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Amberlie Perkin is an interdisciplinary artist and educator. Her artwork investigates grief, kinship and the body as a wounded ecology. Perkin’s diverse practice is deeply rooted in the embodied experience of engaging with nature. Her creative processes enact cycles of regeneration, using grief and loss as dynamic material with which to build new forms. Her installations engender empathy while offering new modes of memory and memorial. Perkin holds both an MFA and BFA from Emily Carr University of Art & Design. She is the founder of Studio One One Six in Vancouver BC. In 2021, Amberlie was a Tedx speaker for the TEDxemilycarru Recognize series. In 2022, she was awarded the Emerging Artist Award by the Seymour Art Gallery, and the Won Lee Sculpture Award by the Canadian Sculpture Centre. She has participated in several art and design conferences in Canada and exhibits both locally and internationally
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Angela Fama (she/they) is an interdisciplinary artist and gendered violence prevention facilitator who is trained as an end-of life doula and has survived a near fatal car accident; all of which inform her perspectives on death and dying. Since creating Death Conversation Game over five years ago, Angela has been utilizing this tool to co-create a variety of interactive inclusive spaces for sharing and listening - to selves and each other - in relation to death, dying and grief. Born in Tennessee (on The Farm), as a varied-generation French/Italian/Scottish/Unknown settler, Angela was raised in Ontario and Zimbabwe and now lives as a settler on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ Nations in Vancouver, Canada.
Instagram: @deathconversationgame |
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Tracy Chalmers is grateful and humbled to be living on Coast Salish land known as the North Shore of Vancouver, in British Columbia. Since 2017, she has served as an end-of life doula, co-founded the End-of-Life Doula Association of Canada, founded Endwell, co-founded The Grief Well, served as a hospice volunteer and mentor, trained as a Forest Therapy guide, facilitated various training and community workshops through Endwell, written her first book, The Nature of the Journey, and facilitated the End-of-Life Doula Care program at Douglas College. A friend to grief and death, and servant to many, Tracy also considers herself a perpetual student. She is of Norwegian, Swedish, Scottish, and English ancestry, and values her roles as mother, daughter, wife, sister, friend, listener, and lover of the natural world and all of life. The work that Tracy does honours and is supported by countless ancestors.
Instagram: @endwell_northshore |
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Britt Pellens is a social designer and researcher at the Contextual Creations Research Unit of LUCA School of Arts, where she focuses on co-creation with minority groups, such as people living with dementia. Her work bridges the gap between thorough research and practical design solutions, ranging from architectural interventions to service design for those facing complex everyday challenges. Britt coordinates the European-funded Marie-Curie doctoral network ‘HOMEDEM’ (2022–2026) and co-teaches a Master’s degree course on design interventions for palliative care. Her diverse background in architecture, urbanism, and service design earned her a nomination for the 2022 New European Bauhaus prize in the ‘Rising Star’ category. In early 2026, Britt will start her PhD in the Arts at the associated Faculty of Arts, KU Leuven (Belgium), focusing on material explorations to facilitate meaningful interactions at the end of life between people with palliative care needs and their significant others within the home context.
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László Herczeg
László is a designer with two over decades of experience in health and care. He co-founded fuelfor, a design consultancy collaborating with international health sector leaders, and The Care Lab, a platform of care activists using care-centered design practices to rethink care models. Passionate about creating equitable and compassionate care experiences, László balances clinical, economic, and human needs. His empathetic design approach values the perspectives of patients, caregivers, citizens and care professionals. He holds a Master of Arts from the Academy of Arts and Design in Budapest, with studies at the University of Arts and Design in Helsinki. Lekshmy Parameswaran Lekshmy is a designer with over two decades of experience in health and care. She co-founded fuelfor, a specialist consultancy working with international health sector players, and The Care Lab, a platform of care activists using care-centered design practices to rethink care models. Passionate about equitable and compassionate care, she fosters cross-disciplinary collaboration, amplifying the voices of patients, families, care teams and leaders. Her work challenges conventional thinking to create impactful solutions. Lekshmy holds a Master of Engineering from Cambridge University and a Master of Arts from the Royal College of Art in London. |
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Christian Schulz-Quach is a German-Canadian medical psychiatrist, existential psychoanalyst, and palliative care physician at the University Health Network in Toronto, and Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. Christian has over 20 years of global hospice and palliative care experience, including leading large national discourse projects on mortality in Europe. Holding an MSc in Palliative Care and an MA in Existential‑phenomenological psychotherapy, he is Program Director of the Sexual and Gender Diversity in Cancer Care (SGDc) Program at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and recipient of the 2025 CAPO Education Excellence Award, with recent scholarship including the chapter “Queer Ageing and Endings” in the 2026 Routledge Gender, Sex and Relationship Diversity (GSRD) handbook and producing and directing the short documentary On Queer Aging and Endings (2025).
