Social Justice Career Panel

About

Panelists

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  Karim Bardeesy

  Executive Director, the Dias at the Toronto Metropolitan University

  Karim is a public service leader who has worked for a better democracy, a more educated and engaged population, and better public policy throughout his professional career. In 2017, he co-founded the Leadership Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University, and took on additional responsibilities as Executive Director of the Brookfield Institute in January 2023. Karim also co-teaches SSH505, "Making the Future," for which he has won two teaching awards from TMU's Faculty of Arts.

  Karim was previously Deputy Principal Secretary for Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and served as Executive Director of Policy for Premiers Wynne and Dalton McGuinty. He was a candidate in Parkdale—High Park in the 2022 Ontario provincial election.

  He has worked as a journalist, as a politics and policy columnist for The Toronto Star, an editorial writer and business reporter at The Globe and Mail, and as an editorial assistant at Slate magazine. He also taught leadership at the University of Toronto's School of Public Policy and Governance. Karim holds a Bachelor of Arts from McGill University and a Master in Public Policy from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

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  Noreen Jamal

  Clinical Pharmacist, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

  Noreen is a pharmacist at CAMH and works enthusiastically with a very marginalized population alongside other fabulous health care professionals. Her passion is combatting the social determinants of health from inside the system and is working on bringing her actions to a more informal and non-traditional place.

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  Lachmi Singh

  EDI Director, Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy

  Dr. Lachmi Singh (she/her) is currently the Director, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) and Director, Education Programs and Administrative Services at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy (LDFP) University of Toronto. Lachmi holds an LLB and a PhD degree and has 20 years of experience working in the university sector in the UK and Canada.

  Lachmi joined LDFP in 2017 and is responsible for the administration of all academic programs. Lachmi’s role is central to the strategic planning and process implementation for the Education office. In 2023, Lachmi was appointed the inaugural Director of EDI at LDFP working collaboratively with academic, administrative and student leaders to develop and implement initiatives aimed at advancing EDI within the learning and working environments across the faculty.

  In 2023 Lachmi was awarded the Chancellor’s Leadership Award, Emerging Leader and the Exemplary U of T Ambassador Award. Lachmi is currently completing her Master of Education (MEd) in Social Justice Education at OISE at the University of Toronto.

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  Vidia Dhanraj

  Senior Manager, Business Innovation & Implementation Branch, Ontario Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services

  Vidia is a social policy, public sector leader with extensive experience in poverty and homelessness response systems change and transformations, focusing on the best outcomes for people with an all of community approach. Her time in the United States included leadership roles in various levels of government focusing on economic stability and coordinating systems to end homelessness. Vidia has held several non-profit board positions, is invested in community well-being, and supports a wide range of activities as an active alumni at the University of Toronto.

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  Eric Doerr

  Senior Specialist for Product & Process, Sanofi Pasteur

  Eric graduated from the University of Western Ontario with both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Engineering Science in 2014 and 2016, respectively, focusing in biochemical engineering processing and design. His academic works involved research collaboration with the RWTH Aachen, Germany and course instruction collaboration with ENSIC Nancy, France. Since graduation, Eric has worked extensively within the biopharmaceutical industry with process development, continuous improvement, and routine manufacturing support for a variety of drug substances across different stages of their life cycles. He has been with global pharmaceutical manufacturer, Sanofi, since 2018, wherein his current role as Senior Specialist for Product and Process continues to support vaccine global supply chains daily.

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  Timothy Lim

  Masters of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy

  Timothy is a practicing pharmacist and master student at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy. He completed his Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy in 2016 at UBC and an Accredited Canadian Pharmacy Residency in 2017. In his last role as a Clinical Pharmacist and Lecturer at the UBC Pharmacists Clinic, Tim took on roles developing clinical pharmacy services with First Nations communities, co-creating pharmacy specific Cultural Safety and Humility modules with the First Nations Health Authority, and advocating for 2SLGBTQ+ health and integration of SOGIE content into the UBC PharmD program. Outside his professional work, Tim enjoys spending time outdoors and travelling. His thesis will look at exploring facilitators, barriers and opportunities for PrEP access, use and adherence in urban Indigenous Peoples in Toronto.

