New faculty member in Arts: Dr. Bev Fredborg

Fri. Nov. 24, 2023

Congratulations to our new faculty members in the Faculty of Arts! We look forward to introducing each of them to you in the coming weeks.

Here we feature Dr. Bev Fredborg, Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology.

Dr. Tracy Whalen, Dean of Arts, declares that "Dr. Bev Fredborg is a fabulous addition to the department of Psychology here at the U of W."

Photo credit: Robyn Adams

According to Dr. Tracy Whalen, "Dr. Bev Fredborg is a fabulous addition to the department of Psychology here at the U of W." Dr. Whalen continues, "Dr. Fredborg is a former student who is returning as an accomplished scholar and practitioner. Her research and clinical work in trauma, PTSD, and borderline personality disorder are of tremendous import. I’ve enjoyed talking with Dr. Fredborg about her work and know I’ll be hearing lots more about this new faculty member!"

Welcome Dr. Fredborg and thank you for sharing about yourself with us!

Dr. Fredborg (Bio)

Dr. Bev Fredborg is an assistant professor of Psychology at the University of Winnipeg, as well as a Clinical Psychologist in Supervised Practice with the College of Psychologists of Ontario. She holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology from Toronto Metropolitan University, where she was awarded the Faculty of Arts Gold Medal upon graduation in 2022. She completed her undergraduate degree in Biopsychology (now called Neuroscience) from the University of Winnipeg in 2015. Dr. Fredborg’s research interests are primarily focused on understanding emotion regulation processes associated with borderline personality disorder and complex trauma, with a special interest in emotion regulation strategy use. Clinically, she is interested in working with adult survivors of childhood trauma, as well as anxiety disorders such as obsessive-compulsive disorder and social anxiety disorder.

We've invited our new faculty members to answer some questions of their choice. Here is what Dr. Fredborg had to say!

Arts: What course are you most looking forward to teaching at UWinnipeg – and why?

I am most excited to teach Abnormal Psychology. I dedicated my life to the understanding and treatment of mental disorders, so to be able to share that passion with students is really exciting! I think all students can learn from the course, whether they are interested in becoming a clinician or researcher or not.

Arts: What was one thing you learned as an undergraduate that was/has been really important to you – and why?

From an academic perspective, learning that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell has taken me far in my career. Joking aside, I think learning to think critically, especially in fourth year undergraduate courses, was incredibly important to my development as a researcher and a clinician. Instead of assuming that scientists have all the answers, it’s important to remember that people are fallible, ideas change, and correlation does not equal causation. Those ideas have helped me much more than the mitochondria thing.