The Honourable Dr. Jean Augustine made history as the first Black Woman elected to Canada’s Parliament, serving from 1993-2006. Her roles included Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister; Minister for Multiculturalism and the Status of Women; Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee; and Deputy Speaker. Her legislative successes include both the historic Black History Month Motion, and the Famous Five Motion honouring women’s suffrage. From 2007 to 2015, she was Ontario’s first-ever Fairness Commissioner. In 2008, the Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community & Diaspora was launched at York University to help advance education, equity and inclusiveness. In her name, she has a Centre for Young Women’s Empowerment. She is a member of the Order of Canada and Commander of the Order of the British Empire; and supports scholarships at Centennial College, George Brown, and Humber College.
Omolola Ajao is a Nigerian-Canadian interdisciplinary documentarian and artist. She works in performance, film, and writing and her documents often ruminate on Black migratory life. She has screened at festivals such as Miami Film Festival, Urbanworld, Indie Memphis. She is a 2021-22 TIFF Fellow, UnionDocs Fellow and Hot Docs Fellow. Her short film, YYZ was acquired by CBC. Her recent narrative short film, Fufu examines the cultural conflicts between generations, Western culture and African, and the compromising position that young immigrant African women find themselves in, attempting to retain autonomy. Her most recent work, is produced by National Film Board of Canada. She is currently a Massey Junior Fellow finishing her Masters of Visual Studies at University of Toronto.
Mark Ariba is a first-year political science PhD student and Massey Junior Fellow. His research focuses on the history of meritocracy and explores how it has been structured in western democracies. He has worked with UNICEF and the World Organisation of Family Doctors (WONCA) as a policy analyst to advance reproductive health and child literacy in Northern Nigeria. He is also a recipient of the royal bank graduate fellowship in public and economic policy. Most importantly, Mark is a long-suffering fan of the Los Angeles Lakers, and the permanent frown on his face should be understood as a reflection of the Lakers’ current position in the standings.
Otuto Chukwu is a licensed and award-winning pharmacist and Social Impact Innovator with over ten years’ experience in health systems strengthening and policy research as well as pharmaceutical services and policy in sub-Saharan Africa. He is a Fellow of the prestigious United States Government Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders, an associate fellow of the Royal Commonwealth Society. Otuto won the 2022 Michael Decter Scholarship for Health Leadership and Policy Studies. He is currently a PhD student in Health Policy at the University of Toronto and a Junior Fellow at Massey College.
Annamaria Enenajor is a Partner at Ruby Shiller Enenajor DiGiuseppe, Barristers in Toronto, where she practices criminal defence and public law. She is also the founder and Executive Director of Cannabis Amnesty and an adjunct professor at Queen’s University Faculty of Law. She frequently writes, lectures and consults on access to justice, systemic racism, and evidence-based criminal justice reform. She has been named one of the 50 most influential Torontonians by Toronto Life magazine and has been profiled in numerous publications including The Globe and Mail, Toronto Life, and The Toronto Star.
She has argued before all levels of court in Ontario and before the Supreme Court of Canada on precedent-setting cases. Before her current position, she practiced civil litigation in New York and clerked at the Supreme Court of Canada for Justice Richard Wagner, now the Chief Justice.
L’Ashante Henry is a second-year student in the JD Program at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law and a Junior Fellow at Massey College. Prior to law school, L’Ashante completed an H.B. Com and MBA degrees from Laurentian University. While there, she was also the captain of the Women’s Varsity Basketball team. She has volunteered as a Law Firm Mentoring Leader with Law in Action Within Schools (LAWS), an Associate Editor for the Journal of Law and Equality and a Working Group Member for the International Human Rights Program. L’Ashante is driven to affect economic and social progress in law and business.
Named one of Canada’s Top 100 Black Women to Watch, Omayra Issa is an award-winning journalist. She is most well-known for her work as a national reporter for CBC News. She co-created and co-produced CBC’s Black on the Prairies, a multimedia project exploring the past, present, and future lives of Black people on the Canadian prairies. The project received several awards, including a national RTDNA and a Digital Publishing Award. She is a former board member of the Canadian Association of Journalists, where she mentored early career journalists. Her work leading national conversations on diversity and inclusion in Canadian newsrooms has won her many accolades. She is fluent in five languages, and reports in French and English.
