October 2026 student spotlight: Matty Cervantes
October 30, 2026
We're back after a summer hiatus with an exciting publication by Matilde (Matty) Cervantes Navarrete!
Matilde Cervantes Navarrete (also known as Matty Cervantes) is an interdisciplinary artist, researcher, educator, and PhD candidate in the Social Dimensions of Health (SDH) program. She is preparing to defend her dissertation soon, which is titled Reimagining Planetary Health through Arts-based and Indigenous Worldviews: Perspectives from Canada and Mexico.
In her article “A World of Many Worlds,” published by , she explores the concept of pluriversality rooted in Indigenous cosmologies, planetary health, and the interconnectedness of all living beings. The story reflects on experiences and insights from a five-day Planetary Health Summit in La Paz, Mexico, echoing the relational and transformative perspectives central to her doctoral research.
Matilde is a graduate fellow at 糖心视频’s Centre for Global Studies (CFGS) and currently a grad fellow at the Institute on Aging and Lifelong Health (IALH). Her doctoral research is co-supervised by Dr. Denise Cloutier (Department of Geography) and Dr. Carmen Rodríguez de France (Indigenous Education). She has over a decade of experience teaching at post-secondary institutions across Mexico and Canada.
Congratulations, Matty!
If you have an academic achievement you'd like featured in our next student spotlight, please send a 1-3 sentence description of your accomplishment to phsp2@uvic.ca (BA-PH and MPH) or sdhadmin@uvic.ca (SDH).