Linda Liebenberg, PhD., is a leading researcher, evaluator and consultant in the field of youth mental health and well-being, with a core interest in youth living in complex environments. Her work explores how best to provide meaningful programs and resources that promote positive youth development and mental health, using the relational and contextual resources most relevant to youth. She achieves this through consultation on program and community development, conducting evaluations of service provision, and doing research with youth and their communities. As a key component of this work, Linda reflects critically on the best ways in which to conduct research and evaluations with young people and their communities (including multiple service providers). These approaches include participatory image-based methods; sophisticated longitudinal quantitative designs; and the design of measurement instruments.

Linda has developed consulting and collaborative relationships with many international and community-based organizations, including Right to Play, the World Bank, the World Health Organization, Save the Children Denmark, the Public Health Agency of Canada, and Eskasoni Mental Health Services. She has presented on all five continents on culturally and contextually meaningful approaches to promoting positive psychosocial outcomes of children and youth through programming and community development. She has also presented extensively on how these topics can be researched and evaluated.

Linda consults on policy, program and infrastructure development as well as research and evaluation initiatives, advising on design, implementation, analysis and knowledge translation. She runs workshops on mental health promotion, research with youth living in marginalised contexts, data analysis and writing. She has also taught numerous courses on research and data analysis, both in Canada and internationally. Linda is Adjunct Professor the Department of Psychiatry, Dalhousie University, Canada, where she is also the Program Coordinator for the Centre for Global Mental Health. Additionally, she is an International Research Affiliate at the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre, Galway University, Ireland, Extraordinary Member, Centre for the Study of Resilience, University of Pretoria, South Africa and Extraordinary Professor at OPTENTIA Research Unit, North West University, South Africa. She sits on the Advisory Board of the International Institute for Qualitative Methodology, the Advisory Board of the International Qualitative Research Network, and is Editor-in-Chief for the journal International Journal of Qualitative Methods (Sage Publications).

Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, Linda lived in Cape Town for many years before relocating to Kjipuktuk, Turtle Island in 2003.