Women's health research: Professor Nafissa Ismail receives Governor General's Award

Faculty of Social Sciences
School of Psychology
Awards and recognition
Professors
Distinguished professor
Profile picture of professor Nafissa Ismail

The University of Ottawa is proud to announce that Professor Nafissa Ismail, a distinguished researcher at the School of Psychology in the Faculty of Social Sciences, was recently honoured with the prestigious Governor General's Award. This distinction recognizes her outstanding contributions to research on women's health, an often neglected field that is crucial to gender equality and the well-being of society.

Professor Nafissa Ismail is a leading figure in the field of mental health. She heads the NISE Laboratory (Neuroimmunology, Stress and Endocrinology) at the University of Ottawa, where her students are trained to work with cutting-edge molecular and behavioral methods. Her work focuses particularly on understanding why women are twice as likely as men to suffer from depression, and she is exploring the effects of oral contraceptives on the female brain.

With over 25 years' experience, Professor Ismail has contributed to administrative and grant review committees, established international partnerships and participated in various national and international initiatives. She was also co-leader of the Memory and Cognition and Mental Health groups at the University of Ottawa's Brain Research Institute, and is currently Director of the LIFE Research Institute, where she leads a multidisciplinary network of researchers and community and industry partners.

Professor Ismail's work has profound implications for policy-makers, healthcare practitioners and the general public. It highlights the need to integrate a gender perspective into mental health research and to develop specific interventions for women. The recognition of her contributions with a Governor General's Award testifies to the importance of her research and her commitment to promoting gender equality and improving women's health.

To find out more about Professor Nafissa Ismail's innovative research, we invite you to consult her publications and follow her work on Collabzium.

Learn more about research at the Faculty of Social Sciences.