Edward Jones-Imhotep (Ph.D. History of Science, Harvard University) is a cultural historian, and Associate Professor and Director of the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (IHPST). His research engages two broad themes: the changing historical boundaries between technology and nature; and the historical relations between machines and the self. His book, The Unreliable Nation: Hostile Nature and Technological Failure in the Cold War (2017)won the Sidney Edelstein Prize in the history of technology. A new long-term research project, “The Black Androids and the Technological Underground,” explores black technological experience in New York City from 1830 to 1930 through a history of the black androids, automata in the form of black humans.
Ian Keteku is a writer, performer and multimedia artist. He has written and directed projects for the National Film Board of Canada, CBC, PBS and Sesame Street. An award-winning poet, Keteku is the 2010 World Poetry Slam Champion. His work has been translated into French, Slovak, Russian, Danish, Arabic, ASL and others. Ian Keteku uses his voice to inspire messages of peace, action, and critical thought. With a heritage in Ghana, Ian’s work follows in the lineage of ancient African storytellers by paying homage to the past and revisiting themes and lessons from previous generations.
Rhonda McEwen is the 14th President and Vice-Chancellor of Victoria University in the University of Toronto, Canada Research Chair in Tactile Interfaces, Communication and Cognition; a Professor of Emerging Media & Communication; and a faculty member at the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information & Technology as well as the Department of Computer Science.
She holds an MBA in IT, an MSc in Telecommunications and a PhD in Information. Rhonda combines communication studies, and applied and behavioral sciences to examine the social and cognitive effects of technologies. Her pioneering approach to communication research employs experimental techniques, eye tracking, observations, sensor data, and interviews to investigate Human-Machine Communication involving children and adults across the user spectrum, including those diagnosed with communication and learning disorders.
Rhonda co-founded UofT’s Black Research Network and is the first black woman president of a Canadian university.
Chukwunonso Nwabufo is a multiple award-winning pharmacologist with over five years’ experience in drug development across academia and the pharmaceutical industry. Chuk contributed to the development of Remdesivir and Lenacapavir approved for the treatment of COVID-19 and HIV respectively. He has received > 20 awards and recognitions worth more than C$200K in funding due to academic, research, and leadership accomplishments. Chuk is the author of 13 peer-reviewed scientific papers and 11 industry-standard peer-reviewed reports in support of drug development programs. Currently, Chuk is a PhD student in pharmaceutical sciences at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto and has received the prestigious Canadian Institutes of Health Research Canada Graduate Scholarship Doctoral Award and Canadian Institutes of Health Research Canada Graduate Scholarships – Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplements Award to support his research which is investigating pharmacological strategies for improving the clinical efficacy and safety of respiratory medicines, particularly, promising drugs for treating SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Kimahli Powell is a senior leader in the international NGO field with expertise in community building and strategic advocacy with a focus on international development, law and policy, HIV/AIDS, and internally displaced persons. Kimahli holds a Doctor of Laws from the University of Victoria. Among his career highlights is supporting Dignitas International’s work in supporting community based – system health strengthening in Malawi, and helping launch the HIV Legal Network’s constitutional challenge to Jamaica’s anti-sodomy law while developing a monitoring and evaluation framework on legal advocacy. Since joining Rainbow Railroad first as Executive Director and now as Chief Executive Officer, Kimahli has led the organization through transformational growth, helping thousands of people in the process. Under his leadership, Rainbow Railroad expanded its international reach and completed successful crisis interventions in Chechnya, Egypt, Uganda, and more recently Afghanistan and Ukraine.
Karine Ricard is Théâtre français de Toronto’s (TfT) Artistic Director.
She has worked as both a performer, dramaturg, playwriter, director, and producer.
Originally from Montréal, Karine studied at the École de Théâtre de St-Hyacinthe. She began her career creating and co-writing the cabaret Les Effeuilleuses. She then self-produced a variety of works and worked for several years with the Alliance théâtrale haïtienne de Montréal, where she wrote and directed productions.
