Dr. Hynie is working with First in the World as an external program evaluator with expertise in community based teaching and research, engaged scholarship, and participatory evaluation.

Dr. Hynie has a commitment to university education as a means for social change for university students through access to knowledge, new world views, communities, and opportunities; and for communities, through their partnership with universities, connections to students, and the changes in society that education can bring.

Background

Dr. Hynie has Ph.D. (96) in Social Psychology from McGill University, Canada and is on faculty in the Department of Psychology, York University, Canada. She is the Associate Director of the York Institute for Health Research (YIHR) and founder of their Program Evaluation Unit (PrEvU).

Research & teaching experience

Dr. Hynie is interested in engaged scholarship; working in partnership with students, communities and organizations on research to address complex social issues. Dr. Hynie’s work falls into three related areas:

• Culture, migration and health inequities
• Social integration for refugees
• The relationship between different kinds of social connections  (interpersonal relationships, social networks) and resilience in different cultural and international contexts, and interventions that can strengthen these relationship

In 2007, Dr. Hynie founded the Program Evaluation Unit in the York Institute for Health Research to support non-profit organizations in conducting program evaluations, with an emphasis on participatory evaluation.

Dr. Hynie has taught:

• Graduate courses: Social Psychology Theory and Interpersonal Relationships
• Undergraduate courses: Cultural Psychology, Statistics, Research Methods, Social Psychology
• A Community Based Research Thesis course
• A post-doctoral course on Multicultural Mental Health Research