About Us
The Canadian Association for Health Humanities exists to promote the exchange of ideas and critical dialogue among scholars and practitioners, as well as foster collaborative explorations nationally and internationally. Through meetings, publications and related activities, CAHH seeks to facilitate initiatives as well as interdisciplinary, cross-professional inquiry into research and educational practices relevant to the health humanities.
Executive Committee
President: TRACY Moniz
Tracy Moniz is an associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She has a PhD in Communication & Culture and a Master of Arts in Journalism.
As a researcher, she explores the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of arts and humanities in medical education. She considers how writing can advance patient- and family-centred care, focusing on (1) the uses of reflective writing to foster professionalism, communication, and empathy and (2) the lessons learned from the narratives that health professionals, patients, and family caregivers write about their experiences of illness and care. Her research has been published in JAMA, Academic Medicine, Medical Education, and Medical Humanities, among others.
As an educator, she coaches writers in various genres—from creative non-fiction to academic. She has expertise in narrative and life writing and facilitates workshops on arts and humanities teaching as well as writing for reflection and resilience across the health professions.
vice-president: wendy stewart
Image and bio coming soon
secretary: Shane neilson
Shane Neilson is a poet, physician, and critic who originally hails from New Brunswick (territory of the Wolostoquey) but who now lives in Cambridge, Ontario and practices medicine in Guelph. Shane is the author of many books of poetry, non-fiction, and short fiction. He published The Suspect We, a collaboration with Roxanna Bennett, with Palimpsest in 2023, as well as the memoir Saving: A Doctor’s Struggle to Help his Children with Great Plains, also in 2023. With Alan Bleakley, he published the first scholarly book to consider the role of poetry in clinical medicine (Poetry in the Clinic: Towards a Lyrical Medicine, Routledge, 2022) and later in 2023 he will publish the first scholarly work considering the intersection of Canadian medicine and Canadian literature (Carelanding, Routledge, 2023). Shane identifies as a Maritimer, mad, and autistic.
Treasurer: Janet Sunohara-Neilson
Image and bio coming soon
Advisory Council
Past President: Sarah de leeuw
Sarah de Leeuw is Past President of the Canadian Association for Health Humanities and the Past President of the League of Canadian Poets. She holds a Canada Research Chair in Humanities and Health Inequities and is a Professor in the University of Northern British Columbia’s Northern Medical Program, a distributed site of the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Medicine.
A creative writer (poetry and literary non-fiction) and cultural-historical geographer, Sarah is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research, teaching, and activism focus broadly on colonial violence, marginalized peoples, and overlooked geographies. A member of the National Collaborating Centre for Indigenous Health for more than 15 years, she was appointed to the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists in 2017. Author of more than 105 peer-reviewed publications, from book chapters to journal articles and scholarly entries, Sarah was nominated in 2017 for a Governor General’s Literary Prize in non-fiction holds a Western Magazine Gold Award, two CBC Literary Prizes for creative non-fiction, and the Dorthey Livesay BC Book Prize for poetry.
Sarah divides her time between Lheidli T’enneh/Dakelh Territory (Prince George) and Syilx Territory (Okanagan Centre), British Columbia.
clinical health professions representative: songrui zhang
Songrui Zhang is a Family Physician and Assistant Professor at the Université de Montréal Faculty of Medicine. His work centres on providing primary care to low-income geriatric patients, alongside teaching family medicine in an academic clinical setting. He also teaches professional identity development in the undergraduate program and communication skills in the postgraduate program.
During his undergraduate medical training, Songrui wrote, directed, and co-produced the short film Heroes. More recently, he has explored the intersection of the arts and medical education.
He has presented "Experiential Art in Teaching Counter-Transference" at the 2025 Creating Space conference and "Navigating Health Humanities Translations" at the 2026 Creating Space conference.
Arts & Humanities Representative: Candace Couse
Candace Couse (she/her) is an Interdisciplinary Humanities scholar and artist. Her research investigates Westernized thought in relationship with sickness through autobiographical accounts of illness narratives in visual art; interested in what these works do for the artists, viewers and broader understanding of health towards humanistic medicine. As an artist (MFA, University of Calgary), Candace brings her knowledge of art as a site of entanglement between rhetoric, poetry, and event to her research. Her practice has long been rooted in the materiality, and history of fibre-based work, which she integrates with video, large-scale installation, interactive sculptural works, collage, painting and more.
