Dr. Camisha Sibblis is the Director of the Black Studies Institute and Assistant Professor in Sociology and Criminology at the University of Windsor and previously faculty in their School of Social Work.  

Her research integrates a broad effort across disciplines in the study of identity, oppression and anti-oppressive alternatives. Her research uses spaciotemporal and critical race theories to focus on the anti-Black racism, the ubiquity of carcerality in Black life, and the politics of intersectional identity.  She explores how excluded Black youth are constructed in the education system and how carceral experiences within schooling effect identity formation. Furthermore, her work traces the manner in which different spaces throughout history have constructed the Black body as abject and have functioned as regulating sites of violence.

Prior to her move to the University of Windsor, Dr. Sibblis was an Assistant Professor of Criminology, Law, and Society and the Associate Director of Belonging, Equity, Anti-Racism and Decolonization for the Inlight Institutional Initiative for Student Mental Health Research at the University of Toronto. 

She has extensive experience working with marginalized children, youth and their families as a school social worker, as a child welfare worker, and court designated expert on systemic racism, and as a clinician who, in addition to treatment, has authored various types of assessment reports - including Impact of Race and Culture or Enhanced Pre-Sentence Reports, which assess the effects of anti-Black racism on the lives of the offenders for sentencing hearings. Dr. Sibblis wrote the first of these reports for a Black Ontario offender tried in Ontario: R. v. Morris, which set a precedent through the Supreme Courts promoting the use of IRCAs/EPSRs. At present, Dr. Sibblis is leading a project with the Black Legal Action Centre to enhance Black people’s access to justice.

Dr. Sibblis is an Equity consultant and Anti-Oppressive Practice and Anti-Black Racism trainer. Dr. Sibblis counseled Black female wards of the Children’s Aid Society as a mental health practitioner in private practice; and a Community Outreach Worker for the Ontario Association for Children’s Aid Society’s One Vision One Voice: Changing the Child Welfare System for African Canadians. Dr. Sibblis is also a clinical agent for the Office of the Children’s Lawyer.  

Dr. Sibblis is a passionate advocate and activist for Black life. Among her vast community work, she taught and organized for the Tabono Liberation Learning Academy - fostering activism among young adults; she was a long-standing member, and at one point the Chair, of the Council for Adolescent Suicide Prevention in Peel; a suicide intervention trainer, and lead the Peel District School Board’s Community Advisory Council for We Rise Together - strategy to support Black student academic success and well-being. Her scholarship is focused on shedding light on issues of relevance to Black people and making information and language accessible for our empowerment as a people.

Specialization

• Black Canadian Studies
  
• Anti-Black Racism Theory
  
• Post-colonial, Spatial, and Critical Race Theories
  
• Systemic and Institutional Oppression
  
• Critical Social Work
  
• Critical Criminology
  
• Mental Health and (Intergenerational) Trauma
  
• Child Welfare, Youth and Development
  
• Direct Clinical Practice/Anti-Oppressive Practice
  
• Activism and Transformative Practice
  
• Community Development
  
• (Race, Gender, Queer, Intersectional) Identity Politics
  
• Sociology of Education
  

Educational Background

• PhD, School of Social Work, York University
  
• MSW, York University
  
• BSW (hon.), York University
  
• BA, Philosophy, University of Toronto