Fellows are a province-wide network of academics, community activists and independent thinkers with expertise in a wide range of educational issues who are committed to education in the public interest. They have experience speaking with members of the media, policy makers, and community members about their work.
Patti Bacchus
Patti Bacchus is a public education advocate and commentator, who was also the Vancouver School Board’s longest-serving chair, from 2008-2014. She believes that a strong and well-resourced public education system is key to a healthy and just society. She has also served on the Board of the Broadbent Institute. Patti has written extensively about public education issues in the Georgia Straight.
Charley Beresford
Charley Beresford is a leader in public interest governance and policy solutions. Charley lead the Columbia Institute for 13 years, establishing the Institute’s Centre for Civic Governance and directing research on public policy issues ranging from K-12 Funding, Understanding Public Private Partnerships, Climate Action, Green Economy and Governance. Most recently, Charley served as Senior Executive Lead at the Province of BC’s Crown Agencies and Board Resourcing Office which provides governance support for Provincial public sector organizations. Charley led the development of the Province’s Governing in the Public Interest Certificate program and brought a strong diversity focus to CABRO’s work. Charley holds a Certificate in Circular Economy from Cambridge Judge School of Business.
Carla Bergman
Carla Bergman is a producer, mom, writer and organizer. She is the co director of EMMA Talks, a speakers series by women. She has worked with youth in alternatives-to-education spaces and projects for over 15 years. She co-directed the film Common Notions: Handbook Not Required, co-edited the AK Press book Stay Solid: A Radical Handbook For Youth and is currently working on a book about Joy.
Liz Blackwood
Liz Blackwood is a public education advocate and the K-12 and early education and child care researcher for the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). She is a Research Associate with the BC Office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA-BC), and her professional and academic research has focused on public policy, privatization, trade and investment, education policy and public services.
Jane Bouey
Jane Bouey has spent much of her adult life working for schools that are engaging, inclusive, and welcoming for all children and youth. She served two terms on the Vancouver School Board, playing a key role in the development of policy on sexual orientation and gender identity/expression – in Vancouver and across Canada. She currently works in communications for a provincial non-profit.
Rory Brown
Rory Brown is a long-time education activist, advocate and teacher. He is the former President of the Vancouver Secondary Teachers’ Association and was also a member of the Executive of the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation. Rory ran as a School Trustee with Onecity Vancouver in the last municipal election. He believes strongly in the social benefit of public institutions and their role in fostering diversity and plurality. He is interested in how publicly funded institutions navigate neoliberal and individualistic motivations and how public education can offer redistributive structures to society. Rory is currently faculty at the British Columbia Institute of Technology in the Mechanical Engineering Department, Technology Teacher Education Program.
William Bruneau
William (“Bill”) Bruneau is a Saskatchewan native, a graduate of the U of S and, later on, the University of Toronto. He was a secondary school teacher in Calgary in the late 1960s, then joined the Department of Educational Studies at UBC (1971-2003). His kids and grandchildren graduated from public schools and universities. He was an elected school trustee in Vancouver (1990-1993), president of the UBC Faculty Association 1992-4, then president of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (1996-8). Bill’s published work has dealt with academic freedom, the rise of “performance indicators” in school and university management, and with people on the front lines of education. As of 2023-24, Bill is working on a book about Bertrand Russell. He types a lot.
Steve Cardwell
From his beginnings as a high school teacher to superintendent in Delta and Vancouver school districts to Vice President, Students at KPU, Steve has always been a strong advocate for students and the work of educators. Early on, he was president of his local and served on the BCTF provincial bargaining committeee as well as President of the BC Science Teachers’ Association. In 2013, Steve was awarded the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee medal for his outstanding service to public education. In 2022, the KPU Foundation created a bursary in his name to support his area of passion- marginalized students, especially indigenous and former youth in care.
Steve values ethical leadership, fosters strong working relationships, and leads with empathy.
David Chudnovsky
David Chudnovsky worked in nursery, elementary and secondary schools and at the university level in England, Ontario and BC during his 35-year teaching career. He is a past-president of the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation and was an elected Member of the Legislative Assembly in British Columbia Legislature from 2005-2009. David is co-author of the Charter for Public Education.
Kirsten Daub
Kirsten Daub is the K-12 Sector Coordinator for the Canadian Union of Public Employees in British Columbia (CUPE BC) and is a CUPE National Servicing Representative. Kirsten coordinates provincial bargaining for K-12 support staff and provincial-wide strategies and campaigns for the sector. Prior to CUPE, Kirsten worked for over ten years at CoDevelopment Canada, building international solidarity between unions and social justice organizations in Canada and Latin America.
