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• FREE Winter 2024 Speaker Event Series (via Zoom)

  • Start
    January 15, 2024
  •  
    10:00 AM
  • End
    February 05, 2024
  •  
    12:00 PM
  • Location
    Zoom virtual meetings

  
  

  Winter 2024 Speaker Event Series 
  
  

  All Winter 2024 speaker events will be conducted virtually using Zoom software

  January 15  Seth Klein  A Good War: mobilizing Canada   for the climate emergency  January 22  Nathalie Nguyen-Quoc   Ouellette, PhD  Unveiling the Cosmos with the   James Webb Space Telescope  January 29  Patti Shales Lefkos   NEPAL IT'S NEVER TOO LATE: Rediscovering Love, Connection and Personal Resilience on Nepal's Great Himalayan Trail  February 5  Rosemary Sadlier  Black Canadian History - Let's Get Educated!

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

    

  
   
  

  
  

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• A Good War: mobilizing Canada for the climate emergency

  • When
    January 15, 2024
  •  
    10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
  • Location
    Zoom virtual lecture

  
  

  
  

  Seth Klein

  A social activist for over 40 years, Seth’s activism started as a high school student in the peace movement, and in the anti-racism movement while attending university.  Before returning to graduate school, he taught high school (economics and history) in Toronto, and grade 6/7 at a First Nations school on BC’s north coast.

  Seth grew up in Montreal, holds a BA in international relations and a B.Ed from the University of Toronto.  He now lives in Vancouver and graduated with an MA in political science from Simon Fraser University.

  Seth Klein is the Team Lead and Director of Strategy of the Climate Emergency Unit (a 5-year project of the David Suzuki Institute that Seth launched in early 2021). Prior to that, he served for 22 years (1996-2018) as the founding British Columbia Director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a public policy research institute committed to social, economic and environmental justice.

  He is the author of A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency (published by ECW press in 2020) and writes a regular column for Canada’s National Observer. He is an adjunct professor with Simon Fraser University’s Urban Studies program, an honorary research associate with the University of British Columbia’s School for Public Policy and Global Affairs, and remains a research associate with the CCPA’s BC Office.

  A Good War: mobilizing Canada for the climate emergency

  Seth Klein will explore how we can align our politics and economy with what the science says we must do to address the climate crisis. But Klein brings an original and uniquely hopeful take to this challenge. His book is structured around lessons from the Second World War – the last time Canada faced an existential threat. Others have said we need a “wartime approach” to climate change, but he delves into what that could actually look like. Canada’s wartime experience, Klein contends, provides an inspirational reminder that we have done this before. We have mobilized in common cause across class, race and gender, and entirely retooled our economy in the space of a few short years.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  This event is part of the Winter 2024 Speaker series. 
  

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• Unveiling the Cosmos with the James Webb Space Telescope

  • When
    January 22, 2024
  •  
    10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
  • Location
    Zoom virtual lecture

  
  

  
  

  Nathalie Nguyen-Quoc Ouellette  PhD

  Nathalie Nguyen-Quoc Ouellette is an astrophysicist, science communicator and lifetime lover of all things space! She obtained her Ph.D. in Physics & Astronomy at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario in 2016.

  Her research focuses on galaxy formation and evolution, particularly those found in clusters. Nathalie is currently the Deputy Director of the Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets (iREx) and the Mont-Mégantic Observatory (OMM) at the University of Montréal.  She is also the Outreach Scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope in Canada collaborating with the Canadian Space Agency.

  She is a frequent contributor and analyst in Canadian media on everything related to space. Nathalie organises and participates in science outreach events from local to international scales to encourage the interest and participation of youth and the general public in space science and to increase scientific literacy in Canada.

  Unveiling the Cosmos with the James Webb Space Telescope

  The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has been dazzling the entire world with its amazing images and discoveries since the start of its scientific mission in 2022. An international collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, Webb is the largest telescope ever sent to space. In this lecture, Dr. Nathalie Nguyen-Quoc Ouellette will explain how the Webb Telescope uses the power of infrared light to probe the atmospheres of exoplanets, study the dusty birth and death of stars, and detect the most distant galaxies ever observed. You will see the Universe as never before, through Webb’s infrared eye, and learn how astronomers and artists transform this invisible light into the colorful images shown to the public.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  This event is part of the Winter 2024 Speaker series. 
  