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  Stuart MacLeod

  Reproductive Health & Justice, Planned Parenthood

  Stuart is a community sexual health educator focusing on de-stigmatizing conversations around sexuality, sexual health, and reproductive justice. Currently they work with Planned Parenthood Toronto as their Teen Programming Coordinator running youth sexual health information lines and maintaining TeenHealthSource.com, a sexual and reproductive health resource for teens. Previously Stuart has worked in community programming and development for the AIDS Committee of Toronto and the People with AIDS Foundation of Toronto, was a contributing author to Teaching About Sex And Sexualities In Higher Education, published in 2021, and has sat on panels for The Toronto HIV/AIDS Opening Doors Conference, and screenings of the 2019 Much Studios documentary POSITIVE+. Stuart is also a graduate of both U of T's Women and Gender Studies program and Sexual Diversity Studies program.

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  Tait Gamble

  Health Equity, The Period Purse, Toronto

  Tait is a settler born and raised in Toronto and a current Masters of Science in Planning student at the University of Toronto. Since 2017, she has been volunteering with the Period Purse, the first registered charity in Canada to specifically deal with menstrual equity. As a volunteer, she's compiled and edited annual reports, been a part of a youth advisory committee on the development of our period app, sorted product donations at packing parties across the city and liaised with youth interested in tackling period equity in their communities. She is now a Menstruation Nation facilitator, teaching period and menstrual equity education in schools across Toronto and Canada. 

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  Gary Pieters

  Ontario Human Rights Commissioner & School Principal

  Gary serves the province of Ontario as a member of the board of directors of the Human Rights Legal Support Centre - cross appointed as a commissioner (part-time) for the Ontario Human Rights Commission. He is an educator, who served in various roles as a teacher, a vice-principal, and a principal in the publicly funded education system in Ontario since 1999.

  A graduate of the University of Toronto, he earned his Bachelor of Arts (BA) in African Studies and Political Science at New College, and his Bachelor of Education (BEd) and Master of Education (MEd) at OISE/University of Toronto.

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  Uma Kalkar

  Researcher, Youthful cities, Economist, 18byVote, UNICEF

  Uma is a public interest technologist and quantitative social scientist building resilient, human-centered systems that leverage the good of data, technology, and the human spirit. Her expertise has been consulted by The Economist Impact, featured in Forbes, and presented at the Aspen Ideas Festival. As the Strategy & Innovation Director of 18by Vote, a U.S. non-profit exclusively focused on ‘rising voters’ (youth ages 15 to 19 years old), Uma drew on data and data science to identify ‘deserts’ of underserved voters. Uma is currently the Research & Innovation Manager for Youthful Cities, a social enterprise, where she seeks to improve urban programs and policies for the future of work for young people. She is also the Project Manager at the Peace Innovation Institute, a collaboration between the Peace Innovation Lab at Stanford University and the City of The Hague, where she builds a Peace Data Standard.

  Uma holds a Master of Public Policy in Digital and New Technology from Sciences Po Paris and Master of Global Affairs in Innovation Policy from the University of Toronto.

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  Paul Diamond

  Canadian Wildlife Federation, Sandwatch Foundation

  Paul is a Bsc graduate from the University of Toronto (Class of '88).

  He lived in the Caribbean for 18 years (1996-2014) where he worked for a number of governmental and non-governmental organisations on environmental, climate change, biodiversity, historical and cultural projects including terrestrial and marine archaeology.

  Currently Paul works for The Canadian Wildlife Federation as the Education Specialist for Central Canada for the WILD Outside Program, a program designed to get youth outside conducting community service projects and connecting to the outdoors in general.

  Since 2005 until the present Paul is also Co-Director of The Sandwatch Foundation/UNESCO. The Sandwatch Foundation is a UNESCO funded volunteer network of schools, non-governmental and community-based organisations seeking to monitor climate change and enhance their local coastal environments.

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  Reece Martin

   Reece is a passionate Creator, Transportation Planner, Consultant, and Software Developer. He runs a YouTube Channel which talks about Transit Systems, Cities, Development, and Infrastructure. He had the opportunity through this work to meet many wonderful people and work with a number of major transit project teams globally. Reece’s YouTube Channel has over 100,000 subscribers and over 14 million views. He has significant Software Development experience acquired through time spent in his Computer Science Degree at the University of Toronto, and through work at a number of companies. He is particularly passionate about the overlap between transportation networks and software.