We are an incubator for nursing leaders

New professors bring broad areas of research, enthusiasm for teaching to top-rated nursing faculty.

Gillian Rutherford - 28 January 2025

Students in the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Nursing are seeing some brand new faces at the front of their classrooms this term. That’s because the faculty is undergoing an unprecedented level of renewal, with 18 new professors hired within the past four years, bringing with them a wide range of research and teaching strengths.

The new academics join one of the top nursing programs in the world. U of A nursing is ranked number one in Canada by Maclean’s and number seven worldwide by the QS World University Rankings

“We are an incubator for nursing leaders because of this outstanding reputation and our decades of depth in research expertise,” says professor and nursing dean Shannon Scott, who leads more than 150 teaching staff, including more than 30 tenure track professors.

“It will be incredible to watch over the coming years how this investment in new faculty will pay off in terms of our scholarly productivity and high quality of education,” adds Scott, who before being appointed dean spent 10 years as Canada Research Chair in Knowledge Translation in Children’s Health. Scott is also a member of the Women and Children's Health Research Institute and a distinguished researcher with the Stollery Science Lab.

U of A nursing is home to three Canada Research Chairs, two research chairs and 184 active research grants, with 1,473 current undergraduates, 215 graduate students and nearly 23,000 U of A nursing grads working in 45 countries. 

The new professors have research expertise in areas such as climate change and health, mental health, and youth and seniors’ health.

One of the driving factors behind the new hires is the retirement of 14 professors since 2020, representing nearly a third of the faculty. Scott says there is a worldwide shortage of doctorally prepared nurses, so the U of A is fortunate to attract new talent in a highly competitive academic environment. Many are U of A grads themselves.

As they take on their new positions, new faculty members receive significant mentoring from Scott and others to ensure the new staff members feel supported and successful as teachers, researchers and in their careers.

“For me, people are the most important resource we have on this campus,” Scott says.

Meet three brand new nursing professors who have recently joined this award-winning team. 

Jim Johansson: Forensic nursing and beyond

Assistant professor Jim Johansson grew up in Edson and spent most of his 20s fighting Alberta wildfires as a crew member, supervisor and teacher. He loved the work, but not the lifestyle, so he went to nursing school and soon found himself working as a forensic nurse on a maximum security mental health unit within a hospital. 

“That environment poses unique challenges for nurses,” Johansson says. “It’s difficult when you’re trying to provide therapeutic interventions with your patients, but at the same time you’re basically in a jail system that is quite punitive. Finding a balance between those two things is hard.”

To better understand those challenges, Johansson pursued graduate studies, earning a PhD in nursing from the University of Ottawa. For his thesis, entitled “Nobody Wants to Die in Prison,” he interviewed Correctional Service Canada nurses, psychologists, physicians and correctional officers about barriers to compassionate health care for aging prisoners. Johansson now serves on the editorial board for the Journal of Forensic Nursing.

Johansson says he’s excited to be teaching two undergraduate classes this term: a first-year course on wellness across the lifespan and a third-year course about research methods and use of evidence.  

“I hope I can show students that nursing can be many things beyond working in a hospital,” says Johansson, whether it’s forensic nursing, outreach nursing with people who are experiencing homelessness, or helping those with substance use issues. 

“Nurses can provide a lot of kindness and hope to people in places where they may not get it otherwise.”

As Johansson continues to tackle forensic nursing questions in his research program at the U of A, he will also join the Climate Change and Health Hub, a cross-disciplinary group of faculty members, staff and students who are passionate about addressing climate change and its effects on health. He will focus on his first career passion to study how the proliferation of wildfires is affecting the mental health of firefighters and Indigenous communities on the front lines. Another project examines the issues surrounding mental health and medical assistance in dying

Johansson’s biggest worry as he takes on his new role is having time to do all of the work he wants to get done, but he says he’s already getting help from his new colleagues, both the veterans and the newbies. 

“There’s a pretty big cohort of us and there’s a spirit of support and generosity that has been really fantastic.” 