Annabree Fairweather
Annabree Fairweather has over a decade of experience in post-secondary academic labour in BC and Alberta. As a first-generation graduate, Annabree is passionate about the broader societal values of higher education to global citizenship. Prior to her career in university labour, she was a published researcher and contract instructor. Annabree holds a Master of Science in experimental psychology and a double major Bachelor of Arts (French) and Science (
Gerald Fallon
Dr. Gerald Fallon is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Studies (Faculty of Education) at the University of British Columbia. His research focuses on issues of educational system improvements and management with specific threads related to education law, educational policy, sustainability, educational leadership, community development and inclusiveness.
Lizanne Foster
Lizanne Foster started teaching quite by accident 39 years ago during the apartheid era in South Africa. For the past 25 years, she’s been teaching the humanities in high schools in Surrey, BC. She blogs mostly about education issues at https://paradigms.blog/ and has had her writing published in various places including The Tyee and The Vancouver Sun.
Andrée Gacoin
Andrée Gacoin is Director of the Division of Information, Research and International Solidarity at the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation. Her research focuses on developing a unique, in-depth and contextualized exploration of education in BC from the perspective of teachers. Andrée is particularly interested in using research as advocacy to uphold and strengthen an inclusive public education system.
Lindsay Gibson
Lindsay Gibson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy at the University of British Columbia. He taught secondary school social studies and history in Kelowna Public Schools for twelve years and was on the writing team for the K-12 social studies curriculum in BC and Alberta. His research focuses on historical thinking and history teacher education.
Budd Hall
Budd Hall is Professor Emeritus with the School of Public Administration and Co-Chair of the UNESCO Chair in Community Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education. He is an advocate for adult education, the revitalization of Indigenous Languages, community based research and social movement learning. He is a former Dean of Education and former Secretary-General of the International Council of Adult Education. He is also a great poet.
William Hood
William Hood is a retired Vancouver elementary school teacher and former elected BCTF Local Representative. He believes in the power of public education to help us learn about the world we live on and its diverse populations, and our agency in shaping our democratic society. Public education is also the vehicle through which we learn about each other and our history, both proud and shameful, and prepare to overcome the challenges we face together now and in the future. For public education to be successful, it needs to attend to the pursuit of academic excellence as well as issues of respect, social justice, tolerance, opportunity, and fair treatment for all.
Edward Howe
Edward Howe is a Professor of Curriculum Studies in the School of Education at Thompson Rivers University. Dr. Howe’s teaching focuses on social justice issues, global citizenship education, and transformational learning. His research blends narrative inquiry and reflexive ethnography to understand teacher acculturation and other educational phenomena.
Iglika Ivanova
Iglika Ivanova is a Senior Economist and Public Interest Researcher at the BC Office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Her research sheds light on key social and economic challenges facing BC and develops evidence-based policy solutions. Iglika is particularly interested in the potential for public policy to build a more inclusive and sustainable economic future.
Anjum Kahn
Anjum Kahn has been an educator for over 25 years, as a mother of three, a classroom teacher, a teacher educator, and a board member. She is an advocate for public education and strongly believes in the potential of education for abolishing poverty, fighting for environmental change, and creating equality especially within marginalized populations. She is currently working on a Doctorate in Education focusing on the meaning of home for people living in refugee situations.
Crawford Kilian
Crawford Kilian is a retired instructor who taught at Vancouver Community College and Capilano University from 1967 to 2008. He is the author of over 20 novels and nonfiction books. He has also published hundreds of articles on topics ranging from education to science, environment, politics, web writing, and books. Since 2003 he has been a contributing editor for The Tyee, an online newspaper based in Vancouver.
Larry Kuehn
Larry Kuehn is the former Director of Research and Technology at the BC Teachers’ Federation and a Research Associate for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. He has written extensively on issues related to globalization and education. Recent articles are: International students as a market in Canadian public education and Digital capitalism: A social order is built into technology, including educational use of technology.
Dan Laitsch
Dan Laitsch is the Dean of Education, Simon Fraser University. He co-edits the International Journal of Education Policy and Leadership, and has worked with the Joint Consortium for School Health and ASCD. His research interests are the use/misuse of research in teaching, policymaking, and advocacy; the impact of neoliberal policies on education; and school health approaches to systemic education reform.
Shannon Leddy
Shannon Leddy (Métis) is an Assistant Professor (Teaching) in Indigenous Education in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia, where she also teaches in the NITEP program. She focuses on decolonizing education through infusing Indigenous content and pedagogies in teacher education. She serves as Co-Chair of the Institute for Environmental Learning, a UNESCO Regional Centre of Excellence.
