2019 SMF Research Symposium

The SMF Research Symposium is an annual conference hosted by the Department of Sexuality, Marriage, and Family Studies (SMF) at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Ontario. The symposium is a one-day conference that highlights student and faculty research dealing generally with relationships, families, and human sexuality.

The Research Symposium was first launched by SMF faculty and students in 2009 to bring together an academic community of shared interests in scholarship and research. It is our hope that it will continue to serve as a forum for growth and development within the fields of sexuality, relationships, and families, as well as provide a space for future innovations and professional exploration. The SMF department encourages an overarching vision of social justice and anti-oppression through research and scholarship, and emphasizes the importance of that vision through the Research Symposium.

Each year, the SMF Symposium offers an opportunity for students, faculty, and community members to present their research and engage in critical discussions about important issues in the relationships and sexuality fields. These critical discussions often take on a practical or applied focus – how research translates into practice in the human services fields. The Symposium team remains committed to creating a venue where we can explore and discuss theory and research in critical and accessible ways!

We hope that you will join us and add your voice to these important discussions.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Why We Need More Research at the Nexus of Sexualities, Relationships, and Families 
Presented by Karen Blair, PhD

Do you ever notice how the relationships conferences fail to give adequate attention to sexual diversity or even sexual activity? Or how the sexuality conferences seem to abscond with the notion of non-sexual relationship dynamics? Despite our tendencies to sometimes study and discuss these topics in isolation, in reality they share dynamic connections that are constantly in flux and rarely simple. In this talk, Blair explores some of the ways that her research has explored how sexualities, relationships, and families interconnect with each other (for better, or for worse) to produce the reality of our day-to-day
experiences in any one of these domains.
 
About the Speaker
Karen L. Blair, PhD., is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Canada, and the director of the KLB Research Lab. Dr. Blair studies the role that social support for relationships plays in the development,
maintenance and dissolution of relationships, LGBTQ Psychology, and the connections between relationships, social prejudices and health.
 

CRITICAL CLOSE-UP

Femme Theory: Using Marginalized femininities to understand gender and power
Dr. Rhea Ashley Hoskin

The full abstract for this presenation is available on the 2019 SMF Research Symposium page of the St. Jerome's University website.

SESSION 1: Morning

Lusting Against type: Sexual Agency vs Gender Stereotypes in Comics
J. Andrew Deman
 
“u looking”” Hookup app use, sex, and intimacy among men seeking men
Harrison Oakes
 
Transgressing the (trans)Norm:
Analyzing Trans Identities in Medicine and the dominant sex/gender system
Sophia Kudriavstev
 
What are the barriers to safe sex communication? Comparing the Role of Emotional Avoidance,
Communication skills Deficits, and STI Knowledge
Uzma S. Rehman

SESSION 2:  Afternoon

Relationship and Sexual Satisfacation: A Developmental Perspective on Bidirectionality and the longitudinal effects of personality
Christopher Quinn-Nilas
 
How Disclosure and Non-Disclosure of Problem Gambling in Interpersonal Relationships Impacts Problem Gambling Intervention Outcomes
Anna Dawczyk
 
Emotional Avoidance as a Mediator Between Childhood Maltreatment and Relationship Quality in Adulthood
Julia McNeil
 
Grindr and emotional affordances and discontents: an investigation into gay male social networking applications and emotional (Dis)Connection
Adam Davies

The full abstracts for these topics are available on the 2019 SMF Research Symposium page of the St. Jerome's University website.