Biography

Dr. Angela Wisniewski has lived most of her life here in Fredericton, NB. Angela’s B.A. is from St. Thomas University. Her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees were both earned at the University of New Brunswick. Her MA thesis, entitled “Watchdogs and Whistleblowers: Canadian press responses to the market withdrawal of Vioxx”, examined how the media presented a controversy over drug safety and the policy debates that ensued.  Her dissertation, “Are you a South Beach girl or an Atkins girl? A qualitative inquiry into middle-aged women’s experiences as consumers of weight-loss media” combined content analysis and qualitative interviews to look at how the risks and benefits of diets are framed by popular diet gurus and by women who tried those diets.

Dr. Wisniewski embraces an interdisciplinary approach in her own research and in the projects she seeks out. As a graduate student she worked as a research assistant for faculty with diverse fields of expertise, ranging from Business Administration, Sociology, to Science and Technology Studies. Some notable projects she has contributed to as a research assistant include studies of scams and corporate responsibility, the job satisfaction of Information Technology workers in NB, and an evaluation of a non-profit community housing initiative in Moncton and Fredericton.

More recently, Dr. Wisniewski has collaborated with community-leaders and researchers from the Muriel McQueen Fergusson Centre for Family Violence Research. Together with Rina Arsenault and Martine Paquet, she has engaged in several years of research and knowledge-transfer for the ‘Rural Realities’ Project. The three have co-authored the paper “Justice system response to intimate partner violence in rural New Brunswick: A qualitative analysis of survivor and service provider perspectives”, which appeared in a recent issue of the journal Canadian Social Work.