Workshop Facilitators

Julie Jonkhans

Doctoral Professional Development Coordinator

Biography: As the Own Your Future coordinator, Julie brings together expertise across campus to offer programming that helps doctoral students advance their professional skills alongside their academic training. Julie draws on her experience as a doctoral graduate to develop and facilitate tailored Career Engagement workshops and move towards integrating career planning into the PhD experience.

Linda Miller

Vice-Provost-(Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies)

Biography: Linda holds a PhD in Psychology (Measurement) from Western University and has been a professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Western since 1994. She has served as Associate Dean–Research & Graduate Studies in the Faculty of Health Sciences, and has been Vice-Provost of the School of Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies since 2008. As Vice-Provost, she is a strong advocate for interdisciplinarity, professional development, and wellness. Her personal interests include reading, playing piano, and enjoying time with her family and dogs.

Lorraine Davies

Associate Vice-Provost, School of Graduate and Post-Doctoral Studies

Biography: Lorraine is the academic lead of the Own Your Future Program at Western. She is a Sociologist whose interests include social inequality, interpersonal relationships and well-being. Her most recent research projects include Expanding Employment Benefits for Adoptive Parents. She is currently the Associate Vice-Provost in the School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies. Lorraine enjoys working in graduate studies because it gives her the opportunity to contribute to systemic change in graduate education related to professional development, rethinking the PhD, and graduate student wellness. In her personal life she is passionate about being outdoors, her family and her white Shephard - Jack.

Aisha Haque

Associate Director, Graduate Programs, Centre for Teaching and Learning

Biography: Aisha Haque is the Associate Director of Graduate Programs at the Centre for Teaching and Learning. Drawing on her background in equity pedagogies, Aisha’s research supports curriculum internationalization efforts in higher education. Her most recent publication explored the application of intercultural teaching competence across the disciplines and was awarded the 2017 Christine A. Stanley Award in Diversity and Inclusion Research by the P.O.D Network in the U.S. Aisha has facilitated invited keynotes and workshops for faculty at over a dozen universities and colleges in Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, and the US.

Candace Brunette

Special Advisor to the Provost (Indigenous Initiatives), Workshop Facilitator

Biography: Candace Brunette-Debassige is a Mushkego Cree woman originally from Fort Albany First Nation (Treaty 9 territory). She brings over 15 years of leadership experience serving Indigenous students and communities in K-12 and postsecondary education settings. She is currently the interim Special Advisor to the Provost Indigenous Initiatives at Western University where she has also served as the Director of Indigenous Student Services. Candace is also a PhD Candidate within Western’s Faculty of Education where she is completing research that centres on the experiences of Indigenous women administrators enacting Indigenizing policies in Canadian universities. She is an instructor of the ‘Becoming Education Leaders’ course within the Aboriginal Masters of Professional Leadership in Education Program. Beyond her professional work, Candace is a proud mother of two children, Brayden and Ashton. During her free time, she enjoys spending time with family, engaging in Indigenous community theatre, practicing yoga and working out.

Paul Schmidt

Associate Director,Writing Support Centre, Workshop Facilitator

Biography: Paul Schmidt is the Associate Director of Westen’s Writing Support Centre. He was a technical communications lecturer in Western’s Faculty of Engineering for thirteen years and has been teaching business communications at the Ivey Business School for seven. Paul’s mission is to promote clear, reader-friendly scholarly writing.

Douglas Campbell

Senior Writing Advisor/Graduate Programmer, Writing Support Centre, Workshop Facilitator

Biography: Doug is a senior writing advisor and the Graduate Programmer at Western’s Writing Support Centre. He thinks the best part of his job is meeting one-to-one with students to help them better communicate their research and ideas. His own academic research as a socio-cultural anthropologist specializing in visual ethnography has taken him from the South Pacific to South Africa to conduct documentary film projects. Now, he applies those sensibilities by bringing visual learning practices to his writing seminars. When not talking and writing about graduate writing genres, Doug can be found teaching an occasional course in the Anthropology Department here at Western.

