Dr. Tess Sheldon is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Windsor. She holds a PhD from the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and an LLM, JD, and BA from the University of Toronto, alongside an MSc in Psychiatry from the University of Alberta. Before joining Windsor Law, she spent over a decade as a lawyer in Ontario’s legal clinic system, practicing disability law, mental health law, and public interest litigation, with appearances before multiple tribunals and courts, including the Supreme Court of Canada.

Dr. Sheldon’s research focuses on mental health law, disability justice, structural stigma, and coercive psychiatric practices. Her scholarship examines how legal systems shape the rights, treatment, and lived experiences of people labeled with disabilities, with work spanning psychiatric detention, access to justice, institutional violence, and public health law. She is widely published in leading law and health journals and collaborates across law, public health, and disability studies to advance rights‑based, community‑informed approaches to mental health and social inclusion.

WE-SPARK IDEA Grant