Lesley Tarasoff
MA (2010)
What is your current position now?
I am currently a Program Manager with the Provincial Council for Maternal and Child Health (PCMCH), primarily responsible for overseeing child health focused programs, networks, and initiatives. Funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health, PCMCH is a provincial organization that provides evidence-based and strategic leadership for perinatal, newborn, child and youth services in Ontario.
I also have an Adjunct Lecturer appointment in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto; beyond my role at PCMCH, I continue to engage in research activities.
How has your journey / experiences / learnings at WGSI, inside and/or outside the classroom, guided or influenced your career path / decisions? Can you offer a specific example to ground this for readers?
While I “left” women and gender studies after my time at WGSI to pursue a PhD in public health, women and gender studies continued to guide my research; despite having a PhD in public health, I consider myself to be an interdisciplinary researcher and my approach to research continues to be informed by women and gender studies, critical disability studies, sociology, and psychology. In fact, my PhD qualifying exam focused on intersectionality and feminist disability studies.
Is there a distinct class or experience at WGSI that has inspired the work you do / your practice / works that you’ve produced?
My experiencing being a teaching assistant for June Larkin’s The Politics of Gender and Health course had a great impact on the research work that I do, causing me to question many preconceived notions I had about gender, health, power, and ethics. The feminist methods course with Marieme Lo also informed my approach to research, as I continue to primarily be a qualitative researcher, invested in the power of sharing stories and experiences that are often overlooked to evoke change, notably to improve the health and health care experiences of historically marginalized groups.
After you attained your degree at WGSI, what did you do next? Specifically, what steps did you take from getting your degree to where you are now in your career?
As I was finishing up my MA at WSGI, I applied for a PhD program in Women’s Studies at another university but was waitlisted. Initially, I was devastated that I ultimately did not get a spot in said PhD program, but it all worked out for the best. While I did learn a great deal as a MA student at WSGI, I had become increasingly interested in engaging in health equity research and decided that another discipline might be a better fit for me. So, after a year of working as a member of a research team focused on the reproductive and mental health of sexual and gender minority populations at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (which is now based at U of T, see here), I applied to do my PhD in Public Health at U of T. After I completed my PhD in Public Health Sciences (Social and Behavioural Health Sciences), with a specialization in women’s health, I completed a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at UTSC and CAMH. Both my PhD and postdoctoral research focused on perinatal health and disability. As a PhD student and postdoctoral research fellow, I also contributed to several research studies in the areas of mental health, substance use, and perinatal and reproductive health (see my website for more about these studies) – and I continue to contribute to a several studies led by researchers and clinicians in Toronto, elsewhere in Canada, and in the US. Before taking on my current role with PCMCH, I was a Research Associate at Women’s College Hospital, where I contributed to the CANMAT 2024 Clinical Practice Guideline for the Management of Perinatal Mood, Anxiety, and Related Disorders with perinatal mental health experts from across Canada.
How did the skillset and knowledge acquired at WGSI directly or indirectly help you in your career journey?
Good question! I think the skills and knowledge I acquired at WGSI has directly and indirectly helped me on my career journey, probably often in ways I don’t even recognize as so much of the learning from WGSI courses and from WSGI outside of the classroom (relationships and community with fellow students) is just engrained in how I approach my work, including how much emphasis I put on building trusting relationships with equity-deserving communities and people with lived experience and advocating to ensure that diverse experiences are considered in research, policy, and practice.
Does having a Women & Gender Studies lens positively impact your work and practice? In what ways?
Definitely.