Courtney Waugh

Research & Scholarly Communications Librarian, Western Libraries, Workshop Facilitator

Biography: As a member of Western Libraries’ Research & Scholarly Communications Team, Courtney supports and contributes to the success of researchers on campus by developing and delivering programs and services related to open access and open advocacy, author’s rights, publishing support, copyright, research impact, and knowledge synthesis reviews including literature, systematic, and scoping reviews.

Kristin Hoffmann

Research & Scholarly Communication Librarian, Western Libraries, Workshop Facilitator

Biography: Kristin is a Research and Scholarly Communication Librarian at Western Libraries. Her work includes supporting an open access publishing platform for faculty and students at Western to edit and publish scholarly journals. As a researcher, author, and editor herself, Kristin is excited to support and promote open access for all researchers at Western.

Marisa Tippett

Research & Scholarly Communication Librarian

Biography: As a Research & Scholarly Communication Librarian at Western, Marisa has over 15 years of experience teaching students and faculty how to conduct research involving everything from identifying databases to search, developing and modifying search strategies, to finding appropriate places to publish. Her area of specialty is support for Systematic Reviews and other Knowledge Syntheses in the area of Health and Medicine.

Emily Carlisle-Johnston

Research & Scholarly Communication Librarian

Biography: Emily Carlisle-Johnston is a Research and Scholarly Communication Librarian with Western Libraries. In her work, she champions equitable and sustainable access to knowledge by supporting, educating, and advocating for open publishing options.

Stephen Spong

Director of the John and Dotsa Bitove Law Library and Copyright Officer for Western

Biography: Stephen Spong is the Director of the John and Dotsa Bitove Law Library and Copyright Officer for Western. He holds a J.D. from Osgoode Hall Law School and Masters in Information from the University of Toronto.

Jennifer Meister

Ombudsperson, Workshop Facilitator

Biography: Jennifer Meister has been the Ombudsperson at Western for nine years, guiding students through academic and non-academic concerns at the University. Jennifer has a Master of Education from University of Toronto (OISE), focusing on Student Development and Student Services in Post-Secondary Education. She loves helping students work through and learn from the conflicts they experience.

Timothy Wilson

Associate Professor, Departments of Anatomy & Cell Biology and Dentistry

Biography: Tim is a tenured professor in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology (ACB) and the Director of Dental Anatomy at the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry. He is the founder and director of the CRIPT Lab, the Corps for Research of Instructional and Perceptual Technologies. He is a collaborative champion in educational research and gets much energy watching students and colleagues get excited about what they are learning.

Alex Elias

Strengths Program Coordinator

Biography: Alex Elias is the Strengths Program Coordinator at Western University, part of the Student Experience. He believes that the power of applying your talents will not only lead to more personal and work successes, but allow opportunities to celebrate the unique power each individual brings to the world. As an award winning facilitator and instructor, he brings an immense amount of energy and enthusiasm towards his individual and team coaching - with an emphasis on using strengths-based approaches to achieve long term, actionable results. Alex holds a Bachelors of Medical Sciences and Masters of Physiology and Pharmacology from Western, with certifications in Teaching and Learning and Career Development, and is a certified Gallup CliftonStrengths Coach.

David Feeney

Career Coach, Graduate Students

Biography: David is a seasoned career development practitioner, assisting students in navigating a path to help them fulfill their career goals. Changing paths himself, after leaving Graduate School, David has a unique perspective on change and career design. Whether through the facilitation of workshops or one-on-one appointments, David is committed to creative career development and sees the career path as a multi-forked road. In his current role David helps support graduate studies and postdoctoral fellows in their journey toward a meaningful life and career. David completed his undergraduate degree in English here at Western and holds a Master of English from Queens University in Kingston.