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David Constantino Salazar is a Toronto-based sculptor and independent artist
whose practice explores trauma, grief, transformation, and cultural memory through animal and botanical symbolism. Drawing from personal lived experience, community knowledge, and research, his work examines cycles of life, death, and renewal through material processes that foreground fragility and transition. He is an MFA graduate of the Integrated Media program at OCAD University. Salazar has exhibited at museum and gallery levels and has completed public art projects across Canada and Latin America. He has taught as an instructor at OCAD University and other institutions, has worked as an instructor within the CAMH Forensic Unit, and is currently the Bronze Foundry Technician at OCAD University. He is a proud member of Workman Arts, and his practice situates sculptural form as a site for reflection, ritual, and dialogue around loss, resilience, and becoming. Instagram: @DC.Salazar |
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Diana Al-BessDiana is a multi-lingual Asian art historian, curator, and a multidisciplinary cultural practitioner. Her research focuses on decolonial practices, indigenous traditions and contextual co-production that fosters knowledge creation as a dialogical process where researchers, artists, and communities jointly shape inquiry, honouring diverse ontologies.
She is currently completing an MA in History of Art and Archaeology of Asia at SOAS, University of London. Her thesis is on Palestinian tatreez and its connection to the ecology of the land and the terrestrial ecosystems of Palestine. Exploring how ethnic cleansing and forced displacement created irreparable ruptures and imagining what tatreez could have become had it not been for the nakba, naksa and the continued violence ever since. She has previously completed an MA in Comparative Literature at UCL, a Postgraduate Diploma in Asian Art at SOAS, and a BA in English Literature at the University of Jordan. Instagram: @diana.albess |
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Dr Farnaz Nickpour is a design researcher and academic who explores just, diverse and innovative applications of design research in healthcare and mobility ‘edge cases’ through advanced inclusive and human-centred design. Farnaz is Director of The Inclusionaries Lab for Design Research in the UK and a Reader in Inclusive Design and Human-centred Innovation at The University of Liverpool. Her Inclusionaries Lab for Design Research has won awards for cross-sector inclusive med-tech design for disability, design and palliative care innovative collaborations, and child health technology research. Farnaz uses design research to uncover and sense-make narratives and experiences in unmet needs, excluded populations, sensitive settings and unhealthy systems - all of which she relates to as "Design in the Edges".
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Hong Yu (Casey) Chan is a Toronto-based visual artist and photographer originally from Hong Kong. Working primarily in commerical photography and storytelling photography, Casey explores memory, migration, and cultural identity through everyday encounters in cities around the world. His recent work includes a solo exhibition at Assembly Hall as part of the 2025 CONTACT Photography Festival and community-based projects with newcomer and Deaf communities. The loss of their older brother to cancer deeply informs his ongoing exploration of grief and remembrance. As a Deaf artist, Casey foregrounds accessibility and “listens” through images rather than sound, using photography to build bridges across languages, cultures, and lived experience.
Instagram: @Yu.artww |
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Jasmine Ryu Won KangJasmine Ryu Won Kang (she/her) is a third-year MD-PhD student at the University of Toronto. She previously completed her HBSc in Biochemistry and Immunology at the University of Toronto. She is currently in the PhD phase of her program in the Department of Molecular Genetics and studies age-associated mutations in blood cells across large population cohorts. She completed the Fellowship in Journalism and Health Impact at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and has written for Canadian and international media outlets. She is working towards a career as a physician-scientist, with a goal of driving innovation in the field of precision medicine and providing person-centered care for patients at the end of life. Throughout her training journey, she hopes to integrate her diverse interests in computational biology, narrative medicine, and health journalism.
