Research Associate: CERC Disability Digital Health and Wellbeing
About the role
Department: Faculty of Community Services - CERC Health Equity and Community Wellbeing
Work Location: Toronto campus
Position supervisor: Dr. Karen Soldatić, Canada Excellence Research Chair: Health Equity and Community Wellbeing
Contract length: 1 year with the possibility of renewal
Hours of work per week: 36.25
Position type: Research Associate (MAC Term)
Rate of pay: $70,000 per annum
About Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University)
At the intersection of mind and action, Toronto Metropolitan University is on a transformative path to become Canada’s leading comprehensive innovation university. Integral to this path is the placement of equity, diversity and inclusion as fundamental to our institutional culture. Our current academic plan outlines each as core values and we work to embed them in all that we do.
Toronto Metropolitan University welcomes those who have demonstrated a commitment to upholding the values of equity, diversity, and inclusion and will assist us to expand our capacity for diversity in the broadest sense. In addition, to correct the conditions of disadvantage in employment in Canada, we encourage applications from members of groups that have been historically disadvantaged and marginalized, including First Nations, Metis and Inuit peoples, Indigenous peoples of North America, racialized persons, persons with disabilities, and those who identify as women and/or 2SLGBTQ+. Please note that all qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, applications from Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority.
As an employer, we are working towards a people first culture and are proud to have been selected as one of Canada’s Best Diversity Employers and a Greater Toronto’s Top Employer for 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.
About the team
The Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Health Equity and Community Wellbeing, led by Dr. Karen Soldatic, is a transformative research initiative that employs an engaged community partnership approach to expand our understanding, practice and delivery of health outcomes for all members of our communities. Collaborating with healthcare institutions, service providers and civil society organizations, the CERC in Health Equity and Community Wellbeing aims for a paradigm shift – one that challenges a siloed, expert-driven approach to health and well-being and moves, instead, towards a community engaged, preventative model of wellbeing. Uniquely applying a critical disability lens, the research program aims to not only reduce health disparities that are inextricable from their social contexts but to embed community knowledge into health-care institutions, systems and models of delivery.
Learn more about the CERC here: https://www.torontomu.ca/cerc-health-equity/
The opportunity
We are seeking a highly motivated Research Associate to join our team and contribute to a number of research projects focused on understanding and developing disability-centered digital health communication and systems. The goal of this work is to enhance the safety, health, and well-being of persons with disabilities in the digital realm.
This role will involve two key project areas:
- Understanding and addressing tech-facilitated harassment, violence, and extortion targeted at women and girls with disabilities (TFDGBV).
- Co-creating accessible digital health communications and support for diverse disability communities.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead participatory co-design workshops and research activities with women with disabilities, community advocates, and healthcare professionals.
- Design and implement research methods for collecting qualitative and quantitative data from structurally marginalized groups, particularly people with disabilities from diverse backgrounds.
- Develop digital tools, practice protocols, and accessible educational resources for clinicians, social support professionals, and advocates.
- Manage all ethical aspects of the research, including leading the submission of REB (ethics) applications and creating trauma-informed consent materials.
- Train healthcare and civil society staff on how to use digital tools for documentation, reporting, and responding to digital violence.
- Collaborate with civil society partners and interdisciplinary teams to incorporate clinical insights and ensure tools align with real-world needs.
- Lead project dissemination, ensuring that research findings and tools are mobilized and shared with relevant community partners, stakeholders, and policymakers.
- Prepare research manuscripts, reports, and articles for publication in peer-reviewed journals and present findings at national and international conferences.
- Engage in grant writing to secure future funding for research initiatives.
- Supervise undergraduate and master-level students undertaking research placements within the lab.
Qualifications
Required:
- PhD in Science and Technology Studies, Digital Sociology, Disability Studies, Public Health, Human-Computer Interaction, or a related field such as communication studies, with a focus on AI, machine learning, digital health, and gender-based violence.
- Knowledge of gender-based violence, digital harassment, and the specific challenges faced by women with disabilities in accessing response pathways in community and clinical settings, including barriers to accessing care and documenting incidents of violence.
- Proficiency with disability co-creation practices in relation to inclusive practices of research co-design including survey design, data collection (qualitative and digital surveys), project workflow management and knowledge translation
- Demonstrated experience working with marginalized communities through participatory design and community-based research co-creation methodologies throughout the research lifecycle.