Samantha Louie-Poon: reimagining Asian well-being

Assistant professor Samantha Louie-Poon worked for five years as a registered nurse in pediatric oncology and hematology before being drawn back to academia to do her master’s and doctoral studies at the U of A, followed by postdoctoral studies at Dalhousie University. 

Born and raised in Edmonton, Louie-Poon self-identifies as a second-generation Chinese Canadian. Both her clinical and personal experiences of anti-Asian racism within the health-care system drove her to dig deeper.  

“I saw the disparities when I was walking alongside families and my pediatric patients as a registered nurse,” she recalls. “I wanted to conduct research and explore questions around anti-racism and how knowledge is produced and is promoted within the health-care system to make better futures for the next generation of racialized patients and families and communities.”

Louie-Poon first became aware of disparities within the health-care system as a child, hearing stories of frustration passed down from her grandparents and parents. Then her own experiences as a person who lives with chronic migraines and other medical issues left her feeling ignored and unheard.

“I was trying to get the right treatment and care but was continuously being dismissed and denied,” she recalls. “It got to the point where they just told me that I was basically causing my own pain because of my thoughts.” 

After several years of frustration, she eventually got a proper diagnosis and treatment but her experience made her want to improve health care for others.

Louie-Poon’s research to date has looked at the experiences of Asian patients and health-care workers. Her research program “is dedicated to advocating for the rights and well-being of Asian children and youth within the health-care system and beyond, while working in solidarity with other racialized communities,” she explains. 

“We need to do a lot of work in terms of learning and unlearning and relearning.”

She uses storytelling within the Asian community to drive her research, including through a participatory research action project focused on the emotional pain experienced by racialized youth and another on Chinese ways of knowing in chronic pain care.

This term, Louie-Poon is teaching a fourth-year nursing leadership course and another fourth-year interdisciplinary course that includes nursing, pharmacy and dietetics students, on oncology and hematology.

Louie-Poon describes her U of A appointment as a kind of “returning home,” where she hopes to expand her horizons by breaking new ground in anti-racism and community-engaged research. 

“U of A is the place that really can support both my research and also me as a human being,” Louie-Poon says. “I’m building brighter futures for Asian youth not only through my research outcomes, but also through the mentorship I’m doing, through the community spaces I’m building as an assistant professor and through the advocacy I’m doing.”

Margot Jackson: Youth mental health

Associate professor Margot Jackson has worked as a registered nurse since graduating from the U of A in 1995, but never in a hospital setting. Instead, she’s made her contribution through community-based work in women’s shelters, mental health clinics and child and youth health centres. She also holds an MA in counselling psychology from Gonzaga University, which allowed her to work as a mental health therapist, and a PhD in nursing from the U of A.  

Jackson was a U of A assistant professor before she took on a role as associate professor at MacEwan University. Now she’s coming full circle, bringing her passion for research and teaching back to the U of A. She will teach undergraduate nursing courses on community health and mental health, as well as supervise graduate students.

Jackson’s most recent research, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, illuminates the experiences of children and youth on wait lists for mental health services. Though wait lists allow the health-care system to prioritize care for those in most need, the act of waiting, Jackson’s team found, is in itself damaging, especially for racialized and 2SLGBTQ+ youth.

Aside from CIHR, Jackson’s research is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Women and Children’s Health Research Institute and PolicyWise for Children and Families.

Jackson’s research approach includes narrative inquiry, which involves doing in-depth interviews with vulnerable people to learn about their experiences and the “counterstories” they craft to cope with their frustration within the health-care system. One recent project even included a travelling art exhibit that has been displayed at the Edmonton Public Library and MacEwan University. 

Jackson is planning future research collaborations with faculty members from medicine and psychiatry as well. A longer-term goal is to create a research centre that brings together researchers and service providers to improve health services for children and youth. 

Like Johansson and Louie-Poon, Jackson worries about finding balance as she launches busy research and teaching schedules, but she feels supported and excited to begin. 

“I’m happy to come back to the U of A because people genuinely want to support each other here,” Jackson says. “It’s just an amazing opportunity.”

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