Amber Merucci

Dr. Amber Merucci has worked as a frontline counsellor and project specialist within the violence against women and gender-based violence field for the past fourteen years, working with survivors of intimate partner, family and gender-based violence across Ontario and Manitoba. Amber has also worked in the area of immigration, supporting the settlement of refugee claimants, government-assisted refugees, and permanent residents. Amber has had the honor of working with Elders, Knowledge Carriers, and with Indigenous-led organizations pursuing MMIWG National Action Plan initiatives. Amber strongly believes in the mantra “nothing about us, without us” and is committed to decolonial practices, striving to work from an anti-oppressive, trauma-informed, culturally responsive, (post)colonial lens. Amber believes in approaching her research and work from a place of curiosity, humility, and compassion.

Amber received her Honors Bachelor of Social Work from the University of Western Ontario’s Kings College and her Master of Arts in Globalization Studies from McMaster University. From there, Amber pursued and completed a PhD in Education at York University. Amber’s research interests include the ways in which artists use their artwork to navigate war trauma, imperial wars and the fortification of western empire and hegemony, Indigenous ways of knowing and being, as well as the systemic causes and social implications of loneliness on adolescence.

Amber is a Sessional Lecturer at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto. In her spare time, Amber enjoys being surrounded by nature and spending time in meaningful ways, away from devices, with the ones she loves.