- Experience in either civil society, professional research and/or healthcare settings, particularly in collaboration with frontline staff dealing with sensitive cases such as harassment, disability hate-crimes and discrimination and/or gender-based violence.
- Familiarity with ethical issues and institutional Research Ethics Boards in working with vulnerable populations, and the ability to implement trauma-informed research practices.
Assets:
- Strong experience in the digital (inc. automated, AI system) development and machine learning techniques, particularly in the context of text analysis, NLP, or knowledge graph development.
- Interdisciplinary training that encompasses the social sciences alongside computing science or engineering.
- Professional research experience in the areas of disability justice, GBV, health communications, human-centred computing.
- Demonstrated ability to work across multi-lingual communities.
How to apply
Please send your resume and cover letter to opportunity.cerchecw@torontomu.ca. by October 1, 2025. Please use the subject line: ‘Application - Research Associate: Research Associate: Digital Disability Health and Wellbeing’
Toronto Metropolitan University’s commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion
- We encourage all First Nations, Metis and Inuit peoples or Indigenous peoples of North America, to self-identify in their applications. If you are an Indigenous applicant and require support during the recruitment process, please reach out to James McKay, Indigenous HR Lead at james13@torontomu.ca.
- Toronto Metropolitan University is committed to the principles of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), and aims to ensure that independence, dignity, integration and equality of opportunity are embedded in all aspects of the university culture.
- We will provide an accessible experience for applicants, students, employees, and members of the Toronto Metropolitan University community. We are committed to providing an inclusive and barrier-free work environment, starting with the recruitment process. If you have restrictions that need to be accommodated to fully participate in any phase of the recruitment process,please reach out to Human Resources:
- Current employees can contact HR by logging into AskHR to submit a request.
- External candidates who do not have TMU login credentials can contact HR by visiting torontomu.ca/human-resources/askhr/.
- All information received in relation to accommodation will be kept confidential.
About Toronto Metropolitan University
Toronto Metropolitan University is located in the heart of Canada's largest city. Its distinctly urban campus features a culture that's innovative and entrepreneurial, a community that's welcoming and inclusive, and a learning environment that's incredibly creative. Our mission is to serve societal need and engage communities both locally and across the globe.
Research Associate: CERC Disability Digital Health and Wellbeing
About the role
Department: Faculty of Community Services - CERC Health Equity and Community Wellbeing
Work Location: Toronto campus
Position supervisor: Dr. Karen Soldatić, Canada Excellence Research Chair: Health Equity and Community Wellbeing
Contract length: 1 year with the possibility of renewal
Hours of work per week: 36.25
Position type: Research Associate (MAC Term)
Rate of pay: $70,000 per annum
About Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University)
At the intersection of mind and action, Toronto Metropolitan University is on a transformative path to become Canada’s leading comprehensive innovation university. Integral to this path is the placement of equity, diversity and inclusion as fundamental to our institutional culture. Our current academic plan outlines each as core values and we work to embed them in all that we do.
Toronto Metropolitan University welcomes those who have demonstrated a commitment to upholding the values of equity, diversity, and inclusion and will assist us to expand our capacity for diversity in the broadest sense. In addition, to correct the conditions of disadvantage in employment in Canada, we encourage applications from members of groups that have been historically disadvantaged and marginalized, including First Nations, Metis and Inuit peoples, Indigenous peoples of North America, racialized persons, persons with disabilities, and those who identify as women and/or 2SLGBTQ+. Please note that all qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, applications from Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority.
As an employer, we are working towards a people first culture and are proud to have been selected as one of Canada’s Best Diversity Employers and a Greater Toronto’s Top Employer for 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.
About the team
The Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Health Equity and Community Wellbeing, led by Dr. Karen Soldatic, is a transformative research initiative that employs an engaged community partnership approach to expand our understanding, practice and delivery of health outcomes for all members of our communities. Collaborating with healthcare institutions, service providers and civil society organizations, the CERC in Health Equity and Community Wellbeing aims for a paradigm shift – one that challenges a siloed, expert-driven approach to health and well-being and moves, instead, towards a community engaged, preventative model of wellbeing. Uniquely applying a critical disability lens, the research program aims to not only reduce health disparities that are inextricable from their social contexts but to embed community knowledge into health-care institutions, systems and models of delivery.
