Building a More Welcoming Movement Toward a Just Culture

Shakil (Sha-KEEL) is an author, co-founder, and CVO of Anima Leadership, a global-reaching, socially innovative boutique firm that has continued to revolutionize EDI (equity, diversity, and inclusion) work in organizations and communities since 2006. Teaching, consulting, and coaching transformative change with a compassionate yet scientific approach. Over the last twenty-five years, Shakil has inspired, educated, and coached thousands of individuals and hundreds of organizations in the field of racial justice, diversity, and inclusion. He coaches executive teams and has worked with thousands of leaders across sectors in Canada and the United States to help improve their equity outcomes. Shakil also facilitates dialogue processes to resolve inter-group conflict, having led projects internationally as well as with organizations locally. He is the author of Deep Diversity: A Compassionate, Scientific Approach to Achieving Racial Justice (2021). Written in an accessible, storytelling manner, many have called it a “breakthrough” book on issues of systemic racial discrimination due to its non-judgmental approach that integrates human psychology with critical race perspectives. Shakil’s most challenging and rewarding management experience, however, involves his two high-spirited children repeatedly teaching him the humble lessons of fatherhood. To clear his head during the week, Shakil loves to run the beautiful ravine trails near his home in Toronto.

I feel very fortunate and deeply grateful to have worked with a diversity of folks across practice contexts for over 10 years as an occupational therapist. I transitioned to education in 2014 and am an Associate Professor of Teaching with the Department of Occupational Therapy and Occupational Science in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia. My teaching is rooted in a critical and relational approach (you can read more about my approach to teaching here). I am currently completing my PhD with the School of Health Professions Education at Maastricht University under the supervision of Dr. Anja Krumeich and Dr. Laura Nimmon. My doctoral research is on developing our understanding of love as an educational approach in Health Professions Education. 

Outside of work, I value the time I spend with my partner and kids, our dog, and my friends and extended family. I find meaning in cooking, resting, reading poetry, spending time in nature, and am a nascent embroiderer. 

I am indebted and deeply grateful to the Stó:lō Nation, the səl̓ilwətaɁɬ təməxʷ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nation, and the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nation, who are, and have been since time immemorial (see Dr. Paulette Steeves’ work), stewards to the lands that now nourish me and my family. My ancestry is mostly Irish, and my ancestors were settlers.

Netta Weinstein is a social psychologist and a professor of Psychology at the University of Reading in the UK. Her research identifies the social conditions that motivate deep buy-in for promoting inclusion.

Nikki Legate is a clinical psychologist and an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at Illinois Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on the conditions that promote resilience and reduce health disparities in marginalized individuals, and the conditions that motivate greater inclusivity in the general population. 

Dr. Maï is the Associate Director of the Office of Respectful Environments, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (REDI) in the Faculty of Medicine. She provides leadership to the REDI team in the development and delivery of our education and training programming. She collaborates with leaders in departments, centres, and administration units, and staff, and faculty to identify institutional and individual barriers to inclusion and to foster long-term socio-cultural change towards justice, equity, decolonization, indigenization, and inclusion (JEDII). Previously, she worked at the Equity & Inclusion Office at UBC, where she led initiatives such as the JEDII STEM Series and the IBPOC STEM Network and supported the integration of the JEDII principles into teaching, research, and faculty and staff recruitment. Prior to her work at UBC, she was a faculty member at Quest University Canada for over a decade, teaching interdisciplinary courses in conservation and geography and advocating for transparency, equity, and inclusion through various leadership roles.

Maï, a second-generation immigrant from Japan, holds an MSc in Zoology from the University of Oxford and a PhD in Geography from the University of Victoria. As an interdisciplinary scholar, she has published over 40 articles in academic fields such as conservation, geography, zoology, education, behavioral ecology, economics, and psychology. She is grateful for having spent most of her life on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), and Stó:lō Nations.

Harpreet Ahuja (She/Her/Hers) is an Equity Advisor at the Office of Respectful Environments, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (REDI) within the Faculty of Medicine. In her capacity at REDI, she offers strategic guidance and supports capacity-building for department heads, faculty, staff, and students who are dedicated to implementing decolonization, anti-racism, and inclusive practices.

Harpreet is the daughter of an immigrant father from India and a Labradorian Inuit-Polish mother. She was born and raised in Montreal studying in French, then spent her teenage years in downtown Toronto. Her culturally diverse upbringing ignited her curiosity and fueled her passion for social justice.

Her journey into Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) awareness began as a law student when she was nominated by the faculty of law to serve as the Vice President of Equity for the Common Law Student Society. She carried her EDI change management experience into her role as an Investigator in the Critical Injuries and Deaths Division with BC’s Office of the Representative for Children and Youth, where she worked to prevent the deaths of vulnerable children in government care.

Harpreet’s approach to embedding EDI is informed by an international context. She has worked on death penalty cases in Malawi, studied genocide education in Rwanda, and Holocaust education in Poland and Germany. She provided legal assistance to migrants on the U.S.-Mexico border and resettled LGBTQI+ Syrian refugees, working out of a satellite office in Israel. She wrote children’s books for schools in Honduras and taught English to university students in Ecuador. Most recently, in October 2022, she worked as an Electoral Observer for the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Harpreet is a lawyer by training, holding a law degree from the University of Ottawa (2017) and a Master of Laws degree in International and Comparative Law from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Law (2019). During her time at UCLA, she was honoured with the Dean’s Tuition Fellowship Award, UCLA School of Law’s Public Interest Award, and a post-graduate fellowship at Yale Law School. Her legal career began with Legal Aid Ontario, where she gained experience in refugee law, aboriginal law, and criminal litigation. She was subsequently Called to the Bar in Ontario and British Columbia.

Prior to joining our team, Harpreet served at arms-length for BC Corrections in the Adult Custody Division, where she was appointed by the Assistant Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General as an independent decision-maker presiding over disciplinary hearings within the 10 provincial correctional centres in BC.

Harpreet acknowledges that she is on the stolen lands of the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam Indian Band), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish Nation), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh Nation). She expresses gratitude to Indigenous Peoples for their enduring connection to their lands and is committed to learning how to work in solidarity as an accomplice in shifting the colonial default.ce and supports capacity-building for department heads, faculty, staff, and students who are dedicated to implementing decolonization, anti-racism, and inclusive practices.