U of L sociologist named to national research council

A sociologist at the University of Lethbridge has been appointed to a prestigious research council.

Claudia Malacrida, the university’s associate vicepresident for research, will serve a three-year term on the governing council of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

The nation’s science minister, Kristy Duncan, named Malacrida to the 14-member group.

“This impressive list of diverse candidates will help the council further its support for the social sciences and scholars who are pursuing the boundaries of knowledge and helping us better understand the world around us,” she says.

The federal government-funded agency invests more than $350 million each year, supporting more than 8,000 graduate students across Canada along with nearly 14,000 researchers. It is “committed to fostering greater equity, diversity and inclusion in research.”

“As a social scientist with a long career in the west, I am pleased to be included and to bring the perspectives of my colleagues to the national level,” Malacrida says.

The funding authority is the key to continuing research which reflects community needs, she says.

“As someone who has been supported by SSHRC grants throughout my career, I appreciate how these funds support developing talent from undergraduate and graduate students right through to senior investigators working on global issues.”

Malacrida began at U of L in 2002. Her research includes issues of power and “medicalization” relating to childbirth, the relational challenges faced by women living with a disability, and how power differences have been created in the past and today.