Leah Carrier

Leah Carrier is a Niitsítapi registered nurse and doctoral student at Dalhousie University. She is a research trainee at the IWK Health Centre, working with the Aboriginal Children’s Hurt and Healing Initiative on projects related to chronic pain and mental health in Indigenous children and youth. Her doctoral research uses a Two-Eyed Seeing approach to examine the impact of cultural connectedness on mental health outcomes and how cultural interventions can be implemented with Indigenous children and youth.

In 2018, Leah founded the Community of Indigenous Students in Nursing (CISN) at Dalhousie University and she has been instrumental in connecting this group to initiatives at the university, in the local community, and with Indigenous mentorship networks nationally. She is also the co-president of the Dalhousie Indigenous Health Interest Group, whose mandate is to promote Indigenous health through education, research, and professional development. This group is interdisciplinary in nature and is comprised of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students across the health programs. It serves in a mentorship capacity for Indigenous students and also enables non-Indigenous students to become informed about Indigenous health and history, which assists in the development of culturally competent health practitioners.