Hom is an interdisciplinary rural and Northern health doctoral student and trainee researcher at Laurentian University. Hom’s research is focused on exploring a culturally safe dementia care (CSDC) model in remote and rural hospitals in Northern Ontario. The goal is to educate, train, engage, and empower physicians, nurses, caregivers, community partners, and stakeholders to initiate CSDC for older adults with memory loss and dementia through community engagement and support systems, social accountability, and social justice. As an emerging Indigenous scholar of traditional medicine in dementia care, Hom has served as an executive member for both the Health Policy Committee and the Alliance of Women Alzheimer’s Researchers Committee of the Alzheimer’s Association International Society to Advance Alzheimer’s Research and Treatment (ISTAART) since 2020.  Hom has a Master in Interdisciplinary Health and completed the dissertation “Traditional healing and medicine in dementia care for Indigenous populations in North America, Australia, and New Zealand: A Scoping Review.” Results of Hom’s thesis were presented at Alzheimer’s Associations International Conferences held in 2020, 2021, and 2022 at Amsterdam, Netherlands, Denver, Colorado (via Zoom), and San Diego. Hom serves as a member of the Rural Dementia Disparity Workgroup for the ISTAART and was a co-author on the research article “Global rural health disparities in Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias: State of the science,” which was published in the Alzheimer’s & Dementia journal in 2023.  Hom has also served as an executive member of the Health Sciences North Patient and Family Advisory Council and OntarioHealth North East Patient Advisory Council since 2021.

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