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Dionisio Nyaga

Dionisio Nyaga

Assistant Professor
EducationBSW, MSW, PhD
Areas of ExpertiseCritical quantitative and qualitative research; Black and Blackness; Psychic analysis; African philosophy; African Indigenous spiritualities; Critical anti-oppressive theory, research and practice; Critical masculinity studies.

Dr. Dionisio Nyaga is assistant professor in the School of Social Work at Toronto Metropolitan University. He holds a PhD in Social Justice Education from the University of Toronto and is a distinguished scholar, educator, and community-engaged practitioner whose work is situated at the intersection of critical social work, social justice education, and transformative research methodologies. His scholarship is marked by sustained engagement with questions of ethics, power, and knowledge production, with particular attention to anti-oppressive and anti-colonial practice, Afrocentric and Black studies, gender and masculinity studies, community development, and methodologies of care. Across his research, teaching, and public scholarship, Dr. Nyaga examines how structures of race, coloniality, and inequality shape institutional life, policy, and social relations, while advancing more humane, reflexive, and justice-oriented ways of knowing, relating, and practicing.

Dr. Nyaga has contributed to a growing body of interdisciplinary scholarship on critical research ethics, Black and Afrocentric methodologies, masculinity, migration, Indigenous and diasporic knowledge systems, and the social conditions that shape mental health, care, and belonging. He is co-editor of Critical Research Methodologies: Ethics and Responsibilities and a founding co-editor of the Journal of Critical Research Methodologies, editorial roles that reflect his longstanding commitment to intellectually rigorous, ethically grounded, and socially accountable inquiry. His publications and collaborative projects bring social work into generative conversation with philosophy, education, decolonial thought, and community-based research, and together they testify to a scholarly practice defined by depth, reflexivity, and psychic engagement. In both his teaching and his scholarship, Dr. Nyaga is deeply committed to cultivating critical dialogue, fostering intellectual seriousness, and advancing relational approaches to knowledge that honour lived experience, local epistemologies, and the political responsibilities of research. Through this work, he has emerged as a respected and compelling voice in contemporary debates on justice, ethics, and transformative social inquiry.

Teaching responsibilities:

  • SK 8104: Practice Research Seminar 
  • SWP 538: Social Work Research

Teaching interests: 

  • Critical anti-Oppression
  • Indigenous teaching methodologies
  • Gender and masculinity studies
  • Cultural studies
  • Transnational and diaspora studies

Research interests:

  • Social work teaching and learning
  • Ethical duties and responsibilities in research
  • Mental health and substance use
  • African Indigenous epistemologies
  • Critical reflexive research methodologies