Laurence Simard-Gagnon

Laurence Simard-Gagnon,
research professional

Laurence Simard-Gagnon is a research professional and contributes to a research project on constituency offices and immigration services. She wascoordinator of the Chair in Global Migration Processes from September 2019 to April 2021. Her role was to support the activities and members of the Chair, as well as to develop and implement research projects. She holds a PhD in Geography from Queen’s University, Ontario, Canada. Her thesis focused on the experiences of francophone mothers who had migrated to Kingston, Ontario from elsewhere in Canada or from abroad.

In addition to her work for the Chair, Laurence works for the Collectif pour un Québec sans pauvreté. She is also a SSHRC postdoctoral researcher at the City Institute of York University, Ontario, Canada. Her research explores how to cartographically represent the mental health experiences of migrant mothers of children with special needs in Quebec City.

Photographic contribution

Michel Huneault is a documentary photographer and visual artist. Before devoting himself entirely to photography starting in 2008, he worked for more than ten years in international development. He holds an M.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of California at Berkeley, where he was a Rotary Peace Fellow, focusing on the role of collective memory in the aftermath of large-scale trauma. First in Berkeley and then in New York, he was a student and assistant to photographer Gilles Peress of the Magnum agency. Today, Michel Huneault is still interested in development, trauma, migration and other complex geographic realities, including the impacts of climate change. In 2016, he was awarded the Travers Foreign Corresponding Fellowship to continue his research on migration issues. In 2018, ROXHAM, his visual and sound project on the passage of asylum seekers from the United States to Canada was adapted into virtual reality by the National Film Board of Canada.