Janki Shankar

Janki Shankar is a full Professor in the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Calgary. She also holds an Adjunct Professor position at the University of Alberta since 2010. With a distinguished career spanning both academic and clinical settings, Dr. Shankar brings 17 years of clinical experience as a social worker and therapist to her academic work, having worked primarily in mental health and specialized vocational rehabilitation settings for people with severe disability in Sydney, Australia, as well as in West Africa and India.

Dr. Shankar's educational background includes:

• Doctor of Philosophy in Social Work from the University of Sydney (2001)
• M.Phil. in Social Work from Ntl Inst Mental Hlth&Neur Scie (1986)
• M.S.W. in Social Work from Tata Institute Social Sciences (1976)

Dr. Shankar's research focuses on the challenges to integration and well-being arising from stigma, discrimination, and racism experienced by immigrant workers and families, immigrant students, and people with disabilities. Her current research examines occupational safety, health, and well-being of immigrant and Canadian-born workers in precarious employment settings and prevention of family violence and Children's services intervention in immigrant families. She has received significant research funding from tri-council grants (SSHRC, CIHR), Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Policy Wise, Alberta Health, and Department of Labor, Government of Alberta, making her one of the few social work academics in Canada to receive tri-council funding for research on occupational safety and well-being of new Canadians.

Her scholarly output demonstrates consistent contributions to the fields of immigrant worker safety, mental health, and violence prevention. The publications show a clear trajectory of research focused on immigrant integration, workplace safety, mental health challenges, and family violence, with increasing emphasis on participatory action research methods that engage directly with communities.

Dr. Shankar has received several research awards as a principal investigator and has collaborated on numerous research projects. Her work has been recognized nationally, with invitations to speak at universities in Australia and India and requests to serve on examination committees for higher degree students.

As an educator, Dr. Shankar teaches a wide range of courses including Diversity, Oppression and Social Justice, Cross-Cultural Violence, Advanced Practice in Mental Health, Research, and Critical Social Policy. Her teaching philosophy is strongly influenced by decolonizing pedagogies and post-colonial theories. She has extensive experience supervising higher degree students and has served on supervisory and examination committees for doctoral students at the University of Alberta.