The Client Recruitment Process
Organizations interested in working with MHPI can apply between June 1st 2021 and August 20th 2021. For more information about the application process, please see the timeline below.
The Client Recruitment Process
Organizations interested in working with MHPI can apply between June 1st 2021 and August 20th 2021. For more information about the application process, please see the timeline below.
Mental Health Policy Initiative
Meet Our Executive Team
Veronica Lancaster
Co-Director
Veronica is a second-year Master of Public Policy Student at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. Additionally, she holds an Honours Bachelor of Health Sciences from Western University. Currently, she is completing her internship at the Ministry of Health. Veronica is very passionate about the intersection of health and public policy. This year at MHPI, Veronica hopes to advocate for student mental health support by implementing policy recommendations from MHPI's student led research projects.
Lynette Furtado
Co-Director
Lynette is a second-year Master of Public Policy candidate at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. She holds a Bachelor of Law and Sociology from York University, specializing in public administration. Lynette's primary policy interests are immigration, education, law and justice. This year, Lynette will be the President of the Master of Public Policy Students Association (MPPSA). In her free time, Lynette works as a Talks Speaker and Delegate with Jack.org, a Canadian Non-Profit organization focusing on youth mental health, to deliver research-based talks to at-risk centers, high schools and other youth-centered organizations. Lynette is completing her internship at the Ministry of Education this summer and advocates for equitable access to education. Lynette hopes to advocate for better access to mental health resources for graduate students at UofT, fostering a more resilient and united community at Munk.
Meet Our Faculty Advisor
Laura Garcia Montoya
Assistant Professor at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy
Laura Garcia-Montoya is an Assistant Professor at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy.
Prior to joining the Munk School, she was an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Universidad del Rosario (Bogotá, Colombia). She was a Visiting Fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Affairs at the University of Notre Dame and a Postdoctoral Researcher in The Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice and the Politics Department at Princeton University.
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She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science at Northwestern University, where she also completed an M.S. in Statistics. She has also completed M.A. and B.A. degrees in Economics from the University of Los Andes in Colombia.
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Dr. Montoya-Garcia’s research interests are in comparative politics and research methodologies. She investigates the political economy of inequality and development in Latin America and its relationship with violence. Her interests in research methods are in the study of causal inference and measurement frameworks.
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Her work has been published or is forthcoming in the American Political Science Review and Sociological Methods and Research. Currently, she is writing a book entitled, Trapped by Inequality: The Politics of Redistribution in Latin America, in which she identifies the causes of economic inequality traps -— i.e., high and persistent levels of economic inequality — in the region and explains why and how some countries manage to escape such traps and embark on paths of diminishing inequality.
These projects have been possible with funding from the Kellogg Institute at the University of Notre Dame, The Mamdouha S. Bobst Center at Princeton University, The Buffett Institute, The Kellogg Dispute Resolution Research Center (DRRC), The Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and the Political Science Department at Northwestern University.