Lindsey Richardson

Lindsey Richardson is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of British Columbia, a Research Scientist with the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Scholar (2014-2019). Previously, she was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow with the Division of AIDS at the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Medicine, where she held a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Post-doctoral Fellowship. Lindsey conducts mixed methods and intervention-based research exploring socio-economic and structural influences on vulnerability, risk behaviour, health outcomes, access to health services and health research participation among marginalized populations. Her work emphasizes the role of employment, income generation and material security in the production of drug use- and HIV-related harm.

Lindsey holds master’s (2008) and doctoral degrees (2012) in sociology from the University of Oxford and Nuffield College. She worked on social, health and drug policy for the City of Vancouver and in the Prime Minister’s Office of the Rt. Hon. Jean Chrétien prior to returning to academia in 2006.

Experience as a Trudeau Scholar

Lindsey would describe her experience as a Trudeau Foundation Scholar as one of expansion, emboldening and enrichment. The financial support of the Foundation resulting in the expansion of her original doctoral project. It also allowed her to expand her training, providing time and resources to attend courses in advanced methods research.

A consistent theme throughout her involvement with the Foundation community has been its encouragement to boldly engage with important and pressing research questions and policy issues. In a meager effort to keep pace, this has resulted in Lindsey including a program of applied research in her longer term research plans, in the hopes that having worked to establish an empirical basis for changing the way we do things actually contributes to changing the way we do things.

Equally if not more valuable, however, have been the enriching experiences and relationships that have come from participating in the Foundation’s activities. From the many engaging and enthralling interactions and conversations with Scholars, Mentors and Fellows, to morning swims in the St. Lawrence with Foundation staff, to ongoing friendships and collaborations, the heart of her experience with the Foundation has been related to the people she met along the way. The experience can only be characterized as an honour, a privilege and a pleasure.