people

Dr. Aynur Kadir, Assistant Professor, University of British Columbia, is an Indigenous Uyghur scholar, filmmaker and curator with a research focus on the documentation, conservation and revitalization of Indigenous cultures and languages. Her work bridges the gap between Indigenous studies in Canada and in Asia. Her research interests are in global indigeneity from the Uyghur in China to Coast Salish and Six Nations in Canada; transnational Indigenous diplomacy; and the safeguarding and revitalization of languages and cultural heritage through digital technology and collaborative initiatives.

Dr. Shana MacDonald, Associate Professor, University of Waterloo. Her interdisciplinary scholarship, situated between film, media and performance studies, examines intersectional feminist social and digital media, popular culture, cinema, performance, and public art. She is an internationally curated artist who explores the community-building potential of practice-based, site-specific art interventions in public space. She is the founder of the Mobile Art Studio (MAS), a transitory creative lab space that brings art out of the gallery and into public participatory spaces.

Dr. Milena Radzikowska is Chair and Full Professor in Information Design at Mount Royal University. Her work contrasts design thinking situated within engineering and computing science with one that has its grounding in humanities-based praxis. Her research is functionally feminist, and she is currently working on such “wicked” design problems as marginalization through data display and reconciliation in post-conflict zones.

Dr. Jennifer Roberts-Smith is a Full Professor and Chair of Dramatic Arts at Brock University. is an artist-researcher, whose transdisciplinary work in performance, digital media, design, education, and social justice has appeared in theatres, exhibitions, and scholarly publications internationally. She is interested in the ways that theatre offers people with differing perspectives, expertise, and lived experience opportunities to work together toward better futures. Her recent projects have supported community-driven interventions into cycles of harm perpetuated by systemic racism in Nova Scotia (in the Digital Oral Histories for Reconciliation project); reconciliation in post-conflict zones in Colombia (in Design for Peace); women’s prison reform (in Theatre for Relationality); and disability rights (in Aesthetics for Accessibility and Remote Embodied Synchronous Teaching and Learning for Accessibility ).

