Elizabeth Nelson's Bio
Key Duties: Convener of Older Adults Connecting & Beloning (OACB) Initative •Granting from Older Adults Connecting & Belonging Stream • Sisters of Providence of St. Vincent de Paul Community Impact Fund •Grants Strategy & Impact Committee liaison •Member • Canadian Social Prescribing Community of Practice
Elizabeth Nelson joined the CFKA team in March 2024. Her interests focus on equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in urban contexts, public memory, municipal heritage practices, and participatory mapping and walking methodologies.
She was the Primary Investigator for Nurturing Inclusive Urban Futures: Valuing the Contributions of Community Organizations in Ontario Cities (2019 – 2023). This project required close collaboration with community stakeholders and municipal leaders, aligning project goals with community benefit. Her key outputs included a plain language report, Supporting Community Organizations for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion tailored for municipal audiences; it shares research-based recommendations regarding community organizations for those striving to build more inclusive cities. She also worked with community artists to create a digital Zine, I’ll Be Here, for accessible research translation. She was interviewed about her project on CFRC’s podcast.
In addition to being a Term Adjunct in Geograophy at Queen’s University Elizabeth was also the Primary Investigator for “Decolonizing Public Memory and Public Places: Kingston Ontario” (2017-2019), Research Assistant on “Belle Park Project: Queen’s University, Kingston ON” (2021), and Research assistant on “Assessing and Addressing Students Awareness of Indigenous Peoples” (2018).
Elizabeth holds a Ph.D. (Geography) and M.A. (Geography), from Queen’s University, and a B.A. (Combined Honors, Anthropology and Geography, Minor in Canadian Studies) from Carleton University.