Andrew Longhurst
Andrew Longhurst, MA, is a research associate with the BC Office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA–BC), a researcher and policy analyst with the Health Sciences Association of BC and served as senior advisor to the BC Ministry of Health’s Primary and Community Care Research Initiative. He is also a PhD student in the Department of Geography at Simon Fraser University, researching health care reform in Canada and internationally. His research interests include health and social policy, poverty and inequality, and labour market change.
Moira Mackenzie
Moira Mackenzie has a long history of advocacy and engagement in public education. She taught in BC public schools for many years at the primary and intermediate levels, and as a Resource & Learning Assistance teacher. She retired from the BC Teachers’ Federation staff where she served as Assistant Director in Professional and Social Issues, Director of the Communications and Campaigns Division, and Executive Director.
John Malcolmson
John Malcolmson was formerly the CUPE research analyst for the K-12 sector. He is interested in education finance and, in particular, the mounting structural shortfall in K-12 funding produced as a result of neoliberal austerity imposed from above, and the changing role played by property taxation in the funding of public schools.
Sandra Mathison
Sandra Mathison is Professor of Education at the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on educational evaluation; especially the potential of evaluation to support democratic ideals in education. She edited the Encyclopedia of Evaluation and co-authored Researching Children’s Experiences. She is currently co-editor of Critical Education.
Kathryn McNaughton
Kathryn McNaughton is Vice-President, Academic, Students & Research at Vancouver Community College. She was an associate professor at University of Regina, held decanal positions at Thompson Rivers University and Red River College, and was VP Academic & Research at the University College of the North. Dr. McNaughton taught school in Ontario and at community colleges in Saskatchewan, Nunavut and BC. Her research focuses on early childhood and international teacher education.
Kevin Millsip
Kevin has served as the executive director of the BC Libraries Cooperative since March of 2018. Much of his Co-op work is focused on advocacy for libraries with the provincial and federal governments. Kevin served as a Trustee on the Vancouver School Board and then worked for the board as its first Sustainability Coordinator, working on projects connected to sustainable school food systems, waste reduction, active transportation and climate action. He has co-founded two capacity-building organizations, Next UP and Check Your Head and helped found the organizing projects CanRoots and Organize BC. He works with the Columbia Institute and is working on a project to develop unionized cooperatives. He provides workshops and training for labour activists on member engagement and organizing, and serves on the boards of the Wilderness Committee and For Our Kids.
Adrienne Montani
Adrienne Montani is the Executive Director of the First Call Child and Youth Advocacy Society. She has served as the Child and Youth Advocate for the City of Vancouver and as a Trustee and Chairperson of the Vancouver School Board. Among other awards, Adrienne received the MOSAIC Human Rights Award, awarded based on an individual’s activities, altruism, personal risk, and significant contribution in the field of human rights and ethnic relations.
Vis Naidoo
Vis Naidoo is an education technology expert focusing on strategy, policy, developing innovative programs and successful partnerships with academic institutions, communities, governments, corporations and non-profit organizations. He has extensive expertise using media and technology for formal school and post-secondary education and non-formal adult and youth learning, as a platform for economic and social development of people.
Stephen Petrina
Stephen Petrina is a Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy at the University of British Columbia. He specializes in how we learn media & technology across the lifespan, and especially how students and teachers innovate in classrooms, labs, workshops, makerspaces, and virtual spaces.
Wendy Poole
Wendy Poole is Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Studies, University of British Columbia. She has 14 years experience as a teacher and educational leader in K-12 education. Her research interests include educational leadership, organization studies, labour relations, teacher unionism, and education policy, particularly neoliberal education policy and its impacts on students, teachers, administrators, communities, and school districts.
Michael Rattray
Michael Rattray is the Senior Editor at Adbusters Media Foundation.
E. Wayne Ross
E. Wayne Ross is Professor in Curriculum and Pedagogy at the University of British Columbia. He teaches and writes about the politics of curriculum, critical pedagogy, social studies education, and academic labor. He was Distinguished University Scholar at the University of Louisville, and has been a day care worker and a secondary social studies teacher. His recent books are Working for Social Justice Inside and Outside the Classroom, and The Social Studies Curriculum: Purposes, Problems, and Possibilities.
Michal Rozworski
Michal Rozworski is a London-based union researcher, author, economist and journalist. Previously he worked as Senior Researcher at the BC Teachers’ Federation. Michal has considerable research experience in public education finance, public policy, and school district budgeting. He holds graduate degrees in economics and philosophy, and claims he has read too many education budget documents for his own good.
Hans Schuetze
Hans Schuetz is professor emeritus, University of British Columbia. His research focuses on higher education research and policy. He was a policy analyst in the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). He has worked as a lawyer and public servant in Germany.
