Reimagining Mental Health and Addiction Under the Covid-19 Pandemic, Volume 2

Dr. Dionisio Nyaga has a Ph.D from Social Justice Education/SESE/University of Toronto. He is an Assistant Professor at Algoma University-School of Social Work-Timmins campus. His research practice and teaching interests are in the areas of ethical and moral philosophy in research, critical reflexive methodologies, Afro-pessimism, gender studies, anti-oppressive practice and teaching, psychic methodologies of care, textual analysis, African studies, Black and Blackness, Black masculinities, spiritualities, transnational and transcultural studies. He has co-edited a book on ethical responsibilities and duties of researcher dubbed Critical research methodologies: Ethics and responsibilities.

Dr. Rose Ann Torres is an Assistant Professor and the Director of the School of Social Work at Algoma University. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology and Equity Studies in Education from OISE/University of Toronto. Prior to joining Algoma University, she was an Assistant Professor at University of New Brunswick. She is the principal investigator of the SSHRC Insight Development Grants research project entitled "Examining Access to Mental Health Care Service: The Impact of COVID-19 on Filipino Health Care Workers in Northern Ontario" and co-principal investigator of the SSHRC Institutional Grants project titled "Effects of COVID-19 on Teaching and Learning: Stories of Indigenous and Black and Asian Faculty Members and Students at Algoma University." She co-edited books on "Outside and In-Between: Theorizing Asian Canadian Exclusion and the Challenges of Identity Formation" and "Critical Research Methodologies: Ethics and Responsibilities." She currently serves as an Advisory Board Member for Sault College and First Nations Technical Institute. She has been instrumental in establishing pathways and partnerships with local and international universities and colleges in the School of Social Work at Algoma University, including with Oshki-Wanjack Institute. Dr. Torres's work as an educator includes community engagement and organizing, as well as consultancy services in interdisciplinary research that crosses geographic borders with Asia, Canada, Africa, and other countries. Dr. Torres's commitment to the community seeks to bring about transformative change and critical development in terms of health and social well-being, civic engagement, and ecological sustainability. At Algoma University, she teaches critical policy in the north, social work research, social work philosophy and ethics, critical social work practice: Anishinaabe, structural and feminist perspectives.