Seon Yuzyk

PhD Candidate, ABD, Political Science, University of Alberta

Seon Yuzyk is a doctoral candidate (ABD) in political science at the University of Alberta, specializing in Canadian politics, political theory, and racial capitalism. Yuzyk’s research explores systemic racism, economic inequality, and climate colonialism, with a focus on marginalized communities’ experiences. Yuzyk publishes articles weekly on Substack, addressing race, economy, and environmental justice to drive change and also manages the Emancipatory Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub, supporting 2SLGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs, and serve as Associate Director for the Black Youth for Social Innovation Program. This work is driven by a commitment to equity, justice, and creating opportunities for change and could be found at seonyuzyk.substack.com.

Julian Faid

PhD Candidate, Business, University of Alberta

Julian Faid is a qualitative researcher pursuing a PhD in the Department of Strategy, Entrepreneurship, and Management at the Alberta School of Business. He holds a BA in Sociology and an MSc in Environmental Sociology. His work has been published in the Canadian Journal of Urban Research, and he has authored reports for governmental and organizational bodies across Canada. Julian’s current research examines the intersection of gender and entrepreneurship.

Erika Goble
Vice Dean, Research & Academic Innovation, NorQuest College, & Adjunct Assistant Professor, Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine, University of Alberta

Erika Goble is a researcher, senior administrator, and Adjunct Assistant Professor. Originally trained as an anthropologist, over the past 20 years, Goble has transformed into a community-based, partner-driven researcher. She has held funding from all three Tri-Agencies, as well as ESDC and Mitacs. Currently, Goble is leading a CIHR-funded grassroots social innovation initiative in partnership with the Institute for Continuing Care Education & Research to improve  care outcomes for clients and residents. Under her applied research leadership, NorQuest College has been recognized as one of Canada’s top research colleges.

Funke Olokude
CEO & Principal Consultant, Hexagon Wellness Solutions, &  President, Nigerian Canadian Association of Edmonton

Funke Olokude is an executive, educator, and intercultural relationship facilitator with 18 years of experience in the social service industry. Working across Ontario, Quebec, and Alberta, she advocates for equity in policy and practice, fostering transformational relationships within systems. Her passion for knowledge engagement has led her to participate in over twenty Community Based Research projects, all of these earning her recognition as a Top 40 under 40 in Alberta in 2020 and a QE II Medal. Olokude is currently the CEO & Principal Consultant at Hexagon Wellness Solutions and the President of the Nigerian Canadian Association of Edmonton. She also serves on the boards of the Bredin Centre for Career Advancement and the Black Business Ventures Association, showcasing her commitment to empowering communities and driving positive change.

Steven Friesen
Executive Director, Research & Innovation at Bethany Care Society, Board Chair, Institute for Continuing Care Education & Research, & Guest lecturer, Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine, University of Alberta

Steven Friesen is Executive Director, Research & Innovation at Bethany Care Society, one of Western Canada’s largest voluntary, not-for-profit providers of health, housing and community services for seniors and persons with disabilities. Friesen has held research and evaluation positions in Alberta’s public and non-profit health care sector for more than 20 years. His professional experience includes a broad focus on health service and system research and program evaluation across primary care, continuing care and acute care settings.

Lana Whiskeyjack

Associate professor, Faculty of Arts – Women’s & Gender Studies

Lana Whiskeyjack is a nêhiyaw (Cree) visual storyteller, scholartist and arts actionist educator. She is a multidisciplinary artist, scholar, and author from Saddle Lake Cree Nation in Treaty Six, Alberta, now based in amiskwaciy waskahikan, Edmonton. Lana demonstrates innovative interdisciplinary Indigenous knowledge translation and mobilization through arts and land-based practices, community-engaged research, scholarship services and teaching. Her scholarship is grounded within nêhiyawêwin (Cree language), nêhiyaw ways of being and knowing. Her current collaborative research explores gender and sexual diversity, rites of passage, rematriation, kinship systems (wahkohtowin) and health and wellness.

