Alaina Thomas (she/her) joins the ICMH lab as a graduate researcher and second year PhD student in York's Clinical Developmental Psychology program. Under the supervision of Dr. Bohr and in partnership with Inuit youth and communities across Nunavut, her Master’s thesis examined factors that promote and sustain engagement among Inuit youth in participatory mental wellness research. For her dissertation work, she will be building on this. 

Additionally, she is interested in the development and evaluation of e-mental wellness technologies, and the relationship between youth mental wellness and socio-political/environmental systems.

She is grateful to be a part of the ICMH lab, working and learning alongside Inuit youth and communities in Nunavut. She believes in using community-driven research as a means to highlight the voices and perspectives of youth to inform mental health policy change, promote health equity, and social justice. Alaina's research is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.