June Francis (chair), co-founder, Co-Laboratorio (CoLab Advantage Ltd.); director, Institute for Black and African Diaspora Research and Engagement; co-founder of the Black Caucus at Simon Fraser University (SFU); and professor, SFU’s Beedie School of Business:

Francis is an advocate for equity, diversity and inclusion for racialized groups. She is chair of the Hogan’s Alley Society, whose mission is to advance the social, political, economic and cultural well-being of people of African descent through the delivery of housing, built spaces and programming. She is also director of SFU’s Institute for Diaspora Research and Engagement, whose mandate is to strengthen the links between scholarly research, policy and practice related to multicultural and diaspora communities and their role in building innovative, sustainable and inclusive initiatives. Her research focuses on the intersection between racism and academia, and markets and marketing, diversity, inter-culturality, leadership and participatory engagement approaches and community impact, Covid-19 with vulnerable and excluded groups, as well as the advancement of non-traditional intellectual property law, including traditional knowledge related to community well-being and cultural and human rights.

Jessica (t’łisala) Guss, leader of strategic initiatives in Indigenous health for Health Quality BC:

Guss has more than 20 years of experience in business administration and management, with a focus on Indigenous health and wellness for the past 10 years. She is of mixed ancestry, including the Haida, Xaxli’p, Xwisten and Squamish Nations, as well as mixed European descent. Her work experiences have honed her skills in policy, standards, process development and analysis, particularly in advancing Indigenous-specific anti-racism strategies and objectives. Her traditional name is t’łisala (Kwak\’wala, for ‘brings light to others’). She excels in evaluating cultural safety initiatives and aligning data documentation with provincial measures, with a strong passion for Indigenous data sovereignty. 

Zareen Naqvi, director, Institutional Research and Planning, SFU:

Naqvi completed her PhD in economics from Boston University and worked as an academic and international development professional at the World Bank. She leads the equity, diversity and inclusion data working group at SFU and co-chairs the data governance council and other related projects. Among her main areas of interest is improving data access to ensure vulnerable groups are well represented in public services and higher education.

Daljit Gill-Badesha, executive director, South Asian Community Hub, and instructor, SFU:

With more than 25 years of senior leadership in the non-profit and public sectors, Gill-Badesha brings expertise in executive management, research, knowledge mobilization, policy development for children and youth, seniors, immigrant and refugee settlement, and accessibility and inclusion portfolios. She has developed award-winning, large-scale initiatives and strategies for long-term community planning and led changes in policies to make data collection and reporting more accessible within local government and add accountability measures on data related to racism and hate.

Donald Corrigal, Environmental Public Health professional:

Corrigal is a Métis citizen and has had a diverse and fulfilling career, reflecting his dedication to environmental public health, Indigenous cultural safety and athletic excellence. From ensuring environmental public health practices to developing cultural health and safety curriculum for health-care professionals, he has focused on fostering a safe and healthy environment in which communities can thrive. Corrigal is currently focused on policy development, Indigenous cultural health, wellness and safety curriculum for health-care professionals in their interactions with Métis, First Nations and Inuit communities in B.C. He also teaches Indigenous cultural health, safety and wellness to health-care professionals.

Marion Erickson, research manager, Health Arts Research Centre:

Erickson belongs to Dakelh Nation from the community of Nak’azdli and is a member of the Lhts’umusyoo (beaver) clan. She is a master of education candidate at Thompson Rivers University and earned a bachelor of public administration and community development from the University of Northern B.C. She is serving on the B.C. Health Regulators Indigenous Student Advisory Group and has served on the trust development committee for the Nak’azdli Band and the City of Prince George Student Needs Committee.

Shirley Chau, associate professor, school of social work, University of British Columbia (UBC) Okanagan:

Chau lives and works as a settler on the ancestral lands of the Syilx Okanagan people, who are residents and stewards of these lands since time immemorial. Chau was co-chair of the UBC President’s Task Force on Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence (2021-22) and a former chair and co-chair of the Race, Ethnicity and Cultural Issues Caucus of the Canadian Association of Social Work Education. She serves on the United Against Discrimination Coalition Committee in Kelowna, where her focus is to monitor and find solutions to issues related to discrimination and hate, and intersectional discrimination based on Indigeneity, gender, sexual identity, religion, age, racial-linguistic, ethnicity and other identities and factors in the Thompson-Okanagan region of B.C.

Jacqueline Quinless, PhD, data justice advocate, Quintessential Research Group:

A public sociologist and IBPOC researcher, Quinless is a biracial person of Indian ethnicity (Secunderbhad/Hyderbhad) and Irish/British ancestry living on the traditional and ancestral territories of the Lekwungen speaking peoples, W̱SÁNEĆ and Esquimalt Nations on Vancouver Island with her children. She holds a PhD in sociology with a focus on health, inequality, anti-racism, intersectionality, decolonizing data, applied statistics and gender from the University of Victoria. Quinless spent 10 years working for Statistics Canada in the Gathering Strength Initiative and has taught data analysis extensively in Indigenous communities throughout Canada and Inuit Nunangat for two decades. In 2013, she was recognized by the Canadian Sociological Association and the Angus Reid Foundation for her community-based research that has advanced human welfare for Indigenous Peoples in Canada. She also completed a data fellowship during her post-doctoral work with the Council on Library and Information Resources in Washington, D.C., and the University of Victoria, where she focused on research data management practices, ethics and data curation. She is an adjunct professor in sociology and an associate faculty at the Centre for Indigenous Research and Community Engagement at the University of Victoria. She enjoys teaching undergraduate and graduate courses at the University of Victoria and Camosun College on Vancouver Island. 

Ellen Kim, equity and inclusion consultant:

Kim is a settler of Korean ancestry living on the territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and səlilwətaɬ people. She is an equity and inclusion consultant and has worked with governments, businesses, universities and non-profit organizations, with a focus on racial equity and justice. Prior to this, she was a front-line community worker for 10 years, working primarily with people marginalized by housing insecurity and homelessness, poverty, colonization and war. Kim co-leads a grassroots collective that collects, analyzes, tracks and shares community-sourced data on anti-Asian racism and its impacts. They have documented its rise across the country and have worked to shift the national discourse on the invisibility and denial of anti-Asian racism.

Smith Oduro-Marfo, lead author, researcher, Black in B.C. report:

Oduro-Marfo holds a PhD in political science from the University of Victoria. His area of academic interest since 2016 has been in issues of privacy, data protection, surveillance and identification systems. He is the lead author and researcher for the Black in B.C. report funded by the B.C. government and released in February 2022. He has been on the advisory committee for Ending Violence Association of BC’s anti-racism and hate response program and is a new member of the Greater Victoria Police Diversity Advisory Committee.