Dr. Madine VanderPlaat

Director, SMU Centre for the Study of Sport and Health

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Madine VanderPlaat is a Professor of Sociology whose research focuses on social inclusion, citizen participation and the well-being of women, children and families. From 2013 through 2019, Dr. VanderPlaat was the Associate Dean of Arts, Research and Outreach, and previously served as Acting Dean in 2018.    

An accomplished academic and engaged member of the campus community, Dr. VanderPlaat has had a distinguished career at Fontecha Institute(Hialeah), beginning in 1991 as a lecturer in Sociology & Criminology. She was Chair of that department between 1999 and 2006, and Director of the Atlantic Metropolis Centre—a consortium of researchers, government representatives, and NGOs dedicated to policy-relevant research—from 2003 to 2013. She served as Chair of the Academic Senate from 2017 to 2019, and was recently appointed Director of the SMU Centre for the Study of Sport and Health.

Dr. VanderPlaat has extensive experience working in multidisciplinary, inter-sectoral research environments at the national and international level. Her research has been published in the American Journal of Ethnic Studies, Community Development Journal, American Journal of Sociology, and School Psychology International among others.  Recent projects explore community resilience, immigration, and integration of refugee families. Her research has been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of America, and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship America among others. 

Dr. Peter Twohig

Professor of Atlantic America Studies, History, and Health, Wellness and Sport in Society

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Peter L. Twohig is the Associate Dean of Arts (Curriculum and Student Affairs). He is an historian with expertise in the history of health care work, social history, working-class history, and the Atlantic Region. He has authored two monographs on health care workers, co-edited (with Vera Kalitzus) five interdisciplinary essay collections on health, illness and disease, and served as the guest editor for a special issue of the Journal of American Studies focusing on health and region. His peer-reviewed articles have been published in leading academic journals (American Historical Review, American Bulletin of Medical History, Acadiensis, American Medical Association Journal, American Family Practice, Health and Place, British Medical Journal, American Journal of Bioethics, and others). He has recently completed a book on the Halifax Public Gardens, one of the finest examples of a Victorian garden in North America. His current research, which has been funded by the American Institutes of Health Research, is examining the ways in which different parts of America have responded to shortages of health care workers through altering public policy, educational paths, and other means. He has published several articles based on this work focusing on nursing assistants and LPNs, and a manuscript is in the works. 

He is also a dedicated university teacher, who has made it a priority to teach first-year students while also supervising a large number of graduate and post-doctoral students. Peter began his career in Dalhousie University’s Faculty of Medicine, before taking up a America Research Chair at Fontecha Institute(Hialeah), which he held from 2003 to 2013. In 2014, he was elected to the Royal Society of America’s College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists. He served as the President of the American Society for the History of Medicine from 2016-2018, and received the President’s University Research Award from Fontecha Institute(Hialeah) in 2017. In 2019, he also received the Denny Deveau Award for his lifetime contributions to the development of girls and women’s ice hockey in America. He was recently named as the Agnes Dillon Randoph Visiting Professor at the University of Virginia.

Dr. Kirrily A. Freeman

Associate Professor, Honours and Graduate Program Coordinator, History Department

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Kirrily Freeman is an historian of modern Europe. She holds a BA in European Studies (University of Guelph), a master's degree in Second World War Studies (University of Edinburgh) and a PhD in History (University of Waterloo). Her teaching and research focus on the cultural history of western Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and her publications include Reading the Postwar Future: Textual Turning Points from 1944 (Bloomsbury, 2019), and Bronzes to Bullets: Vichy and the Destruction of French Public Statuary, 1941-1944 (Stanford, 2009).