Dr. Valerie Preston, Department of Geography, York University and Principal Investigator, Migration and Resilience in Urban Canada
November 14, 2017Valerie Preston is the Principal Investigator of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada partnership titled Migration and Resilience in Urban Canada. She is a professor in the Department of Geography at York University where she teaches urban social geography. Valerie has published extensively on issues related to migration and settlement in Canada.
She has been the director of two research centres, the Institute for Social Research and the Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration and Settlement (CERIS). Valerie has also served as the Co-Chair of the CERIS Management Board, co-applicant for several research partnerships, and consultant, collaborator, and advisor with not-for-profit organizations and government. This experience has collectively provided her with the expertise to lead the Migration and Resilience in Urban Canada partnership in developing a robust body of evidence for policy development and program innovations that improve migrant resilience.
Collaborating with academics, researchers and community partners, Valerie leads the Migration and Resilience in Urban Canada partnership’s research programs and provides advice about knowledge mobilization. Through exchanging knowledge between academic institutions and government and non-governmental organizations, she looks at how to improve settlement outcomes, enhance well-being in the face of economic, political, social and cultural challenges and pilot strategies that facilitate the efforts of social institutions to promote resilience.