Canadian Studies is pleased to announce two new recipients of the John A. Sproul Postdoctoral Fellowship for the Spring 2023 semester. The fellowship provides support for a visiting scholar engaged in research on Canada to spend time at UC Berkeley.
Dr. Eric Guntermann is a political scientist and data scientist in the Travers Department of Political Science at UC Berkeley, where he also holds a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship. His research examines the links between political elites and ordinary citizens, including both the representation of citizens' preferences by governments and the influence of political elites on citizens' preferences. He is particularly focused on the influence of electoral systems and voting behaviour on representation, as well as inequalities in representation and the extent to which political institutions can reduce them.
Dr. Guntermann completed his undergraduate degree at McGill University, and received his Ph.D. in political science from the Université de Montréal. He also holds a master's of research in comparative politics from the Sciences Po in Paris. His research has been published in the Canadian Journal of Political Science and Canadian Public Administration, among numerous other journals. Among his recent projects was a study assessing the impact of greater public acceptance on the voting preferences of gay, lesbian, and bisexual Canadians. He was also formerly a postdoctoral researcher at the Canada Research Chair in Electoral Democracy.
Dr. Guntermann's Sproul Fellowship will allow him to expand his current research project, which assesses the influence of far-right parties on public attitudes, to the Canadian context. While the far right has long been marginal in Canada, the populist People's Party of Canada saw a significant increase in support between 2019 and 2021. Using panel surveys, his research will assess the effects of the PPC's campaign on its supporter's attitudes towards immigration and COVID-19 vaccinations, and whether the party makes its voters more ideologically consistent.
Dr. Lance T. McCready is an associate professor in the Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, and director of the Transitional Year Programme at University of Toronto. Dr. McCready’s cross disciplinary research program focuses on the education, health, and welfare of Black families, youth and adults, and has three strands of inquiry: 1) educational trajectories, transitions and access; 2) dispute resolution, mediation and restorative justice; 3) health literacy and wellness of gay, bisexual, transgender, men who have sex with men (gbtMSM).
Dr. McCready specializes in qualitative methodologies using community-based participatory approaches that emerge from collaborations with K-12 schools, universities, social service agencies, community health centres and queer youth programs. He is the author of Making Space for Diverse Masculinities, published by Peter Lang, and principal investigator of the African, Caribbean, Black Family Group Conferencing (ACB-FGC) Project and Black Youth Leaving Care study. In addition, he is co-investigator on the Black CAP GetaKit Home HIV Testing study and International Partnership for Queer Youth Resilience (INQYR), while serving as a mentor for the Investigaytors community health leadership program and Steering Committee member for Black Gay Men’s Network Toronto.
Dr. McCready holds a B.A. in psychology (minor in educational studies) and an M.A. and Ph.D. in social and cultural studies in education (designated emphasis in women, gender and sexuality studies) from UC Berkeley. He is the 2017 recipient of the Ludwik and Estelle Jus Memorial Human Rights Prize and 2018 recipient of the Distinguished Research Scholar Award from the Ontario Education Research Symposium.
During the period of his Sproul Fellowship, Dr. McCready will focus on completing an academic book proposal on the educational trajectories of Canadian Black queer youth, as well as article-length manuscripts broadly related to the health and welfare of Black youth, gbtMSM and families in Canada.