Multiple Diversities: Child/Youth Identity and Life Outcomes: Biographies
Joanna Anneke Rummens, PhD.
Dr. Joanna Anneke Rummens is a Health Systems Research Scientist with the Community Health Systems Resource Group at The Hospital for Sick Children and Director of CERIS- The Ontario Metropolis Centre. She received her Masters Degree in Anthropology from the University of Toronto, and her Doctoral Degree in Sociology plus Specialist Diploma in Latin American and Caribbean Studies from York University.
Dr. Rummens is a multilingual anthropologist/sociologist whose research explores the links between identity, diversity, health and wellbeing, with special focus on vulnerable and marginalized populations.
She has undertaken fieldwork with a wide variety of cultural groups in different societal contexts and employs an explicitly interdisciplinary, mixed-methodological, comparative perspective. Her work reflects a strong commitment to policy- and practice-relevant research, collaborative research partnerships with representatives from diverse ethno-cultural communities, as well as effective research translation/transfer and knowledge exchange/mobilization with a wide range of key stakeholders.
Dr. Rummens frequently serves in an advisory capacity in the areas of identity, diversity, citizenship and health to various governmental departments, and served as Member of the Advisory Committee to Statistics Canada and Canadian Heritage for Canada’s post-census Ethnic Diversity Survey. She is also the inventor of the Canadian Identities Database (CID), an interdisciplinary reference database on identity research in Canada and designated University of Toronto invention.
Bruce Ferguson, PhD., C. Psych.
Dr. Bruce Ferguson is the Director of the Community Health Services Resource Group at The Hospital for Sick Children. He is also a Professor of Psychiatry, Psychology and The Dalla Lana School of Public Health Science at the University of Toronto. Dr. Ferguson taught psychology at Carleton University and then moved to the health care system at the Royal Ottawa Hospital and the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry.
In 1997, Dr. Ferguson moved to The Hospital for Sick Children where he founded the Community Health Systems Resource Group (CHSRG). The purpose of the CHSRG is to create and implement systemic models for children’s success by transferring knowledge to all who can influence healthy outcomes for children. Our goals are to: improve services for children and youth at the community level; build community commitment to children and youth; and advocate for strong policies at all levels of government that support children, youth and their families.
In 2004-2005, Dr. Ferguson led a team which carried out the early School Leavers study for the Ontario Ministry of Education. Since then he has worked with the Ministry on the Learning to 18 and Student Success programs. Currently, his team is conducting a study on the transition from grade 8 through grades 9 and 10 and is studying the implementation of changes in classroom instruction to foster academic success in ADHD students.
The Honourable Jean Augustine
The Honourable Jean Augustine was born in Grenada. Early in her career, she was an Elementary School Principal with the Toronto District Catholic School Board. She has served on numerous Boards, including the Board of Governors of York University, the Board of Trustees for The Hospital for Sick Children, the Board of Directors of the Donwood Institute, and the Board of Harbourfront Corporation, and as Chair of the Metro Toronto Housing Authority. She was also National President of the Congress of Black Women of Canada.
In 1993, Ms. Augustine became the first Black woman elected to the Parliament of Canada. From 1994 to 1996, she was the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister of Canada. Ms. Augustine also served three terms as Chair of the National Liberal Women's Caucus.
In February 2002, Jean Augustine was elected Chair of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade. On May 26, 2002, Jean Augustine was appointed Secretary of State (Multiculturalism) (Status of Women) and from December 12, 2003 until July 20, 2004 she served as Minister of State (Multiculturalism and Status of Women). ). On October 7, 2004 Ms. Augustine was appointed as Assistant Deputy Chair of Committees of the Whole. On November 26, 2004, she was appointed as Special Adviser on Grenada to the Prime Minister of Canada.
Ms. Augustine was the Founding Chair of the Canadian Association of Parliamentarians on Population & Development, Chair of the Microcredit Summit Council of Canadian Parliamentarians, Chair of the Canada-Slovenia Parliamentary Group, Chair of the Canada-Caribbean Parliamentarian Friendship Group and Chair of the Canada-Africa Parliamentary Group.
In February 2007, Dr. Augustine was named Chair of the Ontario Bicentenary Commemorative Committee on the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act. The 15 member committee will advise the government of Ontario and work with organizations and communities across the province to mark the 200th anniversary of the 1807 Act. In March 2007, Dr. Augustine was announced Ontario Fairness Commissioner for Foreign Credential Recognition, to work with regulatory bodies to ensure that their admission procedures are clear, open and fair to all.
Jean Augustine holds a B.A., a M.Ed. and an Honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Toronto. Ms. Augustine supports the Jean Augustine Scholarship Fund, which assists single mothers who pursue postsecondary studies at George Brown College. She is the recipient of the YWCA Woman of Distinction Award, the Kaye Livingstone Award, the Ontario Volunteer Award, the Pride Newspaper Achievement Award, the Rubena Willis Special Recognition Award, and the Toronto Lions' Club Onyx Award.
Rahul Bhardwaj, LL.B.,
Rahul Bhardwaj has a background in corporate law, strategic communications and community service. Prior to joining United Way of York Region as its CEO in the spring of 2004, Mr. Bhardwaj was a corporate lawyer with one of Canada's leading law firms, a Vice President of the Toronto 2008 Olympic Bid and President of a communications consulting company.
