Dr. Myrna Lashley received a Ph.D. in counseling psychology from McGill university, was the first Black Associate dean at CEGEP John Abbott in Montreal, is an associate professor department of medicine at McGill University and a researcher at the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research of the Jewish General Hospital. Her research focuses on the intersections of geopsychiatry, culture, and mental health.
A recognized clinical, teaching and research authority in cultural psychology, and consultant to many institutions, nationally and internationally, Dr. Lashley was Chair of the First-Line Psychosocial Science Committee of the Clinical Ethics Committee of CIUSS de centre-ouest-de-l'ile-de-Montréal. She also was a consultant to First Nations and Jewish communities, a cross-cultural trainer for the Grievance Committee of McGill University, and a consultant to the Brazilian health care system.
Dr. Lashley was a director of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation and served on the Comité consultatif sur les relations Interculturelles et Interraciales de la Communauté Urbaine de Montréal. From 2008 to 2017 she chaired the Cross-Cultural Roundtable on Security; and Vice-chair of the board of the École Nationale de Police du Québec from 2004 to 2017. She was appointed to Comité expert en matière de profilage racial of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal and to the Comité-conseil sur l'organisation d'une consultation sur le racisme et la discrimination systémique. She is also a consultant on equity and inclusivity to government and non-governmental agencies at all levels of government.
Dr. Lashley has received several awards including Member of the Order of Canada 2024; the 2015 Woman of Merit Award from the Playmas Montreal Cultural Association; the Queen Elizabeth II 2012 Diamond Jubilee award; the 2006 Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Award for Holocaust studies; the 2004 Martin Luther King legacy award; and the 1995 Merit Award for the Kanawake Native survival school.
She is also Honorary Consul at Montreal for the Government of Barbados.