The Centre for Human Rights, Equity & Inclusion (Centre) is pleased to invite you to its Equity and Inclusion Dialogue series for the 2021-2022 academic year. Online registration is now open for this event. See the event flyer for details. Limited seating available.
View the full listing of the Centre’s 2021-2022 Equity & Inclusion Dialogue series
Panelist bios:
Nahannee Schuitemaker PhD Candidate
Nahannee Schuitemaker is of Kanien’keha:ka, French Canadian and Dutch descent. She has lived from coast to coast on Turtle Island and returned to Ontario in 2017 to begin her Ph.D. in Indigenous Studies at Trent University. Nahannee completed her master of arts in Curriculum Studies at the University of British Columbia in which she focused on the stories of mixed Indigenous women and their connection to land away from their own ancestral territories. She holds a double major BA in Psychology and Spanish with a focus on human rights and genocide studies, also completed at UBC. An artist and advocate at heart, her work and life journey has allowed her to work, build relationships with, and learn from fellow Indigenous peoples and communities.
Relocating from Vancouver to Ontario was propelled by her desire to be closer to Haudenosaunee communities in an effort to learn more about her Kanien’keha:ka roots and to embody her identity in a good way. Nahannee joined the Indigenous Education and Engagement team in the fall of 2020 as a part-time doctoral fellow and her enthusiasm for the work she was involved with led her to apply for her current position as Indigenous Curriculum and Pedagogy Specialist. While in this position, her work will include international collaborations delivering unique curricula, college-wide initiatives to build faculty and staff capacity, contributing to the establishment of Indigenous Research Protocols, and other Indigenous-centered initiatives to foster inclusivity and awareness at Humber College.
Denise Christopherson
Denise Christopherson is a skilled and respected leader and advocate whose passion for social justice, equity for women, and inclusion have greatly contributed to the goal of equality for women and girls. As CEO of YWCA Hamilton over the last ten years, Denise builds relationships within the non-profit sector, corporate sector, government sector and the broader community ensuring that the issues facing women and gender diverse folks stay front and center.
Denise has a demonstrated history of working in the non-profit and corporate sectors both as a CEO and consultant working to build strong, sustainable and equitable organizations.
Within the community, Denise sits on the boards of the Hamilton Children’s Aid Society and the Hamilton Immigration Partnership. Further, she is a recognized city-builder by organizations that include Mohawk College as a Distinguished Fellow, and OSSTF-Community Capacity Champion.
Dr. Elizabeth Tunstall PhD
Elizabeth (Dori) Tunstall is a design anthropologist, public intellectual, and design advocate who works at the intersections of critical theory, culture, and design. As Dean of Design at Ontario College of Art and Design University, she is the first black and black female dean of a faculty of design. She leads the Cultures-Based Innovation Initiative focused on using old ways of knowing to drive innovation processes that directly benefit communities.
With a global career, Dori served as associate professor of Design Anthropology and associate dean at Swinburne University in Australia. She wrote the biweekly column Un-Design for The Conversation Australia. In the U.S., she taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She organized the U.S. National Design Policy Initiative and served as a director of Design for Democracy. Industry positions included UX strategists for Sapient Corporation and Arc Worldwide. Dori holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Stanford University and a BA in Anthropology from Bryn Mawr College.
