Satwinder Bains, University of Fraser Valley
Satwinder Bains is the Director of the South Asian Studies Institute at the University of the Fraser Valley and an Associate Professor in Social Cultural Media Studies, College of Arts. Her critical analysis of India’s multilingual policy and planning has fueled her interest in the impact of language, culture and identity on South Asian Canadian migration, settlement, and integration. Her research intersects cross-cultural education with a focus on anti-racist curriculum implementation; race, racism, and ethnicity; identity politics; Sikh feminist ideology; migration and the South Asian Canadian Diaspora and Punjabi Canadian cultural historiography. Satwinder also has extensive professional experience in community development.
Helene Berman, Western University
Helene Berman is an RN and Distinguished Professor Emerita at Western University. She is a Fellow in the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. Her research, funded by grants from CIHR, SSHRC, and Status of Women Canada, focuses on the subtle and explicit forms of violence in the lives of girls and young women. Recently, she has extended that work to include boys and young men. Helene was instrumental in the establishment of the Centre for Research on Health Equity and Social Inclusion and serves as the Centre’s founding Academic Director, promoting health equity in Canada and Rwanda.
Naomi Lightman, University of Calgary
Naomi Lightman is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Calgary. Her areas of research include migration, care work, gender, inequality, and research methodology and has appeared in the European Sociological Review, Journal of European Social Policy, International Migration Review and Social Politics. Naomi has collaborated with various social agencies and government bodies including Social Planning Toronto, the Wellesley Institute, the Calgary Local Immigration Partnership and the Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association.
Raktim Mitra, Toronto Metropolitan University
Raktim Mitra is an Associate Professor in the School of Urban and Regional Planning, at Toronto Metropolitan University and co-director of TransForm- the transportation and land use planning research laboratory at TMU. His research interests focus on Active Living and Healthy Communities. Raktim has published widely on the topics of suburban walkability, transportation accessibility and older adults’ wellbeing.
Margaret Walton-Roberts, Wilfred Laurier University
Margaret Walton-Roberts is Professor of Geography, Associate Director of the International Migration Research Centre at Wilfred Laurier University. Her research addresses gender, immigrant settlement in mid-sized Canadian cities, and the impact of transnational networks in both source and destination locales. She has published widely on the role of immigration and remittances in transnational community formation and maintenance including work on health philanthropy in Punjab, explorations of the role of the state and community in the nature of transnational relations between Non Resident Indians and sending communities.
Lu Wang, Toronto Metropolitan University
Lu Wang is a Professor of Geography at Toronto Metropolitan University. Her research focuses on the social and economic dimensions of urban experience and includes health geography, health and GIS, immigrant health, transnationalism, retail and urban geography. Her methodological interests include GIS and spatial analysis, statistical modeling and mixed-method approach combining quantitative and qualitative methods. Some of Dr. Wang’s on-going SSHRC, CERIS, the Ontario Metropolis Centre-funded projects examine the health experiences of immigrant populations in Ontario, and spatial and ethnic variances in health status, and spatial and linguistic mismatch between health-care provision and demand.