Prof. Mylène Riva
Bonjour! Hello! Welcome to my research group's website. I am an Associate Professor at McGill University, cross-appointed in the Institute for Health and Social Policy and the Department of Geography. I hold the Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Housing, Community, and Health. I am a health geographer and population health researcher. My research activities are focused on socio-environmental determinants of health in urban, rural, remote and Indigenous communities. I am particularly interested in housing and communities as important place-based determinants of health and as settings for interventions to improve population health and to reduce inequalities. I lead and collaborate on various scientific initiatives in these areas. I hold a BSc in Geography and PhD in Public Health and Health Promotion from Université de Montreal. I was a postdoctoral fellow in Health Geography at Durham University in the UK, and held a Banting postdoctoral fellowship at Université Laval. Prior to joining McGill in 2016, I was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine at Université Laval and researcher at CHU de Quebec Research Center (2012-2016).
Master's Students
Bavisha Thurairajah
MA Student, McGill University
Bavisha began her master’s in Geography in the fall of 2022 after completing her BA in International Development with a minor in Health Geography. She joined Prof. Riva's lab as a research assistant in the summer before starting her master's. Her research interests focus on housing as a social determinant of health and its relation to healthy aging and "aging in place". During her MA, Bavisha will examine how various housing conditions impact the wellbeing of older adults across rural environments in Canada.
Laurianne Debanné
MA Student, McGill University
Laurianne began her masters in the fall of 2021 after having completed an BSc Honours in Environment. Her research interests center on climate change and its impacts on vulnerable communities, energy security, and just sustainability. She joined Prof. Riva’s lab in 2020 to complete her honours research project on the spatial distribution of energy poverty in relation to extreme climate events in Atlantic Canada. For her MA, Laurianne is examining energy poverty in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, by describing the housing and socioeconomic characteristics of energy poor households and their coping mechanisms.
PhD Students
Hannah Brais
PhD student, McGill University
Hannah is a PhD student in the Geography Department at McGill University. She holds both a BA in Urban Planning and an MSc in Geography, Urban and Environmental Studies from Concordia University. Her research stems from her work as the research coordinator at the Old Brewery Mission, a large homeless service provider in Montreal. Hannah’s doctoral research is focused around homeless services as spaces of care, investigating the difficulty homeless substance users have accessing these spaces, and in turn, accessing support to exit homelessness. This work positions homelessness in a human rights framework, advocating for a universal right to housing. Her research employs a mixed-methods approach, using both quantitative administrative data from service providers, as well as interviews with service users.
Karine Perreault
PhD student, Université de Montréal
Karine is a PhD student in Public Health (Health Promotion option) at Université de Montréal. Her research interests broadly include social determinants of health, health promotion, population health intervention research, and Indigenous health. During her PhD, she will explore how improvements in housing conditions impact mental health in 12 Inuit communities in Nunavik and Nunavut, using a mixed-methods collaborative research methodology. More specifically, she will examine the impact of moving to a new house on family life and psychosocial processes, and how these intermediate mechanisms may relate to mental health. She is co-supervised by Prof. Riva, and Prof. Louise Potvin (Université de Montréal). She holds a 3-year Doctoral Research Award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research – Priority Announcement: Research in First Nations, Métis and/or Inuit.
Charles-Olivier Simard
PhD Candidate, Université de Montréal
Having completed a bachelor's and master's degree in Anthropology, Charles-Olivier is currently a PhD candidate in Demography at Université de Montréal. He is co-supervised by Prof. Simona Bignami and Prof. Riva. His research interest focuses on household formation, family life cycle and housing access in Inuit communities.
Thérèse Yéro Adamou
PhD Candidate, Université Laval
Thérèse is a PhD candidate in the Community Health program of Université Laval. She is co-supervised by Prof. Riva and Prof. Pierre Ayotte. Thérèse completed a bachelor in biology in 2005 (UQAM) and a Masters in Environmental and Occupational Health in 2008 (Université of Montréal). Her research interests mainly focus on environmental health and environmental justice issues among Inuit pregnant women from Nunavik. The main objectives of her research project are to: (1) assess temporal trends in Inuit pregnant women exposure to environmental pollutants (i.e, mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls) and (2) determine whether social disparities in maternal exposure to environmental pollutants exist in this population.
Research Assistants
Sophie Kutuka
Research Associate, McGill University
Sophie graduated from her master’s in Geography in February 2023 after completing her BSc in the Ecological Determinants of Health at McGill's School of Environment. Her research interests focus on the socio-environmental determinants of health and health disparities. Since joining Prof. Riva’s lab in May 2019, Sophie has been working on various projects related to Indigenous health indicators, housing, food insecurity, and energy poverty. During her MA, she will examine how energy poverty impacts the health of Canadians.
Morgen Bertheussen
Research Associate, McGill University
Morgen graduated from her master’s in Geography in February 2023 after completing her BA Honours in Ecological Determinants of Health at McGill's School of Environment. Morgen’s research interests revolve around Indigenous conceptualizations of health and well-being, and how these can be taken into account in quantitative analyses. During her MA, Morgen operationalized of a wholistic indicator of Inuit health and well-being to look at the protective factors of health, as defined by Nunavimmiut (Inuit living in Nunavik).
Honours Undergraduate Students
Maria Gheorghiu
UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT, MCGILL UNIVERSITY (2023)
Maria is a Bachelor of Arts student in Honours Urban Studies with a minor in Environment. Her research interests include social policy in Quebec, notably those targeting low-cost housing. Maria’s Honours thesis is part of Prof. Riva’s project on the prevention and mitigation of energy poverty in Quebec, and will analyze the intersection of housing and energy policies from a social justice perspective. She has received the Arts Research Internship Award.