Dr. Tracy Vaillancourt is a Canada Research Chair in Children’s Mental Health and Violence Prevention at uOttawa where she is cross-appointed as a full professor in Counselling Psychology and in the School of Psychology. She is an elected member of The College of the Royal Society of Canada and the recipient of the 2016 uOttawa Award for Excellence in Research and the 2014 uOttawa Excellence in Media Relations Award. Dr. Vaillancourt’s research examines the links between bullying and mental health, with a particular focus on social neuroscience.
Dr. Vaillancourt obtained her Ph.D. in 2001 under the supervision of Dr. Shelley Hymel. Her dissertation focused on the links between social status, aggression, and mental health. Since leaving UBC, Dr. Vaillancourt has excelled academically. She has published 102 peer-reviewed papers, 28 book chapters, and 196 peer-reviewed conference presentations. She has obtained over 36 million dollars in research funding. Her current Google Scholar H-index is 29 (the average for social sciences in Canada is 5.2). Dr. Vaillancourt’s research is routinely highlighted in the media including The New York Times, The Times, Forbes Magazine, Bloomberg Business Week, The Atlantic, The Huffington Post, BBC World News, CBS This Morning, and CNN.