Nicole Letourneau, PhD, RN

Canada Research Chair in Healthy Child Development at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton and Full Professor in the Faculty of Nursing

Dr. Nicole Letourneau holds a Canada Research Chair in Healthy Child Development. She is also a Canadian Research Institute for Social Policy Research (CRISP) Fellow and a Full Professor in the University of New Brunswick's Faculty of Nursing. Letourneau has been studying risk factors to parent-child relationships and child development for more than a dozen years. Her current nationally and internationally funded projects include studies of: support for fathers affected by postpartum depression; supporting mother-infant relationships affected by intimate partner violence; effect of home-based peer support on maternal-infant interaction, infant health outcomes, and postpartum depression; and caregiver-child interactions that promote early literacy.

She has published over 40 research papers and presented her research at over 90 conferences. In partnership with the Provincial Department of Health, Letourneau conducted New Brunswick's first universal screening of new mothers for postpartum depression. In 2006, Letourneau was named Canada's Premier Young Investigator by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and in 2007 she was named to Canada's prestigious Top 40 Under 40 list. In 2008, she was named to Who's Who in Canada. She is also a member of the boards of CIHR's Governing Council, National Collaborating Centre on the Determinants of Health, Assisted Human Reproduction Canada, and Invest in Kids.