Research Affiliate

Shira Avni is a neurodivergent artist-filmmaker and Associate Professor of Film Animation at Concordia University in Montreal, where she is the proud recipient of a 2020 Distinguished Teaching Award. Her films incorporate documentary, animation, and personal memoir to address questions of ability, difference, and social justice and have been screened in over 100 festivals worldwide. Avni’s current research explores neurodiversity, maternal health, mother-and-child bonding, and post-partum trauma through a combination of animation and documentary media and collaborative, community-based animation filmmaking.