Farah-naaz Habib

Biography: Farah’s aims have been to blend applied social research with development aims – both in Canada and abroad in Tajikistan, Tanzania, Uganda and Syria. Her endeavours to creatively link research with practice cover a range of social and institutional development efforts to strengthen the program design, implementation and evaluation capacities of various non-profit agencies and groups. In these different contexts, Farah embraced an approach that attempted to bridge the divide between researcher and ‘object’ (often positioned as ‘other’). Her use of narratives and observations of tradition, culture, philosophy and ‘lived realities’ of marginalized or vulnerable groups of youth and families as well as individuals helped to interrogate and/or ensure applicability in local contexts.

While a spirit of adventure and thirst for exploration took Farah away from academia, they have also attracted her to the post-doctoral fellowship on change processes in complex interventions. She gratefully acknowledges that her initial research at Northwestern University in the areas of child and youth development and change processes in socially inclusive (“whole”) schools has drawn her to schools-related work of the Centre. At the same time, her accumulative experiences in informing and enhancing development practice through research should bring a fresh, creative perspective to the field of health promotion and population health intervention research.

Research Interests:

Email: fnhabib@ucalgary.ca

Phone: 403 220-4207