Dr. Kathy Hogarth is the Associate Vice President, Global Strategy, and former Dean and Professor in the Faculty of Social Work at Wilfrid Laurier University. A proud Black immigrant from the Caribbean, she brings over two decades of lived and professional experience in Canada to her work. Dr. Hogarth speaks openly about navigating identity, race, and belonging within academic and institutional spaces, advocating for equity and inclusion while embracing her identity unapologetically as a Black woman.

Jerome Cranston (he/him), Ph.D. (University of Manitoba), M.Ed. (University of Lethbridge), B.Ed. & B.Sc. (University of Alberta), is grateful to be a life-partner, father, brother and uncle. Dr. Cranston is a race-conscious scholar-educator who focuses his energy and time on uncovering the overt and covert ways that racialized ideologies, structures and institutions create and maintain racial inequality and injustice, with a goal of collectively finding solutions that can lead to greater equity and racial justice and build healthier communities. He is a much-sought-after presenter, consultant and educator on the topics of systemic racism and social inequity. Over his career, he has served on a number of advisory committees and working groups for diversity, equity and inclusion and human rights. Most recently, Jerome was the project lead and architect of the equity and racial justice learning program developed in partnership with the Canadian School Boards Association. He currently serves as the Vice-Provost, Students and Learning at the University of Saskatchewan.

Dr. Judy White is a registered social worker and Professor Emerita with the Faculty of Social Work, University of Regina. She was born and raised in Trinidad and has been living in Saskatchewan since 1987. Judy has a long history of research and community work focusing on the mental well-being of Black and other racialized women and their families who have settled in Canada.

Sheila Petty is professor of media studies at the University of Regina and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. She has written extensively on issues of cultural representation, identity and nation in African and African diasporic screen media, and has curated film, television and digital media exhibitions for art galleries across Canada. She is the author of Contact Zones: Memory, Origin and Discourses in Black Diasporic Cinema and co-editor of the Directory of World Cinema: Africa. Her current research focuses on Amazigh and North African cinemas and issues of citizenship and immigration in cinemas of the Francophonie. She is currently writing a book on Algerian feminist filmmaker Habiba Djahnine (Edinburgh University Press). Sheila is also on the board of directors of the Regina International Film Festival & Awards and the African Movie Festival in Manitoba.