Research Investigators

Dennis C. Wendt, PhD

Dennis C. Wendt is an Associate Professor and William Dawson Scholar with the Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology at McGill University, and the Director of the Cultural and Indigenous Research in Counselling Psychology (CIRC) lab. He also is an Associate Member of the Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University, and he holds a fellowship (Chercheur boursier, Junior 1) from the Fonds de recherche du Québec: Santé (FRQS).  For the past 15 years, Dr. Wendt has collaborated with Indigenous communities in Canada and the United States in exploring, developing, and evaluating culturally relevant interventions pertaining to mental health, substance use, and community wellness. The author of over 50 peer-reviewed publications, Dr. Wendt is the recipient of the 2021 Distinguished Early Career Contributions in Qualitative Inquiry Award and the 2016 Distinguished Dissertation Award in Qualitative Inquiry, both from the American Psychological Association (APA) Division of Quantitative and Qualitative Methods. He also is the 2017 Sigmund Koch Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychology from the Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology. His current research is funded by the the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Social Sciences Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). He currently collaborates with researchers from Harvard University, Yale University, Johns Hopkins University, Université de Montréal, and several other universities, as well as with several First Nations and Indigenous organizations in eastern Canada. 

Degree(s)

Area of expertise 

Office

c/o Dennis Wendt 
Education Building 
3700 McTavish St. 
Room 614 
Montreal, Quebec H3A 1Y2 

Office hours 

By appointment 

CV

Morgan Kahentonni Phillips

Senior Research Advisor

Morgan Kahentonni Phillips is a Kanien’kehá:ka woman (Wolf Clan) from the Kanien’kehá:ka Territory of Kahnawake and a citizen of the Haudenosaunee/Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy. Dr. Phillips holds a BA Honours in Anthropology, an MA in Social & Cultural Anthropology from Concordia University in Montreal and a PhD from the Department of Integrated Studies in Education (DISE) at McGill University. Her research expertise includes Indigenous health and well-being, resilience, community-based participatory research, Indigenous research methodologies, and program evaluation. Morgan has a solid background in qualitative research, knowledge of her culture, and supports collaborative partnerships. Her current project based, and consultant activities include working with the McGill Dept of Education Counselling and Psychology, co-teaching at Dawson College and John Abbott College/Dawson College program evaluation.

Mathilde Garneau

Collaborator

Mathilde Garneau is an assistant professor in psychoeducation at the Université de Sherbrooke. She grew up in Roberval, on the shores of the Pekuakami (Lac Saint-Jean), having contacts and being friends with Ilnu people. Non-Indigenous herself, she has always been interested in Indigenous cultures and realities, especially since an internship in psychoeducation in an Innu school in Unamen Shipu in 2011-2012. Since then, she has been involved in diverse research projects concerning the mental health and substance use of Indigenous youth, in the fields of clinical assessment, prevention and intervention. Those projects, including her own PhD thesis, concern best practices and the adaptation and/or validation of intervention programs and assessment tools among Indigenous youth and families. Concurrently, she has been involved for several years as a psychosocial intervener in a community family centre, named Famille Espoir, in Sherbrooke, with families from diverse cultural backgrounds. Her involvement continues to date as a member of their administrative council. She also teaches measurement and assessment in psychoeducation, among other classes, at Université de Sherbrooke.