Mr. Bhardwaj has extensive experience as a senior volunteer with a variety of organizations including, Chairman of the Toronto Downtown Jazz Festival , member of the Board of Directors of the Stratford Festival of Canada, the United Way of Greater Toronto as well as the Canadian Opera Company, Wellspring Cancer Support Foundation and World Literacy Canada, among many others.
In 2007, Rahul was appointed to Toronto’s “Blue Ribbon” Fiscal Review Panel and was also named by the National Post as one of the “Next Generation of Toronto Civic Leaders”.
John Biles, MA
John Biles is Special Advisor to the Director General in the Integration branch within the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada. He is the former Director, Partnerships and Knowledge Transfer, Metropolis Project Secretariat.
His academic prime focus has been an interdisciplinary approach to multiculturalism and cultural pluralism. He has an educational background in history, political science, English literature, and Canadian studies. His research interests include: political participation of newcomers and minorities; multiculturalism; integration; citizenship; public policy and religious pluralism and knowledge transfer.
Cynthia García Coll , PhD
Cynthia García Coll is the Charles Pitts Robinson and John Palmer Barstow Professor of Education, Psychology and Pediatrics at Brown University. She is a fellow of the American Psychological Association.
She has published on the sociocultural and biological influences on child development with particular emphasis on at-risk and minority populations.
She has been on the editorial boards of many academic journals, including Child Development, Development and Psychopathology, Infant Behavior and Development, Infancy and Human Development and is the current Editor of Developmental Psychology. García Coll has co-edited several books: The Psychosocial Development of Puerto Rican Women; Puerto Rican Women and Children: Issues in Health, Growth and Development; Mothering Against the Odds: Diverse Voices of Contemporary Mothers; and Nature and Nurture: The Complex Interplay of Genetic and Environmental Influences on Human Behavior and Development.
Carles Feixa, PhD.
Dr. Carles Feixa (Lleida, 1962) holds a Ph.D from the University of Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain) and a Doctorate Honoris Causa from the University of Manizales (Colombia). He is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Lleida. He has been a visiting scholar at universities in Rome, Mexico, Paris, California at Berkeley, Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile and Newcastle. His research interests include youth, migration, sport, leisure and violence.
He is the author of several books like De jovenes, bandas y tribus (Barcelona, 1998), El Reloj de Arena (Mexico, 1998), Jovens na America Latina (Sao Paulo, 2004), Jovenes Latinos en Barcelona (Barcelona, 2006), and Global Youth? Hybrid identities, plural worlds (& P. Nilan, London & New York, Routledge, 2006).
He is coeditor of the journal Young (London/Delhi) and member of the international board of Nueva Antropología (Mexico), Revista Latinoamericana de Niñez y Juventud (Bogota), Mondi Migranti (Milan) and Analise Social (Lisbon). He has been advisor for youth policies of the United Nations and is the present Vice President of Europe of the International Sociological Association Research Committee “Sociology of Youth”.
Rosa Aparicio Gomez, PhD
Dr. Rosa Aparicio Gomez is Professor of Sociology at the Faculty of Human and Social Sciences of the Universidad Pontificia Comillas (Madrid, Spain), and has been IEM director for almost ten years (1994-2004). She is currently the director of the PhD programme in Contemporary International Migration and coordinator of the social area in the Masters Programme on Immigration.
She is responsible for the Spanish part of The Integration of European Second Generation (TIES) project. The TIES project is a collaborative and comparative research project on the descendants of immigrants from Turkey, Ex-Yugoslavia and Morocco in eight European countries (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland). The ”second generation” refers to those children of immigrants who were actually born in the receiving country, and have followed their entire education there.
In her research related to migration she has focused on the integration strategies of ethnic minorities in Spanish society, integration and antidiscrimination policies, the role of social networks and social capital in the integration of different ethnic minorities, cultural and identity aspects of integration and integration of the children of immigrants in school and in the labour market.
Jack Jedwab, PhD
Dr. Jack Jedwab is Executive Director of the Association for Canadian Studies. From 1994 -1998 he served as Executive Director of the Quebec Region of the Canadian Jewish Congress. He holds a doctoral degree in Quebec history from Concordia University.
Dr. Jedwab lectures at the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. From 1989-96 he was Adjunct Professor in the Department of Sociology at McGill where he taught a course on Ethnocultural Minorities in Quebec. He has taught courses on ethnic diversity at the University of Quebec.
Contributor to the Canadian edition of Reader’s Digest, he has written essays in books, scholarly journals and in newspapers across the country. He is the founding editor of the magazines Canadian Issues and Canadian Diversity. He has authored a number of federal government reports on official languages, multiculturalism, and immigration.
Carola Suárez-Orozco, PhD
Dr. Carola Suárez-Orozco is a Professor of Applied Psychology at NYU School of Culture, Education, & Human Development as well as Co-Director of Immigration Studies @ NYU.
She publishes widely in the areas of immigrant families and youth, immigrant identity formation, immigrant family separations, and gendered experiences of immigrant youth. Her books include: Children of Immigration, Learning a New Land: Immigrant Students in American Society, Transformations: Migration, Family Life, and Achievement Motivation Among Latino Adolescents, and The New Immigration: An Interdisciplinary Reader.
In 2006, Professor Suárez-Orozco received an American Psychological Association Presidential Citation for her contribution to the field. She is a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton for 2009/10.