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Jayhan KheraniJayhan Kherani (she/her) is a second-year medical student at the University of Toronto. Born and raised in Calgary, she found a passion for the intersection of arts and science in the International Baccalaureate program. She pursued the Bachelor of Health Sciences (Honours) Program at McMaster University and completed a thesis under the supervision of Dr. Stacey Ritz. The thesis was her introduction to narrative medicine as she wrote an autobiography, autoethnography, and scientific commentary entitled Beyond the Cruciate. Now, in medicine, Jayhan is keen on finding spaces for arts and medicine to be complementary. End-of-life care is of particular interest to her as the values and principles of the field emphasize sensitive and compassionate care. With a desire to be a clinician-teacher, she hopes to encourage reflexivity and introspection in medical education.
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Sunnybrook (Jennifer Moore, Michael Bonares, Lise Huynh, Joelle Soriano and Lesia Wynnychuk)These physicians practice palliative care at the University of Toronto, working as clinicians, educators, and researchers. They specialize in supporting patients with life-limiting illnesses and their families through complex medical, emotional, and psychosocial challenges. They work across clinical settings—hospitals, outpatient clinics, hospices, and community care—providing expert symptom management, advance care planning, and compassionate communication throughout the illness trajectory. As part of their academic appointments they lead training programs, and mentor medical students, residents, and fellows to build capacity in high-quality, equity-informed palliative care.
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Jordan Topp
Jordan Topp is a grief counsellor (MSW, RSW, Psychotherapist), group facilitator, and community song leader based in Toronto. Her work is rooted in the belief that grief is a communal, embodied experience that needs space, voice, and ritual rather than fixing. Jordan draws on community singing traditions, grief-tending practices, and trauma-informed care to create containers where sorrow can be safely expressed and witnessed. Kate Keenan Kate Keenan is an expressive arts therapist in training at the CREATE Institute, a group facilitator, and a community song leader. Her work weaves together music, creative expression, and relational presence to support emotional processing and healing. Kate is deeply interested in the role of art and song in tending grief, building belonging, and fostering resilience. |
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Kate SellenDr Kate Sellen is the George Soulis Chair in Design at University of Waterloo, and Professor in the Faculty of Design at OCAD University, Toronto, Canada where she held a Canada Research Chair in Design for Health from 2017-2025. She leads the Health Design Studio - a team of design researchers and collaborators using design to create new tools and experiences for healthcare. Kate spent her early career as an interaction designer leading design research, digital strategy, and interaction design in the private sector. She now works on bringing an inclusive and interdisciplinary design approach to healthcare design challenges. She has been recognized internationally for her work on COVID public health communication tools, translating theory for design to support integration of different perspectives into health innovation, and for using public interactive installations to explore temporal dynamics in end of life.
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Dr Laura Shoots is an emergency physician, educator, and founder of Take Care—a physician-designed, love-centered platform that helps families prepare for aging, illness, and life’s most tender transitions. After years on the frontlines of emergency medicine witnessing the heartbreak that comes from a lack of planning, she set out to create something better: a simple, secure, and human way for people to organize information and communicate what matters most before a crisis hits.
Dr. Shoots holds a Master’s in Quality Improvement and Patient Safety from the University of Toronto and teaches family medicine residents at McMaster University. She has led medical teams through the COVID-19 pandemic, served as President of her hospital’s Medical Staff Association, and now brings that same calm, compassionate clarity to advancing better systems for end-of-life planning. Her work bridges clinical expertise with thoughtful design to help families reduce conflict, protect relationships, and plan with confidence and heart. |
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Elinor Keshet: (moderator)
Elinor is a futurist and perpetual asker of big questions. Her diverse creative practice uses storytelling, poetry, photography, and immersive installation to connect rituals of grief to the body. Elinor draws on her strategic foresight and service design background, as well as a decade of involvement with end-of-life organizations, like Kensington Hospice and MAiDHouse. Since joining MAiDHouse’s team in 2019, Elinor has been an advocate for the development of a third space for MAiD provision outside of home and hospital. She holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Toronto and led the design of cross-cutting opportunities at Women’s College Hospital, the Canadian AIDS Treatment Information Exchange, MaRS Solutions Lab, and the Ontario Public Service. Elinor is currently developing a piece of work that explores themes of bodily ownership and the metaphoric connection to biology. Tekla Hendrickson: (panelist) Tekla Hendrickson has extensive experience, locally and internationally, in managing, operating and