Tee Copenace
Director of Indigenous Initiatives, University of Toronto Mississauga
Tee Copenace is a proud Anishinaabe Kwe from Niisaachewan Anishinaabe Nation, located in Treaty 3 Territory just off the Winnipeg River. She serves as the Director of Indigenous Initiatives at the University of Toronto Mississauga, where she provides leadership in advancing Indigenous engagement, supporting students, and strengthening relationships between the campus and Indigenous communities. Tee’s work focuses on creating meaningful spaces for dialogue, visibility, and collaboration, while fostering initiatives that honour Indigenous knowledge, cultural expression, and community priorities. Guided by her roots and commitment to building respectful partnerships, she works to ensure that Indigenous voices are reflected across academic, cultural, and community life at UTM.
Ryan Hinds
Director of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, Dalla Lana School of Public Health
Ryan Hinds is the Director of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health (DLSPH), a role created to develop and implement a cohesive strategy aimed at addressing systemic equity related issues at DLSPH, while creating a welcoming environment for staff, faculty and learners. In this role he also creates and oversees the School’s outreach efforts to increase access for learners from and around the Greater Toronto Area. Prior to this, Ryan held the role of Community Engagement Lead at Ontario Health Toronto Region, where he set and executed strategies to embed voices of patients, families, caregivers and communities into Ontario Health (Toronto) strategies and operations. In this role, Ryan also led work focused on strategic equity initiatives while serving as the primary contact and support for Indigenous health service providers. In these capacities he worked with Black, Indigenous and other underserved communities to better understand specific needs and inform system-level responsive strategies to achieve health outcomes.
Prior to his time in health care, Ryan was an athlete in the Canadian Football League (CFL), playing for Hamilton and Edmonton over a 6-year career and winning a Grey Cup in 2015. During that time, Ryan also helped create Ahead of the Game, a youth mentorship program that supported sidelined youth across Toronto, Brampton and Mississauga.
Jon Johnson
Associate Professor, Teaching Stream
Dr. Jon Johnson’s research is focused on urban land-based Indigenous Knowledge in Toronto, as it is expressed through oral and digital forms of storytelling. He works actively within Toronto’s Indigenous community as a lead organizer for First Story Toronto, an Indigenous-led community-based organization that researches and shares Toronto’s Indigenous presence through public education initiatives such as storytelling tours of the city and digital storytelling projects. Beyond academia, Dr. Johnson also actively contributes to public engagement in this work, striving to promote Indigenous voices and leadership through documentaries, news pieces, and public education projects. His community-based research, teaching, and service focuses on fostering respectful and mutually beneficial projects and engagements between the University of Toronto and Indigenous communities. As an educator, Dr. Johnson emphasizes experiential learning and community opportunities, in the hopes of creating meaningful educational experiences for his students. He currently teaches courses in Academic Bridging, Digital Humanities, and First Year Foundations, and is the co-ordinator of the Woodsworth One program.
David Kim
Warden, Hart House
David Kim comes from an immigrant family and is a settler of Korean ancestry on Treaty 13 territory in Toronto and has had a long commitment to equity work through his time as a graduate student (his doctoral thesis was focused on the experience of first-generation students) and as a staff member at the University of Toronto for the past 18 years. David holds the position of Warden for Hart House at the University of Toronto, and he teaches graduate classes at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education in the Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education. Inspired by his first-generation roots, he is a committed mentor at the University and dedicates his time to work that is focused on access, equity and outreach.
Bonnie Jane Maracle
Traditional Teacher in Residence, First Nations House
Iehnhotonkws Bonnie Jane Maracle is from the Wolf Clan of the Mohawk Nation, Kenhteke/Tyendinaga Territory, Ontario. She holds a B.A. in Indigenous Studies, Trent U and a B.Ed. & M.Ed., Queen’s U. Bonnie Jane is a member of the Board of Directors for Tsi Tsyonnheht Onkwawenna Language & Culture Centre (TTO) at Tyendinaga; and is a Board member and Language Program Coordinator at Kanatsiohareke Mohawk Community in Upper New York State. She is also the CGO of Ontario Native Literacy Coalition at Ohsweken, Grand River Territory. Bonnie Jane has been a Sessional Instructor at U of Victoria for the past 20 years. At present, having retired from full-time employment as the Indigenous Learning Strategist in Student Life at U of Toronto, she is now the Traditional Teacher in Residence at First Nations House.
Regrettably, Bonnie Jane was unable to attend.