Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:

Emily van der Meulen completed her PhD in Women’s Studies at York University. Her dissertation was an action-oriented study of the effects of criminalization on sex workers’ ability to organize for improved labour rights and protection. The study was undertaken with Canada’s oldest sex worker-run organization, Maggie’s (The Toronto Sex Workers Action Project). After completing her doctorate, Dr. van der Meulen’s postdoctoral research with the Center for Research on Inner City Health at St. Michael’s Hospital and the Comparative Program on Health and Society, Munk School of Global Affairs, at the University of Toronto, was a community-based and decolonizing needs assessment with Aboriginal sex workers in two Ontario cities.

She is currently the Principal Investigator of a SSHRC funded study, titled ‘The Gendered Lens’, which is founded in a feminist, participatory approach to surveillance studies and examines diverse women’s experiences of video surveillance in Toronto. She is also co-editing an anthology of writing by sex workers, advocates, and academics on sex work in Canada.