In 2004, she moved to Toronto where she directed at the Fringe Festival. Since becoming TfT’s artistic director, she has directed the children’s show, presented at the National Art Centre in Ottawa, and is currently directing a web series based on LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES. She recently wrote LES SEPT PÉCHÉS CAPITAUX, a play that was presented at the Feuilles Vives festival in 2020.
She continues her commitment to francophone communities and has been a school board trustee at the Conseil scolaire Viamonde since 2018. She founded the first-ever Inclusion and Equity Committee within the school board.
Peter Sloly is a Visiting Fellow, Change Maker-in-Residence at Massey College. He enjoyed three successful careers as a professional athlete, a professional services firm Partner and a police officer who rose to the rank of police chief. Peter’s work took him to four continents and forty countries, including two tours of duty in the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in Kosovo. He has an MBA and a Sociology BA. Peter’s motto is “others before self, compassion for all” and he helps organizations achieve differentiated outcomes that contribute to safer, more inclusive, and more just societies. Peter is married with two children.
Alexie Tcheuyap is the Associate Vice-President and Vice-Provost at University of Toronto, supporting international engagement across all three campuses through collaborative development of global opportunities for all UofT students. Prior to this role, he served as Vice-Dean Faculty, Academic Life & Equity in the Faculty of Arts & Science. He is a Full Professor at the Department of French. Alexie’s scholarship focuses on African literary, cinema and media studies. He has previously taught in Cameroon and at the University of Calgary, and has been Visiting Professor in South Africa, the United States, Germany and France. He holds a Doctorat de Troisième Cycle in Literature from the University of Yaoundé and a Ph.D in French Studies from Queen’s University. He is also a Massey Senior Fellow and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Tamara Thermitus is a Visiting Scholar at the McGill Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism. Called to the Quebec Bar in 1988, she holds a Master in Laws (2013) McGill University on Critical Race Theory and Human Rights. She was Director of Policy and Strategic Planning at the Office of Indian Residential Schools (2004-2006) and Chief Negotiator for the Federal Government of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Since June 2020, Tamara uses her pen to educate Canadians on issues such as systemic racism, intersectionality, reconciliation and violence against women. A recipient of the Queen Elizabeth Golden Jubilee Medal (2012), Tamara has received numerous awards including the Mérite du Barreau du Québec (2011), she is the first black lawyer to receive this recognition.
Born in Jamaica, The Honourable Michael Tulloch was appointed a judge of the Superior Court of Justice for Ontario in 2003. He was elevated to the Court of Appeal for Ontario in 2012, becoming the first Black Canadian to sit on a provincial appellate court in Canada.
In 2016, Chief Justice Tulloch conducted important reviews which resulted in two extensive reports: the Report of the Independent Police Oversight Review (2017) and the Report of the Independent Street Checks Review (2018). He served on the Government Response Team for the Commission on Systemic Racism while working as a Crown Attorney.
He is a Massey Senior Fellow, was a Distinguished Fellow at the Munk School and a Distinguished Research Fellow in the Centre of Law and Policy at Toronto Metropolitan University. Chief Justice Tulloch was a founding member and a patron of the Second Chance Scholarship Foundation and Chair of the Advisory Board to the Black Business and Professional Association.
Artist Gordon Shadrach is based in Toronto where he paints at his in-home studio. Gordon started painting in 2013 and paints in oil on wood. He has exhibited in Canada and the United States. He received his B. Des. from OCAD University and has a Master of Education degree from Niagara University. In 2022, Gordon began teaching at OCADU as a sessional instructor.
Gordon’s community engagement includes working with Toronto’s Nia Centre for the Arts as a mentor for their artist incubation project. He is a supervisor at Harbourfront Centre’s Craft and Design studio for the Textile Artists in Residence.
He is also the painter of the wonderful portrait of Ivan McFarlane outside the Upper Library.
Charmaine C. Williams is Dean at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work and the Sandra Rotman Chair in Social Work. Dean Williams’ research focuses on health equity issues affecting racial minority communities, and experiences of families affected by mental illness. Recent activities include serving on the expert panel for the Mental Health of Black Canadians Initiative at the Public Health Agency of Canada and serving on the Anti-Racism Advisory Panel that developed the Toronto Police Service’s race-based data collection policy.