Learn more about the CERC here: https://www.torontomu.ca/cerc-health-equity/
The opportunity
We are seeking a highly motivated Research Associate to join our team and contribute to a number of research projects focused on understanding and developing disability-centered digital health communication and systems. The goal of this work is to enhance the safety, health, and well-being of persons with disabilities in the digital realm.
This role will involve two key project areas:
- Understanding and addressing tech-facilitated harassment, violence, and extortion targeted at women and girls with disabilities (TFDGBV).
- Co-creating accessible digital health communications and support for diverse disability communities.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead participatory co-design workshops and research activities with women with disabilities, community advocates, and healthcare professionals.
- Design and implement research methods for collecting qualitative and quantitative data from structurally marginalized groups, particularly people with disabilities from diverse backgrounds.
- Develop digital tools, practice protocols, and accessible educational resources for clinicians, social support professionals, and advocates.
- Manage all ethical aspects of the research, including leading the submission of REB (ethics) applications and creating trauma-informed consent materials.
- Train healthcare and civil society staff on how to use digital tools for documentation, reporting, and responding to digital violence.
- Collaborate with civil society partners and interdisciplinary teams to incorporate clinical insights and ensure tools align with real-world needs.
- Lead project dissemination, ensuring that research findings and tools are mobilized and shared with relevant community partners, stakeholders, and policymakers.
- Prepare research manuscripts, reports, and articles for publication in peer-reviewed journals and present findings at national and international conferences.
- Engage in grant writing to secure future funding for research initiatives.
- Supervise undergraduate and master-level students undertaking research placements within the lab.
Qualifications
Required:
- PhD in Science and Technology Studies, Digital Sociology, Disability Studies, Public Health, Human-Computer Interaction, or a related field such as communication studies, with a focus on AI, machine learning, digital health, and gender-based violence.
- Knowledge of gender-based violence, digital harassment, and the specific challenges faced by women with disabilities in accessing response pathways in community and clinical settings, including barriers to accessing care and documenting incidents of violence.
- Proficiency with disability co-creation practices in relation to inclusive practices of research co-design including survey design, data collection (qualitative and digital surveys), project workflow management and knowledge translation
- Demonstrated experience working with marginalized communities through participatory design and community-based research co-creation methodologies throughout the research lifecycle.
- Experience in either civil society, professional research and/or healthcare settings, particularly in collaboration with frontline staff dealing with sensitive cases such as harassment, disability hate-crimes and discrimination and/or gender-based violence.
- Familiarity with ethical issues and institutional Research Ethics Boards in working with vulnerable populations, and the ability to implement trauma-informed research practices.
Assets:
- Strong experience in the digital (inc. automated, AI system) development and machine learning techniques, particularly in the context of text analysis, NLP, or knowledge graph development.
- Interdisciplinary training that encompasses the social sciences alongside computing science or engineering.
- Professional research experience in the areas of disability justice, GBV, health communications, human-centred computing.
- Demonstrated ability to work across multi-lingual communities.
How to apply
Please send your resume and cover letter to opportunity.cerchecw@torontomu.ca. by October 1, 2025. Please use the subject line: ‘Application - Research Associate: Research Associate: Digital Disability Health and Wellbeing’
Toronto Metropolitan University’s commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion
- We encourage all First Nations, Metis and Inuit peoples or Indigenous peoples of North America, to self-identify in their applications. If you are an Indigenous applicant and require support during the recruitment process, please reach out to James McKay, Indigenous HR Lead at james13@torontomu.ca.
- Toronto Metropolitan University is committed to the principles of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), and aims to ensure that independence, dignity, integration and equality of opportunity are embedded in all aspects of the university culture.
- We will provide an accessible experience for applicants, students, employees, and members of the Toronto Metropolitan University community. We are committed to providing an inclusive and barrier-free work environment, starting with the recruitment process. If you have restrictions that need to be accommodated to fully participate in any phase of the recruitment process,please reach out to Human Resources:
- Current employees can contact HR by logging into AskHR to submit a request.
- External candidates who do not have TMU login credentials can contact HR by visiting torontomu.ca/human-resources/askhr/.
- All information received in relation to accommodation will be kept confidential.
About Toronto Metropolitan University
Toronto Metropolitan University is located in the heart of Canada's largest city. Its distinctly urban campus features a culture that's innovative and entrepreneurial, a community that's welcoming and inclusive, and a learning environment that's incredibly creative. Our mission is to serve societal need and engage communities both locally and across the globe.