PROJECT MEMBERS
PATRICIA AUDETTE-LONGO is an Assistant Professor of Journalism at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario. She covered the environment, politics and crime beats for the Edmonton Journal and managed digital engagement for Canada’s National Observer. Her reporting has appeared in a cross-section of Postmedia publications, J-Source, Alberta Views, and the Hill Times, and her academic work has been published in the International Journal of Communication, Resilience, Topia, Development in Practice and the Canadian Journal of Communication. Her research interests include alternative journalism and media, climate change, and petroculture studies.
PATRICIA ELLIOTT is a Distinguished Professor of Investigative and Community Journalism at First Nations University of Canada in Regina. A freelance magazine journalist, she has been cited numerous times by the Canadian Association of Journalists and National Magazine Awards for outstanding investigative journalism. Her master’s research focused on migrant worker radio in Thailand, and her PhD research examined nonprofit media in Canada. Elliott’s research interest is alternative and community-based media, and she remains active as an investigative journalist. She also has a background in web development, and is an active open source proponent.
SANDRA ENGSTROM is a Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Stirling in Scotland. Her research centres on community resilience as well as the role of social work in combating the climate crisis, such as the emotionality of climate change. This often takes the form of looking at community mental health, trauma and eco-grief. She is also co-lead of the Extreme Events research group. Engstrom has practice experience with youth in Canada, Vanuatu, England, St. Lucia and Scotland. She has worked with older populations in Florida and volunteered with HIV organisations in Canada, Vanuatu, St. Lucia, England and Scotland.
FRANCESCA FIONDA is an Adjunct Professor of Journalism at the University of British Columbia, instructor at the British Columbia Institute of Technology, and a freelance investigative and data journalist. Her past stories have uncovered fake Indigenous art in the tourism industry, exposed government failures in protecting sensitive health information and revealed new, in-depth data on Canada’s mobile workforce. She’s worked with investigative teams across the country including CBC, Global, CTV and the Institute of Investigative Journalism as well as The Discourse and Canada’s National Observer.
DAMIEN GILLIS is a British Columbia filmmaker and journalist. His feature documentary “Fractured Land” won best BC Film and the VIFF Impact Canadian Audience Award at the 2015 Vancouver International Film Festival, along with numerous other awards. His ancient forest-themed VR work has appeared in the PuSh International Festival for the Performing Arts and recently at UBC’s Museum of Anthropology and North Van Arts. As a journalist, he co-founded and published The Common Sense Canadian with Hall of Fame broadcaster Rafe Mair. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Tyee, The Narwhal, and other publications.
SEAN HOLMAN is the Wayne Crookes Professor of Environmental and Climate Journalism at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. Before entering academia, Sean was an award-winning investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker in British Columbia. As a journalist, he was best known as the founder and publisher of the pioneering online public affairs news service Public Eye, as well as the host and producer of the syndicated talk show Public Eye Radio. His research focuses on how we use and misuse information against the backdrop of catastrophic climate change and biodiversity loss, as well as democratic decline.
LARA KING is a program coordinator and Professor of Journalism at Humber College. She teaches long form, research and data journalism and design, to the next generation of journalists. Her work with student journalists has turned out award-winning projects and publications. Those honours have included the Canadian Association of Journalists Data Journalism Award for a national tainted water investigation that found public drinking water contains various levels of lead.
DAVID LEACH is a Professor of Writing at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. His magazine writing and editing have been nominated for and won a number of regional and national awards. Leach’s first book, Fatal Tide: When the Race of a Lifetime Goes Wrong won the Special Jury Mention at the Banff International Mountain Book Festival. His second book, Chasing Utopia: The Future of the Kibbutz in a Divided Israel earned nominations for a Vine Award for Canadian Jewish Literature and the Frank Hegyi Award. He has conducted research about the use of video games and interactive storytelling for art and education.
STEVE LILLIBEUN is an Assistant Professor of Journalism at MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alberta. He spent nearly five years at Australian Associated Press as a reporter and chief of staff, and has past experience as a reporter for The Canadian Press, a staff writer for the Edmonton Journal, and as a co-founding editor of Metro in Alberta. In 2013, he received the Arthur Ellis Award for The Devil’s Cinema, a narrative non-fiction exploration of a filmmaker who turns his horror script into reality. Lillebuen is working on his next book after completing a PhD in journalism at Monash University in Australia. His research interests include journalism ethics, media accountability, policing and criminal law.
BALA NIKKU is an Assistant Professor of Education and Social Work at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia. Nikku has worked in grassroots social work practice in India, Nepal, Malaysia and held adjunct positions in the United Kingdom and Thailand. He served as founding director of the Nepal School of Social Work. His research focuses on South Asia and politics of disaster, health, and poverty policies, as well as their framing and implementation. He is also interested in applying rights-based approaches to human displacement, as well as international social work and green social work.
JANICE PASKEY is an Associate Professor of Journalism at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta. Paskey is past editor of Calgary’s Avenue magazine, as well as the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Canadian correspondent. She has also worked in senior communications roles at Canadian post-secondary institutions. Her research interests include environmental offences, student publishing, and health journalism. She has held grants from the Institute for Investigative Journalism, the Institute for Environmental Sustainability, and the Oil Sands Research and Information Network, as well as serving on the editorial board of the Institute for Investigative Journalism.
