Dr. Jessica Ruglis
- Social determinants of health, youth health and development
- Social determinants of education
- School leaving (school dropout) and school dis/engagement
- Human development
- Urban education
- Community health & community health education
- Schooling and health
- Education policy, health policy, social policy, inequity
- Health promotion
- Program development
- Interdisciplinary and community-based professional and graduate training models
- Participatory and community-engaged approaches to research (e.g. PAR, CBPR, YPAR), and training models, methods and pedagogies for participatory research
Dr. Ruglis' work centers on participatory, critical race/ethnic, social justice, feminist, and inclusive approaches to research and teaching in the areas of public education, public health, justice, and youth development. Professor Ruglis' research program is organized around three main axes: 1) Contexts and institutions of youth development, 2) Social determinants of health (SDH) and education, 3) Participatory and community engaged approaches to research, policy and professional training (e.g. participatory action research, PAR; youth participatory action research, YPAR; community based participatory research, CBPR; community engaged participatory action research, CEPAR; participatory policymaking).
Dr. Ruglis conducts mixed methods research, with a special love for qualitative and mixed methods. She is particularly interested in the nexus of social determinants of health, education and human development; especially as it concerns policy. She is interested in school, institutional and community-based approaches to child, adolescent and family health, health education and health promotion across the lifecourse. Dr. Ruglis also has expertise and interests in interdisciplinary curriculum development that is rooted in public health (K-12, and higher education), in interdisciplinary cohort models of graduate education for healthy adolescent development, and policy advocacy. She is increasingly interested in exploring the role of art as a practice central to research, policy, community and individual health. Dr. Ruglis' research and teaching takes seriously "all policy is health policy" and "health in all policies" (WHO, 2014), and her research, thinking and teaching is principally organized by a focus on education as a social determinant of health. She is also a former middle and high school science teacher.
Dr. Ruglis serves on a department, faculty and university committees; the Editorial Board of Community Health Equity Research & Policy; and on the Board of Directors of Chalet Kent (2016 - present) and Uptown Institute (2023 - present).
- Postdoctoral Fellowship, W.K. Kellogg Health Scholars (Community Based Participatory Research - Community Health Track), Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA (2009-2011)
- Ph.D., Urban Education (Education Policy), Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), New York, NY, USA (2009)
- M.P.H., Community Health Education (Urban Public Health), Hunter College (CUNY), New York, NY, USA (2009)
- M.A.T., Secondary Science & Biology Education, Union College, Schenectady, NY, USA (2002)
** Holds permanent New York State teaching certification in these areas - B.S., Human Biology (Combined double major: Biology & Biological Anthropology), University at Albany (SUNY), Albany, NY, USA (2000)
- W.K. Kellogg Health Scholars (Community Based Participatory Research - Community Health Track) Postdoctoral Fellowship, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA (2009-2011)
Ruglis, J & Low, B. (Eds). (2024). Special Issue: “Towards New Futures of Child and Youth Development: Critical and Sustainable Approaches to Wellbeing in Complex Times.” Learning Landscapes, 17(1).
Ruglis, J & St-Victor, KA. (2024). Airglow: Young peole and wellbeing.” Learning Landscapes, 17(1): 27-36.
Middleton, JC, Williams, S & Ruglis, J. (2023) Leveraging the Clinical Importance of the Therapist as a Person in Family Therapy. International Journal of Systemic Therapy, online.
Nichols, N., Ruglis, J. (2021). “Institutional Ethnography and Youth Participatory Action Research: A Praxis Approach” (pp. 527-550). In: Luken, P.C., Vaughan, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Institutional Ethnography. Palgrave Macmillan.
Henson, A, Ruglis, J, Sinacore, A, Fitzpatrick, M, Lanteigne, D. (2021). Self-compassion for youth in small city centres: A school-based pilot project. Counselling & Psychotherapy Research, 21(3), 719– 728.
Krueger-Henney, P., & Ruglis, J. (2020). “PAR is a way of life: Participatory action research as core re-training for fugitive research praxis.” Education Philosophy & Theory, Special Issue: “Living the Dystopian-Utopian Tension as Praxis: Transformative Dreaming with/in/for Education and Educational Research.” T. Kress & R. Lake (Eds.).
Vallée, D., & Ruglis, J. (2017). Student disengagement among English-Speaking youth in Montreal. Educational Studies, 53(3), 285-314.
Ruglis, J. (2016). Theorizing participatory action research and outdoor experiential education: Pedagogy for engagement and well-being through social justice. Pathways: Ontario Journal of Outdoor Education, (29)1, 4-9.
Ruglis, J., & Vallée, D. (2016). Student disengagement as/and unfairness: Re-reading schools through photos. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 14(2), 186-216.
Fine, M., & Ruglis, J. (2015). Circuits and consequences of dispossession: The racialized realignment of the public sphere for U.S. youth. Open Anthropology, 3(2), Special Issue: “Approaching Youth In Anthropology” (Eds: J. Antrosio & S. Han).
Ruglis, J., & Freudenberg, N. (2011). Towards a healthy high schools movement: Strategies for mobilizing public health for educational reform. In T. Wright & J. Richardson (Eds.). School-Based Health Care: Advancing Educational Success and Public Health (Chapter 27, pp. 671-687). Washington, DC: APHA Press.
Ruglis, J. (2011). Mapping the biopolitics of school dropout and youth resistance. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 24(5), 627-637.
Fox, M., Mediratta, K., Ruglis, J., Stoudt, B., Shah, S., & Fine, M. (2010). Critical youth engagement: Participatory action research and organizing. In L. Sherrod, J. Torney-Purta & C.A. Flanagan (Eds). Handbook of Research and Policy on Civic Engagement in Youth (pp. 621-649). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Ruglis, J., & Freudenberg, N. (2010). Towards a healthy high schools movement: Strategies for mobilizing public health for educational reform. American Journal of Public Health, 100(9), 1565-1571.
Ruglis, J. (2010). Conversations with PAR and public health: Response to ‘fat bodies, qualitative research and the spirit of participatory action research.’ International Review of Qualitative Research, 3(3), 351-354.
Fine, M., & Ruglis, J. (2009). Circuits and consequences of dispossession: The racialized realignment of the public sphere for U.S. youth. Transforming Anthropology, 17(1), 20-36.
* Cited in Brief of Amici Curiae to the Supreme Court of the United States, Graham & Sullivan vs. State of Florida. (No. 08-7412, No. 08-7621) which examines the legality of juvenile sentencing on adolescent development
Freudenberg, N., & Ruglis, J. (2008). Reframing high school dropout as a public health issue [Response to Letters]. Preventing Chronic Disease, 5(2), A69.
Freudenberg, N., & Ruglis, J. (2007). Reframing school dropout as a public health issue. Preventing Chronic Disease, 4(4), 1-11.
Ruglis, J. (2007). Dropout. In S. Mathison & E.W. Ross (Eds.) Battleground Schools, Volume 1 (pp. 194-203). Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing.
Human Development
M.Ed.
Dr. Ruglis supervises graduate students across all programs in the department.
Not accepting students in 2025-2026.