Candace has shown across Canada, the USA, UK, Switzerland, Italy, Trinidad, Pakistan, Nepal, India and Iceland, and she is an Associate Professor in the School of Creative Arts at the University of the Fraser Valley, located on unceded Stó:lō territory, where she has the honour of living and creating.
Clinical Health Professions Student Representative:
Davey hamada
Davey Hamada (he/they) is a Registered Nurse who has been working in youth mental health since 2012. He teaches as an Instructor at Vancouver Community College and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Calgary. His research explores the phenomenon of occupational boredom amongst mental health nurses that work on locked inpatient wards. Through his research he intends to explore and articulate aspects of mental health nursing work that are overlooked or difficult to describe. Davey is passionate about incorporating the humanities into nursing education and practice. He strongly believes that the humanities disciplines hold a wealth of knowledge for nurses. In his own research, he regularly incorporates insights from philosophy, film, and theatre.
On his free time, Davey enjoys photography, film festivals, bouldering, and biking around town.
clinical health professions student representative:
Prakrit Dayal
Prakrit Dayal is pursuing a Bachelor of Biomedical Sciences and nurtures a commitment to patient-centered healthcare. Originally from Toronto, Prakrit studies in Orlando, Florida, gaining valuable cross-cultural experiences. He is recognized for leadership, compassion, and collaboration—qualities demonstrated through hospital volunteer work and community engagements. Working with neurodivergent children at equine-assisted therapy centers, he supports the transformation of their emotional and physical health.
Prakrit fosters the integration of health, culture, and arts. His interests in theatre, music, and spirituality strengthen his belief that holistic healthcare extends beyond clinical treatment. He enjoys playing guitar, piano, and sports such as swimming, skiing, and ice skating. He practices yoga and meditation. He is expanding his proficiency in French and Hindi.
He believes the humanities and social sciences are not merely complementary to medicine, but essential for sustainable healthcare outcomes. Focusing on whole-person healing, he intends to research how therapeutic humanities enriches modern medicine.
International REpresentative: Sarah Nelson
Sarah Nelson is a health and medical geographer working across the social sciences and humanities. She is currently an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, in the traditional treaty lands of the UmoNhoN and Otoe-Missouria tribal nations, in the department of Geography & Geology and the Medical Humanities and Native American Studies programs. Her research spans Indigenous governance and community health, non-Indigenous allyship, teaching the social determinants of health, and cultural safety in health care.
Sarah is originally from eastern Ontario, unceded territory of the Algonquin peoples, where she continues to do research and community advocacy with Algonquin communities. She has also lived and worked in Dakelh territory, in northern British Columbia, with Indigenous-led health organizations exploring their role in urban Indigenous communities. She is constantly inspired by the ways in which health humanities open up new perspectives on health, disease, health care, and how we understand one another at our most vulnerable moments.
Public Representative:
paula holmes-rodman
Paula Holmes-Rodman, PhD, is an anthropologist, writer, and advocate whose work brings together narrative medicine, health humanities, cancer care, and neurodiversity advocacy. She completed an Advanced Certificate in Narrative-Based Medicine through the University of Toronto and contributes to interdisciplinary teaching and learning initiatives in the health humanities, including collaborations connected to medical humanities education at Dalhousie University. She has published reflective and scholarly work in journals including Ars Medica and Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine. Her work focuses on improving health care experiences for autistic and neurodivergent people navigating cancer, palliative care, and other complex health systems.
Paula collaborates with organizations including Autism Canada, Wellspring Cancer Support Foundation, and Ovarian Cancer Canada on projects that centre patient storytelling, accessibility, and equitable care. She co-created the Self-Advocacy Guide for Cancer Patients on the Autism Spectrum, recognized with the King Charles III Coronation Medal and the World Ovarian Cancer Coalition Impact Award. Through workshops, presentations, teaching, and collaborative initiatives, she explores how storytelling and reflective practice can bridge academic research, medical education, clinical care, and lived experience.
Ex-Officio: Allison Crawford
Allison Crawford is a founding editor of Ars Medica, a literary journal of medicine, the arts, and humanities, published open access in Canada.
Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) Representative: Shannon charlebois
Image and bio coming soon