Aki Gormezano

Health Equity | Community | Health

Aki Gormezano is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Health Sciences at the University of Northern British Columbia, supervised by Dr. Nathan Lachowsky, Dean of the Faculty of Human and Health Sciences. He holds a PhD in Social-Personality Psychology from Queen’s University (2022) and is supported by a Michael Smith Health Research BC Trainee Award and a CIHR Canada Postdoctoral Research Award. His research focuses on understanding and addressing health inequities in sexual and reproductive health. He examines how social structures, norms, and institutional practices shape patterns of risk, prevention, and access to care at the population level, with particular attention to communities that experience disproportionate sexual health burdens. His work is guided by a dual orientation: identifying shared determinants of health across groups that are often studied separately, while also disaggregating within populations to reveal inequities that remain obscured when communities are treated as homogeneous. Drawing on social psychology, social epidemiology, and community-engaged public health, his research employs a range of methods tailored to each context, including longitudinal qualitative interviews, prospective cohort studies, and bilingual survey research. Aki is interested in working with undergraduate honours students for Fall, 2026. He is most well suited to supervise psychology and/or health sciences students with interests in sexual health, human sexuality, health equity, and community-based research approaches. Projects will use data from: The Engage Study (engage-men.ca)—a biobehavioural longitudinal cohort of gay, bisexual, and other queer men in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montréal The Group Sex Project (https://onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca/healthcbr/project/the-group-sex…)—a cross-sectional bilingual Canada-wide study of people who participate in group sex Both projects afford opportunities to work with health indicators, such as STI outcomes and access to healthcare, as well as psychosocial dimensions (e.g., social norms, attitudes, mental health). Please contact Aki by email (aki.gormezano@unbc.ca) if you are interested in discussing opportunities!