Sonya Grypma, Ph.d.

Biography

Dr. Sonya Grypma has served as Dean of Nursing at TWU since 2013.  Prior to joining TWU in 2007, she taught and studied at a number of different nursing programs, including at the University of Lethbridge, University of Calgary and University of Alberta, and completed a 2-year, SSHRC-funded post-doctoral fellowship at the University of British Columbia. She has also been a Brodie Research Fellow at the University of Virginia Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry and a Fisher Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing.  Her clinical background is in public health nursing and northern nursing. Her primary areas of undergraduate and graduate teaching have been in nursing history, nursing leadership, nursing education and nursing knowledge. Her program of research focuses on transnational nursing history, particularly the intersection of Canadian, American and Chinese nursing networks developed through philanthropic, missionary and nursing organizations prior to the 1948 development of the World Health Organization.  In addition to numerous articles and book chapters she has published two books on missionary nursing in China, Healing Henan:  Canadian Nurses at the North China Mission, 1888-1947 [1] (currently being published in Chinese) and China Interrupted:  Japanese Internment and the Reshaping of a Canadian Missionary Community [2]  as well as a co-edited book entitled Transnational and Historical Perspectives on Global Health, Welfare and Humanitarianism.  Since joining TWU she has served on a number of university and professional committees, including as Chair of the TWU University Senate.   

Research Interest

Dr. Grypma is a nurse historian whose scholarly interests relate especially to transnational nursing history in Canada, China and the USA. She has spoken and written extensively about nursing in international and intercultural settings and the intersection of faith and nursing.