I was born and raised in the Philippines and moved to Canada when I was eight. I grew up as an only child to a single mom who worked multiple jobs to make ends meet in Toronto, so my childhood self really would never have dreamed of all the things that I've accomplished to date. […]
I've always had a passion for sustainability. I've been a part of the York community since the mid-90s as a student at Glendon. Since then, I’ve had various roles at the university. Before becoming the Program Director for York’s Office of Sustainability, I was the Manager of Transportation. In that role, I was heavily involved […]
As Prof. Andrea Davis prepares for her role as academic convenor for Canada’s largest gathering of scholars this spring at York University, she reflects on Congress 2023’s theme, and how it informs the decisions we need to make as a society to ensure we can ‘live well together’ as the University Academic Plan calls on […]
“Water safety was always an important part of my life. I worked as a lifeguard in high school and during my undergrad degree at Western University. Shortly after that I started working for the Lifesaving Society in Ontario – which is where I first got into the field of drowning research. While working at the […]
“I’m a community engaged trans and queer scholar, with an emphasis on community engagement and knowledge mobilization, which to me, is making sure that as I’m building new knowledge, it’s being communicated, discussed and debated amongst my communities. Being at York has provided me with an amazing opportunity and community, to discuss some of the […]
“Growing up my parents spoke Ojibwe to each other every day, I’d hear it sitting at the dinner table, but when they turned to speak to me or my siblings, they spoke in English. One day when I was 11 or 12 my dad started speaking to me in Ojibwe. I just looked at him […]
Back in the 1990s I thought about a career in academia which at the time was the conventional thinking: you complete your PhD and apply for academic jobs with the goal to become a professor. But by my fifth year in the program I had stalled. I couldn't find a dissertation topic that stuck and […]
"I started It's Souper because I felt there was a void for ready to eat packaged foods from my country (Nigeria) and Africa in general. African foods in mainstream grocery stores were pretty much nonexistent, this continent has so many diverse cultures and foods from those cultures. I wanted to make an impact on the […]
“After my undergrad I worked as a community organizer where I ran a network of collective gardens in Montreal in partnership with local food banks and other community resources. Part of that work was about building community and ensuring people had enough fresh, high quality, and culturally appropriate foods to eat. A lot of that […]
“My friends played a big role in me becoming so passionate about mathematics. When I was in middle school we had a math assignment every day, I would take it back home and figure it out then rush to my friends’ houses to work together as a team. Each time I would explain the concepts […]