Sonja Senthanar

Dr. Sonja Senthanar is a postdoctoral research fellow with the Partnership for Work, Health and Safety (PWHS) in the School of Population and Public Health, UBC. Under the guidance of PWHS co-director, Dr. Mieke Koehoorn, her research investigates the work disability experiences of immigrant workers compared to Canadian-born workers using population-based, linked administrative data.

In 2019, she completed her PhD from the University of Waterloo where she used a feminist qualitative approach to explore the employment integration experiences of refugee women in Canada. Her primary research interests include employment outcomes, gender and work disability relating primarily to immigrant and refugee populations as well as how these relationships change within the context of new forms of work.

She is the recipient of WorkSafeBC’s inaugural Ralph McGinn Postdoctoral Fellowship (2021) and has received many travel and presentation awards at national conferences, recognizing the quality and importance of her research. This MSFHR Research Trainee award will help her identify areas where immigrant workers ‘fall through the cracks’ to inform appropriate policy and programming.

For an up-to-date list of publications by Sonja, please see ResearchGate.