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Vandna Sinha is a transdisciplinary, mixed-methods, community-based researcher/evaluator who is interested in the ways that social policy impacts communal capacities to care for and support children and families. She works in close partnership with education, child welfare, health and social service, and child/youth advocacy organizations to design and implement research that addresses questions that are of interest to them and to mobilize research findings in meaningful ways.  Much of her work has been done in partnership with Indigenous organizations and Nations in Canada and has focused on: 1) dismantling a child welfare system that continues the mass-separation of Indigenous children from their families, and 2) supporting the development of systems of Indigenous-controlled services that meet the needs of Indigenous families.

Vandna has a PhD in Human Development and Social Policy, and was previously a tenured professor in the School of Social Work at McGill University. She believes deeply in the transformative power of participatory research. She is committed to advancing understanding of and support for community engaged research at CU Boulder, and to enhancing the capacity of campus and community partners to engage in equitable, social justice focused, and mutually beneficial research, teaching and learning.  She does this through her own program of research, by teaching community-engaged courses, by playing a leading role at CU Engage and by coordinating the Graduate Fellowship for Community Based Research and a CU Boulder partnership with the Experiential Learning Design Accelerator at the University of Arizona.