Professor | Adjunct Professor
Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary | School of Public Health, University of Alberta
Expertise: Health Topics (mental health, social determinates of health), Special Newcomer Populations (young children, youth, temporary foreign workers), Professional Development Skills (education, service delivery)
Dr. Bukola Salami is a Professor at the Faculty of Nursing, University of Alberta. Her research program focuses on policies and practices shaping migrant health.
She has been involved in around 85 funded research projects and leads 30 with funding from national and international agencies. She has led projects on African immigrant child health, immigrant mental health, access to healthcare for immigrant children, African immigrant youth mental health, migration of nurses as live-in caregivers, the experiences of temporary foreign workers in Alberta, downward occupational mobility of immigrant nurses, and parenting practices of African immigrants.
Dr. Salami has published scholarly articles in 100 peer-reviewed journals (with another 15 under review), two book chapters, and eight reports as of March 2023.
She represents the University of Alberta on the steering committee of the Worldwide Universities Network Global Africa Group. She founded and currently leads an African migrant child research network of 30 scholars from 4 continents.
In 2020, she founded the Black Youth Mentorship and Leadership Program at the University of Alberta. The program, the first University-based interdisciplinary mentorship program for Black youths in Canada, seeks to socially and economically empower Black high school youths to contribute meaningfully to Canadian society.
She is involved in several community volunteer initiatives as well. These initiatives include:
- Serving as a public member on the Council of the Alberta College of Social Worker,
- Serving as a member of the Public Health Agency of Canada Working Group on the Mental Health of Black Canadians,
- Serving as a member of the Bell Let’s Talk Funding advisory committee,
- And she is a Board Member of the Black Opportunities Fund.
She has a solid track record of training students. She has trained over 40 students, many of whom have received awards, including the Canadian Vanier Award and the International Development Research Center Doctoral Award. Dr. Salami has received several awards for research excellence and community engagement: 100 Accomplished Black Women in Canada; Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing Emerging Nurse Researcher of the Year Award; College and Association of Registered Nurses of Alberta (CARNA) Award for Nursing Excellence; and Alberta Avenue Edmonton Top 40 under 40. In 2020, she also became a recipient of the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame, the highest research award in nursing.