Stephanie Montesanti

Associate Professor, School of Public Health

Stephanie is a health policy and health systems researcher within the field of population and public health. Her research program examines the determinants of policy and systems change in addressing the health of populations. Her research focuses on understanding chronic disease and health inequities in Indigenous and other underserved populations in Canada and globally. She applies a socioecological and life course perspective to examine key community and societal-level factors that influence the health of individuals and communities throughout their life course.

Shirley Anne Tate

Professor, Faculty of Arts – Sociology Dept

Shirley’s research is deeply rooted in the interdisciplinary field of Black feminist decolonial diaspora studies. Her publications span areas such as intersectional institutional racism, affect, hybridity, creolization, beauty and Black anti-racist aesthetics, ‘race’ performativity, Black/white mixed-race lives, and the “race”d and gendered body in enslavement and freedom. Over the years, she has developed Black feminist decolonial thought, drawing especially on Caribbean decolonial and Caribbean feminist decolonial thinking. Her contributions have emerged through a variety of formats, including monographs, commissioned book chapters, an international distinguished speaker lecture, keynotes, and other speaking invitations across the UK, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Finland, South Africa, Brazil, and the USA. 

Nancy Van Styvendale

Associate Professor, Faculty of Native Studies

Associate Dean (Research), Faculty of Native Studies

Nancy Van Styvendale (B.A. Hon, Winnipeg; M.A, Simon Fraser; Ph.D., Alberta) is a white settler scholar who researches and teaches in the field of Indigenous literatures, with particular commitments to Indigenous prison writing; penal abolition; arts-based programs in prison; discourses of recovery and healing; and community-engaged/community-based education. Nancy is involved in a number of collaborative, community-driven teaching and research projects, including Inspired Minds, a creative writing program offered to incarcerated people in Alberta and Saskatchewan jails/prisons. She is a founding member of Free Lands Free Peoples, an Indigenous-led anti-colonial abolition collective, and the Saskatchewan-Manitoba-Alberta Abolition Coalition (SMAAC), a prairie network of abolitionist organizers and scholars.

Audrey Medwayosh

Graduate Research Assistantship, Faculty of Arts – Sociology Dept

Audrey Medwayosh is Potawatomi and a member of the Wasauksing Nation. They hold an honours degree from UBC in Anthropology. They are currently a second year MA student in the department of sociology. Their SSHRC-funded thesis focuses on urban Indigenous experiences of grief and the impacts of culture on grieving processes. In recent months they have been exploring research creation, bringing their knowledge of beadwork to creative explorations of grief. Audrey has been the research assistant on the DARA project for the past 16 months and is passionate about unsettling Eurocentric ideologies within academia. 

Kelsey Lindquist is a PhD student in Indigenous Studies at the University of Alberta. She is Cree-Métis with Euro-settler ancestry and she is a citizen of the Métis Nation of Alberta. She completed her BA and MA in Sociology at the University of Alberta. Her research focuses on Indigenous quantitative methodologies within the context of labour market research. 

Dr. Maria Mayan is a Professor and Associate Dean Research in the School of Public Health, a community-based researcher, and a qualitative methodologist. Her research interests are in the area of partnerships, and how citizens, community-organizations, clinicians, governments and universities can work together to address disparities and improve health outcomes. The second edition of Maria’s introductory text, Essentials of Qualitative Inquiry (Routledge), showcasing applied qualitative inquiry, was published in Spring 2023. 

Dr. Jared Wesley is a Professor in the Department of Political Science and Associate Dean Graduate Studies in the Faculty of Arts. He has developed expertise in quantitative and qualitative methods over the course of his career in academia and government. His current research combines mass surveys with focus groups to study the intersection of public opinion, political culture, and public policy in Canada. A member of the UAlberta Black Faculty Collective, he has published widely using other methodological techniques, including content analysis, discourse analysis, and elite interviews