Michael Ungar - Principal Investigator, RRC

Linda Liebenberg - Director of Research, RRC

Nora Didkowsky - Project Manager, Negotiating Resilience

Cathy Campbell - Co-investigator, Stories of Transition




Principal Investigator, Resilience Research Centre

Michael Ungar, Ph.D. is the author of nine books and more than 70 articles and book chapters. His works include The We Generation: Raising Socially Responsible Kids, Too Safe for Their Own Good: How Risk and Responsibility Help Teens Thrive, Counseling in Challenging Contexts, and Strengths-based Counseling with At-risk Youth. He has practiced for over 25 years as a Social Worker and Marriage and Family Therapist with children and families in child welfare, mental health, educational and correctional settings. Now a University Research Professor, and Professor at the School of Social Work, at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, he leads an international team of resilience researchers that spans more than a dozen countries on six continents. In addition to his research and writing interests, Dr. Ungar maintains a small family therapy practice for troubled children, youth and their families. He lives in Halifax with his partner and their two teenaged children.

[Visit Dr. Ungar's own website at www.michaelungar.com]



Director of Research, Resilience Research Centre

Linda Liebenberg, Ph.D. was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. She received her Ph.D in social research methods from Stenllenbosch University in 2005. Her dissertation reviewed the use of visual research methods as a communication tool in the South African social research context. A case study exploring the experiences of teenage mothers living in a sub-economic community of Cape Town, formed an illustrative component to her dissertation. The motivation behind the study stemmed largely from her research experiences with women on farms in the West Coast / Winelands region, and with out-of-school youth living in the Cape Flats, where it was apparent that conventional approaches to research were limiting and, at times, inefficient in such contexts. In 2003 she relocated to Canada, where she was appointed as Manager of the International Resilience Project (IRP), and is now Director of Research for the Resilience Research Centre. As a methodologist with an interest in image-based methods and mixed-methods designs, Linda's research examines the use of both in research with marginalized populations such as women and children, in majority world contexts, in particular South Africa. She has previously managed and coordinated a number of programs pertaining to these interests, including projects related to out-of-school youth in informal settlements surrounding Cape Town (Department of Educational Psychology and Specialised Education, Stellenbosch University, South Africa) and research with women on farms in the Winelands region of South Africa (Department of Psychology, Stellenbosch University).



Project Manager, Negotiating Resilience

Nora Didkowsky is from West Gore, a small, rural community in Hants County. Nora obtained a BSc Honours Psychology degree from Acadia University and a Masters of Arts in International Development Studies at Dalhousie University. Her mixed-model research included qualitative interviews with young people, exploring youth resilience within the framework of shifting economic, political and social realities in post-Soviet Russia, as well as the role of youth in forging a space for participation in healthy community development. Nora spent three years as an international researcher and youth programs coordinator at the Center for Research on Culture and Human Development, (St. Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia, Canada) an interdisciplinary research institute that conducts basic and applied research on early child healthy development around the world. Nora joined the International Resilience Project part-time in 2004, as a logistics and conference coordinator, and has continued to work with the IRP team. Following completion of her Master's studies, Nora taught a 3rd year Migration and Development class through the International Development Studies Department at Dalhousie University. More recently Nora has been appointed as Project Manager to the Negotiating Resilience Research Program, which seeks to understand resilience from the perspectives of youth who are in transition between two (or more) culturally distinct worlds. Her doctoral research, which is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Foundation through the Atlantic RURAL Centre, will investigate the pathways to resilience for youth in transition coping with the effects of community restructuring in rural Atlantic Canada.



Co-investigator, Stories of Transition

Cathy Campbell B.Ed, M.S.W., Ph.D. (cand.) has over twenty years experience as a counsellor and program developer, and program manager in school, community college, and university settings. As the former Director of a four-year federal demonstration project in PEI, she oversaw the development of a program of counselling and educational supports for high-risk young adults that effectively facilitated sustainable transitions to the workforce. She is presently a co-investigator for RRC's Stories of Transition project. Cathy has presented and published both locally and nationally on the topics of narrative career counseling, helping young people plan with uncertainty, and on the role of parents in assisting young people with career planning.