways to stay safe and improve their well-being.

Research areas: Gender and violence; cumulative lifetime violence; men’s experiences of violence; IPV interventions; health outcomes; measurement and survey development; health equity

Themes: Health; Gender; Violence Across the Lifespan

Dr. Brandon Sparks’ research focuses on the intersection of deviant behaviour and interpersonal relationships. His current post-doctoral research encapsulates two major projects involving police and intimate partner violence. The first project utilizes frontline police officers’ body-worn camera footage to explore the use of trauma-informed practices and how these relate to IPV victims’ quality of disclosure and service engagement. The second project is an evaluation of high-risk IPV protocols in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

Dr. Sparks also studies technology-facilitated sexual violence (TFSV), which includes behaviours such as cyberflashing, non-consensual dissemination of intimate images, and deepfake pornography. This has included work identifying risk factors for perpetration as well as the development of a model of victimization. More recently, he has explored the emerging issue of AI-generated image-based sexual abuse, is developing a cyberflashing motives scale, and is conducting a qualitative project exploring sexting etiquette and how intimate material is managed after a break-up.

Lastly, Dr. Sparks is one of the leading experts on incels (involuntary celibates), having published multiple papers exploring their mental and social health, body image, and pathways to inceldom. Recently, he published the first ever study conducted with femcels (female involuntary celibates) and their sexual well-being. This work has been featured on numerous podcasts and Dr. Sparks has also appeared in the incel documentary Ross Kemp: Lost Boys, Deadly Men.

Research areas: Sexual offending; intimate partner sexual violence; image-based sexual abuse; offender perceptions; incel communities; child sexual abuse prevention

Themes: Sexual Violence; Technology-Facilitated Sexual Violence; Sexual and Dating Behaviours; Law; Involuntary Celibacy

Dr. Evangelia Tastsoglou’s research explores migration, gender, and violence, with a focus on migrant and refugee women. Her work addresses citizenship, transnationalism and diasporas, and the structural conditions shaping vulnerability and resilience.

She leads national and international research collaborations on violence against migrant women and is currently the PI of the Canadian team of researchers in the multi-year CIHR-funded project Violence against Women Migrants and Refugees: Analyzing Causes and Effective Policy Response, part of an international project funded by the Gender-Net Plus Cofund.

Research areas: Gender and migration; migrant and refugee women; transnationalism; citizenship; violence against migrant women; intersectional analysis

Themes: Newcomers; Gender; Violence Across the Lifespan

Dr. Petrea Taylor’s research examines the intersections of gender, violence, and mental health, with a particular focus on suicidality, help-seeking, and health responses to interpersonal violence.

Her research program includes both independent and collaborative studies addressing cumulative lifetime violence, men’s health, and the health impacts of gender-based violence. She has contributed as a co-investigator on major projects examining men’s experiences of violence and is involved in ongoing interdisciplinary work advancing this area of study.

Dr. Taylor also leads research on suicide as a complex health and social issue, including studies on recovery and help-seeking behaviours. In addition, she served as a clinical supervisor on the iHEAL project, a Public Health Agency of Canada-funded randomized controlled trial evaluating a nurse-led health promotion intervention for women who have left abusive partners.

This work has contributed to applied knowledge on barriers to care, intervention delivery, and community engagement in the context of domestic violence.

Research areas: Mental health; suicidality; gender and violence; cumulative lifetime violence; men’s health; help-seeking; stigma; health outcomes

Themes: Health; Gender

Projects: iHEAL; Men’s Violence, Gender, and Health Study (MVGHS); NBHRF cumulative lifetime violence studies

Dr. Laura Winters is a sociologist whose work focuses on stigma, marginalization, social justice, and community-based research. Prior to joining Stella’s Circle in 2022, she oversaw the DV@WorkNL research project, a provincial initiative examining the impacts of domestic violence on workers and workplaces and building the capacity of employers and unions to develop responsive policies and resources.

As Lead Executive Officer of Stella’s Circle, and LEO of the Stella’s Circle Foundation, Laura provides executive leadership for the organization’s operations, strategic planning, programs, and services.

Her work is grounded in a deep-seated belief in the power of harm reduction, the pursuit of social justice, and the collective responsibility of social systems to uphold the human rights and dignity of all community members.

Research areas: Sex work; stigma; marginalization; feminist and queer theory; community-based research; workplace impacts of violence

Themes: Gender; Workplace

Dr. Alexa Yakubovich’s research program aims to uncover what causes and can prevent violence and its negative health outcomes, with a particular focus on violence against women and gender-based violence more broadly. Dr. Yakubovich's research is equity- and action-oriented, often conducted with policy, organizational, and community partners, including people with lived experience of violence.

She currently holds the inaugural Eastern Canada Award in CIHR’s Health System Impact Embedded Early Career Research program (2024-2028).

Dr. Yakubovich leads two streams of research. The first is focused on the design, implementation, and evaluation of interventions that can prevent violence and its health inequities. Major aims in this area include strengthening both health systems and housing responses to domestic and sexualized violence.

In her second research stream, Dr. Yakubovich focuses on understanding burdens of violence, including measurement, risk factors, and outcomes, with the goal of informing which preventive interventions and policies are most likely to be effective.

Dr. Yakubovich uses a variety of research methods in her work, including epidemiologic methods, mixed methods, systematic reviews, meta-analysis, psychometrics, community-based participatory research, and implementation science.

Research areas: intimate partner violence; gender-based violence; social epidemiology; mixed-methods; intervention and policy evaluation; implementation science

Themes: Health; Gender; Violence Across the Lifespan