Jessica Ball

Jessica Ball, MPH, PhD., is a professor in the School of Child and Youth Care at the University of Victoria, Canada. Jessica is the principal investigator of an interdisciplinary program of research on the cultural and contextualized nature of human experience (www.ecdip.org), focusing on children and families in Canada and around the world. Working in collaboration with First Nations communities and organizations, she led the first studies in Canada of First Nations and Metis fathers. She was a co-principal investigator in the first national study of fatherhood. She is the author of over 150 articles, chapters, practitioner guidebooks, and family friendly resources on Indigenous fathers, Indigenous language revitalization, early childhood development, couples’ transitions to parenthood, gender equality in close relationships and migration. She is a cis-gendered, third generation Irish-English Canadian. She spent a quarter of her life studying and working in the United States and Southeast Asia.