Jay Cavanagh (he/him) is a queer and first-generation doctoral candidate and Killam Laureate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Calgary. He works under the supervision of Professor Ariel Ducey and the guidance of Dr. Martina Kelly & Dr. Pratim Sengupta (Committee). 

In addition to Killam, Jay has received a number of competitive awards, including a Doctoral Entrance Scholarship ($20,000) and an Eyes High International Doctoral Scholarship ($15,000). He is also a recipient of the Michael & Michelle Williams Award in Science, Technology, Environment, and Medicine Studies (March 2024), which supported a period of extensive archival fieldwork on the revolutionary Brazilian psychiatrist, Dra. Nise da Silveira, at the Instituto Municipal Nise da Silveira (IMNS) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 

Jay's thesis research lies at the intersections of the sociologies of mental health and knowledge. Through an ethnography of experience and care in the work of Nise da Silveira, his research works to put southern epistemologies and intersectionality in conversation with critical phenomenology.  

Outside of his doctoral research, Jay is a regular co-host of The BPD Bunch, a video podcast by and for people living with borderline personality disorder (BPD), and the Volunteer Manager and sitting member of the Board of Directors for the Borderline Personality Disorder Society of British Columbia. 

A self-identifying member of mad and psychiatric survivor communities, Jay's academic and professional work jointly take up the task of reorienting understandings of BPD through destigmatized and lived-experience lenses.