Dr. Wendy Aujla

Assistant Professor Criminal Justice

Contact information

E-mail: waujla@athabascau.ca

Current courses

Dr. Wendy Aujla

Dr. Wendy Aujla

Assistant Professor Criminal Justice

Contact information

Email: waujla@athabascau.ca

Phone:

Dr. Wendy Aujla (she/her) is an Assistant Professor in Criminal Justice at Athabasca University.

She grew up in and currently lives with her family in Treaty 6 territory in Amiskwaciy-Wâskahikan, also called Edmonton, Alberta.

As an applied sociologist, she collaborates with community partners to create meaningful social change. Her community-engaged, policy-relevant research bridges the gap between academia and the real world.

Her research focuses on gender-based violence, “honour-based” crimes, forced marriages, and the (re)victimization of marginalized populations, particularly South Asian and immigrant women who report abuse to both informal and formal supports. She also explores the perspectives of service providers, including police, in addressing these issues. Her work is informed by critical race feminism and intersectionality, and she specializes in community-based research, work-integrated learning, and creative knowledge mobilization.

She has collaborated on national and international research projects exploring the complexities of mothering in the context of family violence, intimate partner violence during the COVID-19 pandemic, and service providers’ experiences supporting trans and immigrant women impacted by intimate partner violence. Her research has been published in journals such as Crime and Delinquency, Critical Criminology, Family Violence, International Journal of Qualitative Methods, and Victims and Offenders, among others. Most recently, she co-authored a chapter in the co-edited Routledge International Handbook of Femicide and Feminicide.

Dr. Aujla proudly serves on the expert advisory panel for the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability and the Immigrant Family Violence Prevention Committee. She is deeply committed to building safer, violence-free communities. She founded an annual gift card campaign to support immigrant and refugee women and their children who are fleeing family violence. She has been recognized with several awards for her efforts in preventing and ending family violence, including the Government of Alberta Inspiration Award for Leadership in Family Violence and the Peace in Families Award.

If you would like to learn more about Dr. Aujla's current research program or are looking for hands-on research experience, please feel free to email her at waujla@athabascau.ca.


Research interests

  • Gender-based violence
  • Victimization
  • Policing of racialized communities
  • Critical race feminism, anti-racism, and intersectionality
  • Grounded (constructivist) theory and qualitative research methods
  • Community-based research
  • Work-integrated learning
  • Knowledge mobilization

Educational credentials

  • PhD, Sociology, University of Alberta (Specialization: Community-Engaged Pedagogies and Community Engagement)
  • MA, Sociology, University of Alberta (Embedded Graduate Certificate in Community-Based Research and Evaluation)
  • Pre-Masters, Sociology and Criminology, University of Manitoba
  • BA, Sociology and Education, Concordia University of Edmonton

Professional affiliations

  • Canadian Sociological Association
  • Western Society of Criminology
  • Canadian Society of Evidence Based Policing
  • Community Campus Engage Canada
  • Co-operative Education and Work-Integrated Learning (CEWIL)