Another St Lucian Professor!

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he University of the West Indies, (UWI) Mona is pleased to announce the promotion of Senior Research Fellow and Acting Director of the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES), Faculty of Social Sciences, Dr. Aldrie Henry-Lee, to the rank of Professor. The promotion comes in the wake of assessment of her academic accomplishments and contribution to her field.

Aldrie Henry-Lee holds the Bachelor of Arts (Sociology) from The UWI, St. Augustine Campus, Trinidad & Tobago, and the Master of Science (MSc) and the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degrees in Social Sciences from the Consortium Graduate School at The UWI, Mona Campus, Jamaica.

Dr. Henry-Lee is a highly respected academic who has been recognized locally, regionally and internationally as a community sociologist, working in the area of Social Policy. Her research focus has been in the areas of children’s rights, poverty, health, deviance and social development. This work has been completed in many Caribbean countries including Jamaica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Turks and Caicos, British Virgin Islands, Belize and Grenada.

A prolific researcher, she has produced a sustained body of original work in the field of public policy on poverty, gender, Caribbean childhoods and human rights. She has centred the experiences of the developing Caribbean countries in her work, enabling her to critically assess how UN Millennium Development Goals, UN Sustainable Development Goals and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child have been implemented in these contexts and the work that still needs to be done to advance a rights-based approach to development. In recognition of this work, she was named recipient of a Principal’s Distinguished Researcher Award for the Faculty of Social Sciences. She is the author of five edited books related to child research, three short monographs, five special journal issues as well as eight book chapters, and 19 journal articles. Her work is published in a variety of well-respected outlets including Social and Economic Studies, Journal of Eastern Caribbean Studies, Caribbean Journal of Public Sector Management, Reproductive Health Matters (UK), West Indian Medical Journal, Environment and Urbanization (UK), Ian Randle Publishers and University of Bergen (UiB)

Much of her work has influenced policy formulation and analysis across the Caribbean. For example, her studies on the impact of incarceration of Jamaican women on themselves and their dependents;  the Foster Care System in Jamaica, the evaluation of the Social Protection system in St. Lucia and Protecting the Medically Indigent and the Poor under National Health Insurance, have helped to paint a picture of the social problems related to poverty and have emphasized that unless targeted measures are employed to address vulnerability, there is little evidence that the quality of life for the underprivileged  will improve.

In addition to her scholarly work, Dr. Henry-Lee has given considerable service to the University as Acting Director of SALISES, Associate Dean in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Chair and member of several university committees. She has taught in many Social Policy courses for the Department of Sociology, Psychology and Social Work, and at the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES). She has developed several courses which examine Social Policy issues: Social Inequality, Inequity and Marginalization; Social Investment in Children and Deviance, Conflict and Social Management. In recognition of her excellence in teaching, she was selected as the UWI/Guardian Life Premium Teaching Awardee in 2010.

Dr. Henry-Lee has also gained widespread acclamation for her public service as Chair of the annual regional Caribbean Child Research Conference. The conference has won the award for the project with the most developmental impact in the Faculty of Social Sciences and is the only forum which provides equal voice to children and adults, as children also present their research and compete for the outstanding Child Researcher award. The conference also informs the policy process and has submitted recommendations to the Jamaican Government for improvement in the status of children.

She has served on several committees organized by the United Nations Children’s Fund, the Planning Institute of Jamaica and the Child Development Agency. Her research has been funded by several international agencies including Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Department for International Development (DFID), the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and the World Bank.