John Paul Catungal

Dr. JP Catungal is a queer, first-generation Filipino-Canadian settler living in unceded Coast Salish territories. He joined the GRSJ as Instructor I (Tenure-Track) in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies after two years as a Postdoctoral Fellow with concurrent Killam and SSHRC fellowships. Prior to joining UBC, JP attended the Geography MA and PhD programs at the University of Toronto, where he researched the emergence, evolution and spatial practices of ethno-specific AIDS service organizations and their racial geographies of community organizing, health promotion and social service provision.

As a faculty member in the Educational Leadership stream, JP seeks to develop queer-of-colour and anti-racist feminist approaches to the scholarship on teaching and learning. He is particularly invested in analyzing classroom and campus climate from the perspectives of queer and trans* students, TAs and instructors of colour, with a view towards examining the politics of emotions, positionalities and embodiment in educational spaces and their implications for pedagogy, curriculum and mentorship. With fellow faculty members in and beyond the GRSJ, JP is also involved in the development of a Minor program in the area of Critical Racial and Anticolonial Studies.

Along with his teaching and educational leadership work, JP is also continuing research on the racial politics of sexual health, queer-of-colour approaches to Filipinx-Canadian studies and the politics and practice of mentorship. He co-edited Filipinos in Canada: Disturbing Invisibility, published by the University of Toronto Press in 2012.

JP has received various awards for his scholarly work, among them the Governor-General’s Gold Medal for Academic Excellence, the Canadian Association of Geographers’ Starkey-Robinson Award and the American Association of Geographers’ J. Warren Nystrom Award.