of Victoria
MN, PhD
Christina West has relocated to Victoria, BC in her new role as Associate Professor, School of Nursing, University of Victoria. She was recently an Associate Professor in the College of Nursing at the University of Manitoba and is a researcher with the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba. Christina founded and leads ‘Expressive Arts Studio: Healing Children and Families through the Arts,’ a research group whose work is guided by the expressive arts, family systems, and critical theory, as well as qualitative, arts-based research methodologies. In the Expressive Arts Studio, Christina leads the study of expressive arts-family systems interventions that aim to alleviate the emotional, psychological and spiritual suffering of illness and psychosocial trauma. Christina has a particular interest in childhood cancer. The Expressive Arts Studio team has adapted and studied an expressive arts method called ‘dialoguing with images,’ creating the theoretical grounding for future intervention research. She has conducted systematic reviews on digital storytelling as a method in health research and mindfulness-based arts interventions in cancer care. Christina has also led and studied an innovative four-year experiential faculty-graduate student mentorship initiative focused on creating a community of practice in qualitative inquiry.