Susan Cox
Dr. Susan Cox is an Associate Professor and health researcher in the School of Population and Public Health and the W. Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics at UBC. Her work focuses on experiences of health and illness and the stories we tell ourselves and others to make sense of these experiences. Susan enjoys many forms of creative expression including poetry and baking, and finds much inspiration in her garden high on a hill overlooking the beautiful ancestral lands
of the Tsleil-Waututh peoples.
Gloria Puurveen
Dr. Gloria Puurveen is a postdoctoral research fellow in the W. Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics at the University of British Columbia. Her research centers on end-of-life person-centred dementia care, the subjective experiences of people with dementia, and personhood and social citizenship. She uses qualitative and arts-based research methodologies, and seeks to cultivate ethical research practice through collaborating with and actively involving people with dementia and their care partners in the whole research process.
Natasha Damiano
Natasha Damiano is a PhD student in Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of British Columbia, and a Graduate Academic Assistant on the project behind this exhibition. A parent and second-generation Canadian of settler-European heritage, her PhD research explores immigrant children’s embodied experiences of group singing. Passionate about the ‘everyday’ of art and storytelling, she is grateful to have been part of these workshops and for having experienced the community spirit and collective wisdom that participants shared and generated.
Alison Phinney
Dr. Alison Phinney is a Professor and Associate Director of Graduate Programs in the School of Nursing at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. She is also the Co-Director of the Centre for Research on Personhood in Dementia, and is known internationally for her work on dementia, meaningful activity, and aging. She conducts research in partnership with community leaders and people with lived experience to build knowledge and capacity for supporting personhood and social citizenship of older people, especially those living with dementia and their families.
Deborah O’Connor
Dr. Deborah O’Connor is a professor in the School of Social Work at the University of British Columbia and the co-director of the Centre for Research on Personhood and Dementia (CRPD). She has been a practicing Social Worker for almost forty years. Her research, writing and practice have all focused on drawing on right's-based and personhood approaches to develop better understanding and treatment of people with dementia. She is co-author of a book entitled "Broadening the Dementia Debate: Towards Social Citizenship."
Lee Burnside
Dr. Lee Burnside is an assistant professor of gerontology and geriatrics at the University of Washington. He holds degrees in Internal Medicine, Geriatrics, and Palliative care. His passion is to explore areas of art exploration and making for persons with dementia as well as their care partners. He is part of the University of Washington's Memory and Brain Wellness Center and has been closely working with the Seattle Frye Art Museum’s Creative Aging program.
Vikki Entwistle
Dr. Vikki Entwistle is Professor of Health Services Research and Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. She uses a combination of philosophy and social research to help understand and address problems relating to healthcare, public health and social justice. Vikki is particularly interested in what people value in service provision and why. She enjoys teaching on both philosophy and applied health sciences programmes, and she likes to relax by walking on local hills.
Carol Ann Courneya
Dr. Carol Ann Courneya is an Associate Professor in the Department of Cellular and Physiological Sciences. Her research interests are in Medical Education with special interests in medical student electives and match success, as well as the role of arts and humanities in medical student learning. She founded (2001) and directs “Heartfelt Images” and “Artodontia” cardiac art by UBC Medical and Dental Students and she directs a National art exhibit “White Coat Warm heART (WCWA) that showcases art created by health sciences students, residents and faculty from across Canada.
Kendra Fanconi
Kendra Fanconi is the Artistic Director of The Only Animal, a 16-year-old company that is uniquely dedicated to theatre that springs from a deep engagement with place, and towards solutionary outcomes for this climate moment. She is known for her love of the impossible. Selected Credits for directing/writing: World premiere of Slime, written by Bryony Lavery, tinkers, based on the Pulitzer-Prize winning novel by Paul Harding, Nothing But Sky, a living comic book (Jessie for Significant Artistic Achievement), NiX, theatre of snow and ice, at the 2010 Cultural Olympiad and Enbridge Festival, Alberta Theatre Projects 2009, (Winner of Betty Mitchell Award and Vancouver’s Critic’s Choice Award for Innovation). Current projects include 1000 Year Theatre and Museum of Rain. Kendra leads the Artist Brigade, bringing arts and artists to the front lines of the climate movement. Kendra lives on Shíshálh land on the far left coast of Canada, and is a farmer, a forager, partner to a philosopher, and mother to two kids who are real characters.
Samantha Pineda Sierra
Samantha Pineda Sierra is an award winner film writer, director and producer currently completing an MFA in Film Production and Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on elders, ageism and mental distress through film. She is also a co-curator and website designer behind this virtual exhibition. Credits include: Berlinale Talents FICG31, TIFF Filmmaker Lab, WIFTV Pitch Lab, FONCA “Young Creators”, Blood window TV, Oaxaca film lab in collaboration with the Sundance film Institute among others.
Heather Neale Furneaux
Heather Neale Furneaux is a writer and teacher currently completing her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. She’s been widely published in newspapers and magazines across the country including The Globe and Mail, The Georgia Straight, ELLE Canada, Vancouver Magazine and others, and has some short Fiction and Poetry coming out this fall. Her thesis focuses on notions of resilience, and how one’s self concept shifts as a result of trauma. She taught English, Spanish and Dance for almost ten years with le Conseil Scolaire Francophone, thrives in multi-genre performance environments, and feels passionately about supporting people to be and feel their best. Neale Furneaux is co-curator of this exhibit, and mom to four small daughters.
