This story is published in YFile鈥檚 New Faces feature issue 2026. Every September, YFile introduces and welcomes those joining the 91亚色 community.
91亚色's Faculty of Education welcomes three new full-time, permanent faculty members this fall.
鈥淚 am thrilled to welcome our new faculty members to the Faculty of Education. Each brings a unique perspective, teaching approach and research expertise to our Faculty community,鈥 says Dean Sarah Barrett.
Salsabel Almanssori
Almanssori joins 91亚色 as an assistant professor of health education. Before joining 91亚色, she was a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) postdoctoral fellow and course instructor at the University of Windsor.
Her research focuses on sexual violence, technology-facilitated violence and community-engaged health education. Through partnerships with schools, educators and communities, she examines how educational systems can better prevent and respond to violence through trauma-informed, equity-oriented approaches that prioritize harm reduction and meaningful collaboration.
An Ontario Certified Teacher, Almanssori taught in public schools while completing her graduate studies, experiences that continue to inform her scholarship and teaching. In addition to employing qualitative methodologies, her recent research has increasingly incorporated participatory and arts-based approaches. Her scholarship has been supported by SSHRC through doctoral, postdoctoral, Insight Development and Connection grants.
At 91亚色, Almanssori looks forward to teaching undergraduate and graduate students, mentoring emerging scholars and contributing to collaborative research that advances safety and social justice in education.
Kara Dymond
Dymond joins 91亚色 as an assistant professor of educational psychology. She earned her PhD from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, where she taught and developed graduate courses on accessibility and neurodiversity-affirming pedagogy. She received the 2024 Award for Excellence in Initial Teacher Education.
Her work draws on her experiences as an elementary special education teacher and autism consultant, as well as her experiences as an autistic/ADHD/disabled scholar. Dymond serves on Strategic Priority Committee 5 advising on Canada's Autism Strategy and on the Learning Disabilities Association of 91亚色-Simcoe Board of Directors.
In 2025, she received the King Charles III Coronation Medal in recognition of her dedication to improving the lives of autistic people and their communities across Canada.
Her publications include practitioner books, most recently Creating a Neurodiversity-Affirming Classroom, and numerous peer-reviewed works examining educational ableism, neurodiversity, autism and more. Her research program explores disability and well-being, normalcy and possibilities for post-normality in education and broader societal discourse.
Jesse Staats
Staats joins 91亚色 as an assistant professor. His father is Mohawk from Six Nations of the Grand River and his mother is of Irish and English descent from Mississauga. His paternal grandfather is a retired teacher and former administrator who helped develop the education system in the community, while his mother has served multiple generations of families in Six Nations as an early childhood educator.
Growing up on the reserve and coming from a teaching family, Staats began his career as a primary teacher in Ohsweken. He has also taught Indigenous history and Indigenous pedagogies in secondary schools and at Brock University.
His doctoral research examined Indigenous university governance, specifically how Ontario universities engaged Indigenous communities and organizations, through Indigenous Education Councils, in governance processes associated with boards of governors, senates and presidents' offices.
As part of his research agenda, Staats plans to explore Indigenous experiences on university boards, Indigenous faculty experiences through senate and committee work, and approaches to transforming governance relationships between universities and Indigenous Peoples in ways that align with Indigenous visions for self-determination within, across and beyond the academy.