Lana Wells

Brenda Strafford Chair in the Prevention of Domestic Violence; Associate Professor at the Faculty of Social Work, University of Calgary; Fellow and Faculty Member of the School of Public Policy, University of Calgary

Lana Wells is a top-ranked and internationally recognized expert on gender-based violence prevention, social work, and public policy. Her ability to work across disciplines, translate knowledge into action, meaningfully advance systems change, and develop innovative policy and practice solutions has positioned her as a distinguished changemaker in Alberta and beyond. As an Associate Professor in the UCalgary Faculty of Social Work and the Brenda Strafford Chair in the Prevention of Domestic Violence, Lana founded Shift: The Project to End Domestic Violence in 2010 – the first primary prevention research hub in Canada to focus solely on stopping domestic and sexual violence before it starts. In leading this work, Lana has collaborated with community leaders and policymakers to produce over a hundred violence-prevention reports used by various orders of government and community organizations throughout Canada and abroad with a focus on advancing primary prevention. Currently, the research agenda she oversees at Shift is focused on engaging and mobilizing men and boys to advance gender justice, primary prevention of gender-based violence in rural communities, and leveraging technology to work with parents and adolescents on building healthy relationships to prevent violence. Lana is currently spearheading first-of-its-kind research in Canada on the trajectories of domestic violence perpetrators, working with data from Calgary Police Service to understand patterns of criminality and opportunities for early intervention and prevention.

Since her appointment to the Chair position, Lana has held over $13 million in research funding, grants, and awards and raised over $22.5 million in support of violence prevention efforts throughout Canada. In 2022, Lana co-founded Shift to Learn, an online learning platform that is focused on building a violence-prevention workforce. Lana actively supervises graduate students within the Faculty of Social Work and is a research fellow with the School of Public Policy. In 2022, she received the Order of the University of Calgary in recognition of her exemplary service and the Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee Medal for her significant contributions to preventing family violence in Alberta. In 2023, Lana was awarded the prestigious Killam Professor Award. She has also earned the Alberta Inspiration Award in Leadership in Family Violence, was recognized as a PEAK scholar from UCalgary, and received the John Hutton Memorial Award for Social Action/Policy from the Alberta College of Social Workers. Lana holds a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in social work from the University of Calgary and a combined honours degree in Religious and Women Studies from McMaster University. In her spare time, you can find Lana on a bike in the rocky mountains.