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• NEPAL IT'S NEVER TOO LATE: Rediscovering Love, Connection and Personal Resilience on Nepal's Great Himalayan Trail

  • When
    January 29, 2024
  •  
    10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
  • Location
    Zoom virtual lecture

  
  

  
  

  Patti Shales Lefkos

  Patti Shales Lefkos is a Canadian writer and journalist. Patti studied journalism at Langara University. She is a graduate of the University of Toronto, Toronto Teachers’ College, Simon Fraser University and the Wilderness Leadership Program at Capilano College. 

  Patti’s articles, profiles, columns and travel writing have appeared in a range of Canadian and international publications. She was part of the San Francisco Chronicle team that won the Lowell Thomas Award for the best newspaper travel section in 2014.

  Her Himalayan adventure travel memoir Nepal One Day at a Time celebrates her creative non-fiction debut. Nepal One Day at a Time is the story of her first trekking trip on her own. Her second book, Grounded by Granite, a tale of family connection and personal resilience, serves as a sequel. It illuminates the childhood experiences that gave Patti the strength and resilience to excel at her outdoor pursuits and humanitarian efforts.

  In April 2015, 9,000 people died and 22,000 were injured in a devastating earthquake in Nepal. As a result Patti and her husband, Barry Hodgins, founded BC non-profit Nepal One Day at a Time to support education in Gorkha province, Nepal, the epicentre of the earthquake. Nepal One Day at a Time partners with Kathmandu based NGO Sambhav Nepal and Vernon BC’s Kalamalka Rotary where Patti is chair of the International Committee.

  NEPAL IT'S NEVER TOO LATE: Rediscovering Love, Connection and Personal Resilience on Nepal's Great Himalayan Trail

  Ms Lefkos' third book, in progress, fills in their trekking adventures as a couple, completing the first 700 km of the Great Himalayan Trail after the age of 65 in 2011 and 2017, and will also tell of their attempt in the fall of 2023, at the age of 76 and 77, to complete up to 800 km of the remaining trek.

  The presentation concerns their mission to encourage others to leap out of their comfort zone, no matter what their age, and to make a difference in the lives of others in developing countries. Patti's talk will highlight not only their adventures but also what they have learned about themselves from these adventures and how they have grown to love and appreciate the warmth and friendship of the people of Nepal.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  This event is part of the Winter 2024 Speaker series. 
  

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• Black Canadian History - Let's Get Educated!

  • When
    February 05, 2024
  •  
    10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
  • Location
    Zoom virtual lecture

  
  

  
  

  Rosemary Sadlier

  Rosemary Sadlier OOnt (Order of Ontario) is a social justice advocate, researcher, writer, DEI consultant, and international speaker on Black History, anti-racism and women’s issues. She is the past President, serving for 22 years as the unpaid leader of the Ontario Black History Society - being the driving force of the secured commemoration of February as Black History Month at all levels of government.  She secured August 1st as Emancipation Day municipally in 1995 and provincially in 2008 with a national declaration effected in March 2021. She saw to the creation of the national day for the Hon. Lincoln Alexander and chairs the committee seeing to the installation of a bust of 'Linc' in Queen's Park.

  She was the Royal Commonwealth Society Equality Lead for the Americas & the Caribbean; has given deputations to the UN Rapporteur on Race Relations, the Federal and Provincial Governments and on consultative work with the Royal Ontario Museum, CMHR, The Ward Heritage Interpretative Group, the Bi-National Study of the Underground Railroad and with Historica, and heritage conferences. Previously she served on the final selection committee of the national Mathieu Da Costa Challenge for Canadian Heritage and is a past member of the Canada Post Stamp Advisory Committee.

  An educator, she has developed or contributed to African Canadian curriculum, resources, national exhibits and she is an appointed member of a regulatory board of the Ontario College of Teachers. She was among the first Canadians designated a Global Defender of Human Rights (CTF & Robert Kennedy Center in New York). Honored by Glendon College, York University with an art installation and OCAD issued her an Hon. Doctorate.  She recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women's Empowerment Awards.  

  An author, Sadlier has written 7 books on African Canadian history, such as the award winning The Kids Book of Black Canadian History. 

  
  

  Black Canadian History - Let's Get Educated!

  Sadlier is dedicated to social justice and using the frame of Black History, seeks to educate and empower others.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  This event is part of the Winter 2024 Speaker series. 
  

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