Vicheth Sen
Vicheth Sen is currently a sessional lecturer in the Department of Educational Studies, University of British Columbia. He is also a senior fellow at the Center for Khmer Studies based in Cambodia. He has been an educator and researcher in the postsecondary educational setting for nearly two decades in his native country, Cambodia, and in Canada. His main areas of research and teaching include adult and higher education and social justice and equity, coloniality and onto-epistemic justice, neoliberalism and public education, and adult learning and sustainability.
Özlem Sensoy
Özlem Sensoy is a professor in the Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University. Her research interests include social justice education, critical multicultural education, anti-oppression education, anti-racism and whiteness studies, critical media literacy, popular youth cultures, Middle East & Islamic cultures in school. Her co-authored book Is everyone really equal? An introduction to key concepts in social justice education is in its second edition.
Paul Shaker
Paul Shaker is a career educator who has served as teacher, teacher educator, and dean in five of the United States, in Asia, and in Canada at Simon Fraser University where he is professor emeritus. An alumnus of Ohio State, Shaker has sought to advance the progressive legacy in public schools and higher education through scholarship, leadership, and media activism. See www.paulshaker.com
Bárbara Silva
Bárbara Silva is a public education advocate, organizer and activist. She holds a degree in Chemical Engineering and Education and has worked in both fields, but is most passionate about building support for an equitable and accessible public education system and creating awareness about the proliferation of privatization across Canada. In 2015, Bárbara co-founded the citizen-run public education advocacy organization Support Our Students Alberta, which led several campaigns and rallies in defence of public education across the province. As an experienced public speaker, she was widely sought after as a go-to media source and presenter for issues around public education in the province. Bárbara’s advocacy is based on the right of every child to a universally accessible public education.
Michelle Stack
Michelle Stack, Ph.D., is an associate professor and in the Department of Educational Studies, University of British Columbia. Her central research interest concerns how people, knowledge and institutions are categorized and the influence of these categorizations on our ability to grapple with inequity. She is the author of Global University Ranking and the Mediatization of Higher Education, Global University Rankings and the Politics of Knowledge (Open Access Book) and Responding to the COVID-19 pandemic: University rankings or co-operatives as a strategy for developing an equitable and resilient post-secondary education sector? and co-editor of a book with Dr. André Mazawi, Course Syllabi in Faculties of Education Bodies of Knowledge and their Discontents, International and Comparative Perspectives.
She can be found @MIchelleLStack or michelle.stack@ubc.ca
Janice St. Helene
Janice St. Helene began teaching in Ontario and relocated to British Columbia to continue her career as an elementary teacher and school principal in a Vancouver independent school. In 2013, Janice accepted a position at SFU and was a Faculty Associate and later Program Coordinator in the Faculty of Education’s Professional Development Program (PDP). Janice served as Associate Director of SFU’s Preservice Professional Studies and was appointed as a Professor of Professional Practice in 2018. In 2022, Janice began her role as the Director of Professional Programs, supporting both the in-service and preservice teacher education programs at SFU. She has worked closely with local and northern school districts, the Ministries of Education and Childcare and Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills. Through her work at SFU, Janice has made a strong commitment to decolonization, anti-racism and anti-oppression work in teacher education, to working alongside rural and northern communities and to upholding the integrity of the teaching profession in British Columbia.
Paul Tetrault
Paul Tetrault is a retired lawyer and national representative with the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) who represented local unions and CUPE members in the K-12 sector. He is currently a member of School for All which advocates to ensure that all children can access public schools no matter their immigration status.
Fei Wang
Fei Wang’s research interests include educational leadership and administration, social justice and diversity, subversive leadership, leadership in cross-cultural settings, and educational policy studies. His research interests are the role of school principals, principals’ work intensification, subversive leadership activities, the implication of The Art of War in educational leadership, and leadership in transnational education.
Bryn Williams
Bryn Williams has worked in education since the late 1980’s in formal and informal settings, including Lynn Canyon Ecology Centre and five districts across Metro Vancouver. He is currently a principal at Westwood Elementary where the focus is on the Whole Child with particular emphasis on social emotional learning and restorative justice practices. He is the Executive Director of the BC ASCD and current President of the Coquitlam Principals/Vice-Principals Association.
John Willinsky
John Willinsky is Khosla Family Professor of Education and Director of the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at Stanford University, as well as Professor of Publishing Studies at Simon Fraser University. He works with the Public Knowledge Project to help turn research and scholarship into more of a public good by developing open source publishing systems and conducting related research.
Christine Ho Younghusband
Christine Ho Younghusband is an Assistant Professor at the University of Northern British Columbia in the School of Education. She is a former secondary mathematics teacher in BC public schools and school trustee. She has worked with the Ministry of Education and First Nations Education Steering Committee developing the Math K-9 Curriculum.