Vandna is an Associate Research Professor in the University of Colorado, Boulder, School of Education and an Adjunct Professor in the School of Social Work at McGill University. She leads the Children's Services Policy Research Group. Her research focuses on the impact of social policies on children's access to services and on the health and well-being of children in historically marginalized communities.  Many of her projects focus on understanding service disparities and the barriers to provision of appropriate services for First Nations children in Canada.  

Vandna takes a mixed methods, interdisciplinary, and community engaged approach to exploring questions that are of interest to child welfare, health, social service, and child/youth advocacy organizations. This approach prioritizes:

• Information sharing, collective learning, and the development of shared understanding among project partners;

• Participatory data analysis and interpretation;

• Socio-historical contextualization of research findings; and,

• Direct dissemination of research results to stakeholders.