MILENA RADZIKOWSKA is a Professor of Information Design at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta. She is the co-author of Visual Interface Design for Digital Cultural Heritage, Design + DH, Prototyping Across the Disciplines: Designing Better Futures, and Networked Feminisms, as well as more than seventy-five publications and presentations on data visualization, human-computer interaction, and information design. In 2018, she won the prestigious Design Educator of the Year Award from the Registered Graphic Designers of Canada. She is currently working on such “wicked” design problems as marginalization through data display and reconciliation in post-conflict zones.
DARREN SCHUETTLER is a former Reuters journalist who worked in leadership roles with that international news agency for almost twenty years. This included stints as the agency’s Southern Africa deputy bureau chief and Thailand/Indochina bureau chief. In that later role, he led Reuters coverage of Cyclone Nargis and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. He also served as the agency’s Asia multimedia editor and Asia training editor, making him responsible for training in journalism skills, newsroom leadership, ethics and standards, and talent development. He is now a consultant with the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
TRACY SHERLOCK is a freelance journalist and journalism instructor at Kwantlen University in British Columbia who has written for The New York Times, the Vancouver Courier, Canada’s National Observer, and other publications. She worked as a reporter and editor at the Vancouver Sun until 2017 and served as education beat reporter and books editor. She has also worked in community papers and as a web editor. Tracy has received the Jack Webster Award, British Columbia’s top journalism prize, and received a citation of merit for the Michener Award, a national journalism award for public service journalism.
PATTI SONNTAG is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Writing at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. She joined the university from the Institute for Investigative Journalism at Concordia University in Montreal, where she was the founding director, coordinating collaborations between journalism schools and media companies. Before that, she was a managing editor in the New York Times’ News Services division for 10 years, directing her team’s work on more than 60 news services for 1,100 media companies worldwide and preparing special opinion and analysis sections by global thought leaders for the international edition.
JHESSET THRINA ENANO is an independent journalist based in the Philippines. She was a staff reporter at the English language Philippine Daily Inquirer, where she covered the climate crisis, wildlife crime and biodiversity, natural hazards, and other environmental issues. In 2022, she was named a finalist in the Emerging Journalist category of the 2022 Covering Climate Now Journalism Awards. She is also a journalism educator and trainer, serving as a special lecturer at the Lyceum of the Philippines University where she teaches courses on investigative journalism, global perspectives on the environment, and risk, disaster and humanitarian communication.
MEG WILCOX is an Assistant Professor of Journalism at Mount Royal University in Calgary and the co-director of its Community Podcasting Initiative, which promotes podcasting as a way to amplify underrepresented voices. For almost a decade, Meg worked at CBC stations across the country as a producer, newsreader and cross-platform reporter. She was a host on CBC Radio One, 2, and 3, and developed programming for CBC Music. he covered federal elections as part of the Parliamentary Press Gallery with iPolitics, and was part of the team that founded Banff Centre Radio.
PROJECT ADVISORS
DALE BASS is a Kamloops, British Columbia, city councillor and former chair of the Canadian Association of Journalists. Her forty-five-year career in journalism included serving as a senior editor at the London Free Press and an associate editor at Kamloops This Week. After retiring, she moved her skill set of listening, questioning, researching and community-building into the political realm. She has held positions on the boards of the Kamloops Therapeutic Riding Association, Kamloops Family Resources Society, Kamloops Society for Community Living, People In Motion, Volunteer Kamloops and Kamloops Child Development Centre.
TIM BLACK is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Victoria in British Columbia who specializes in post-traumatic stress disorder, military to civilian transition and group counselling approaches. He has been working with the Canadian military and veteran community as a clinician and researcher for 20 years, has co-developed national programs for veterans in transition, and is the co-founder and lead researcher of the Wounded Warriors COPE (Couples Overcoming PTSD Every Day) program. Tim continues to train psychologists, counselling clinicians, and his students to work with veterans and better understand their issues.
ROBERT HACKETT is a Professor Emeritus of Communication at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia who has written extensively on media democratization and journalism as political communication. His most recent collaborative books include Journalism and Climate Crisis: Public Engagement, Expanding Peace Journalism: Comparative and Critical Approaches, and Remaking Media: The Struggle to Democratize Public Communication. Hackett also contributes essays to the National Observer and other independent media and has co-founded several media education initiatives, including NewsWatch Canada, OpenMedia.ca, and Media Democracy Days.
EDITH LORING-KUHANGA is from the House of Gwininitxw, Gitxsan Nation and school administrator of the Stein Valley Nlakapamux School in British Columbia. She served as a trustee for School District 61 for six years where she championed suicide prevention programs in middle and high schools, requiring graduates to take a course in residential school history, and updating district policies to align with federal anti-cyber bullying legislation. She has teaching experience at the elementary and college levels, as well as a master’s degree in educational leadership from the University of Victoria.
JULIA KIDDER is a climate communications specialist with West Coast Environmental Law and doctoral student at the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning where she is studying coastal adaptation and indigenous governance. She has seen her work published in The Guardian, the Globe and Mail, and VICE. Together with Lo Fi Dance Theory, Kidder has created films, panel discussions, installations and performances. Her work has been presented at the Vancouver Art Book Fair, the Toronto Public Library, Cannes, the London International Documentary Film Festival and the Centre for Performance Research.
ANDREW WEAVER was a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s second, third, fourth, and fifth assessment reporters. He is a Professor of Earth and Oceans Sciences at the University of Victoria, and was leader of the Green Party of British Columbia. Between 2013 and 2020, he served as the MLA for Oak Bay-Gordon Head. Weaver is the author of two books about climate change: Keeping Our Cool: Canada in a Warming World and Generation Us: The Challenge of Global Warming. His main areas of research are climate change policy, research, solutions, and communications.