advising not-for-profits in the areas of health promotion, homelessness and women’s rights. Tekla has co-authored articles on developing processes to engage marginalized women in research, policy and practice; the issue of homelessness and developing shared solutions. Tekla is a past board member of Women’s College Hospital, Unit Director of Sistering, Provincial Director of Ontario Women’s Health Network and co-founder of Toronto Community Based Research Network and Inclusion Research. Tekla has been a member of the Disability and Women Advisory Committee for the Association for Women Action and Research - Singapore. Tekla was a delegate at The Governor General’s Canadian Leadership Conference (2008). Tamara MacIntyre Tamara MacIntyre brings over two decades of healthcare leadership to her role as Executive Director of MAiDHouse Canada. Most recently serving as inaugural Program Director of MAiDHouse Victoria, she successfully launched the organization's second location, fostering critical partnerships with Island Health and community healthcare providers to support individuals and families during end-of-life transitions. A certified end-of-life doula, death educator, and former Dean of Clinical Education, Tamara combines clinical expertise with compassionate leadership to ensure dignified, person-centered care. Angela Colterjohn: (panelist) Angela has had several careers over the past 40 years, beginning with interior design until landing in Corporate Event Management and video/television production. Since retiring from Corporate Event Management, Angela has focused on volunteering for causes close to her heart. She has orchestrated philanthropic events, conferences, and fundraisers for organizations like CANFAR, Ontario SPCA, the Art Gallery of Ontario, The National Ballet, Heart and stroke, Equine therapy for the disabled, St John Ambulance Canine therapy, Jane Goodall International and more recently, Dying with Dignity and MAiDHouse. Angela’s parents received MAiD together at their end of life and has continued their legacy by supporting people’s choice to access MAiD through her fundraising efforts. |
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Maria is a thanatology-informed cultural practitioner working in emotionally complex spaces where grief, death, identity, and care intersect. Her work draws from lived experience and cultural inquiry to examine how individuals and institutions navigate loss and uncertainty. As the founder of Philotimo Life, she develops education, advocacy, and creative programming that supports death literacy, challenges outdated systems, and invites more honest conversations about mortality and what it means to live well.
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Mariam Al-BessMariam is a pharmacist with an MSc in Public Health from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and an MDes in Design for Health from OCAD University. She has diverse experience in communication and service design as a branding strategist, specializing in multilingual content creation and design research. With a focus on crafting narratives that enhance patient experiences and caregiver support.
Her projects focus on cultural sensitivity in healthcare communication by bridging professional strategy with personal reflections on fragility and shared human experiences, emphasizing involvement of diverse groups, from those with lived experiences to stakeholders and local communities, in designing better health services, and experiences through collaboration and co-creation. This includes her current caregiver tool exploring emotional landscapes of illness, loss, and relational caregiving through visual storytelling and empathetic design. Instagram: @mariam.albess |
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Megan Sheldon (she/her) is the co-founder of Be Ceremonial, the world’s first guided ritual app and ceremony platform. Megan is a cultural mythologist, humanist celebrant, and end-of-life doula living and working in North Vancouver, BC. She has created hundreds of ceremonies for people around the world, focusing on what she calls the ‘seemingly invisible moments of change’, such as pregnancy loss, organ transplantation, menopause, living funerals, and death anniversaries. Megan offers online workshops, virtual courses, and seasonal retreats in British Columbia, Canada. When she’s not crafting ceremonies, you can find her swimming in the sea or meandering in the rainforest with her husband Johan and two daughters.
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Nadine discovered her calling 25 years ago while accompanying a dear friend in his final days. Observing other patients who lacked visitors shaped her belief that everyone should see a smile before their last breath. She now provides end-of-life companionship and support in hospitals, hospices, long-term care homes, and the community, offering presence, comfort, and compassionate care. Often referring to herself as a “Special Flight Attendant,” Nadine supports individuals as they approach the end of life with dignity and warmth. Through Death Cafes and meaningful living-life celebrations—while people can still receive hugs and love—she creates spaces for connection, reflection, and honoring life, ensuring individuals feel seen, valued, and deeply respected.
“Let’s ensure someone has a smile on their heart during their last breath.” |
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Rachel is a teacher, musician, and expressive arts therapy student based in Toronto. With a background in psychology and grief and bereavement studies, she has spent over a decade supporting children and youth through social and emotional learning in schools and community settings. After the death of her mother in 2020, Rachel shifted her work toward grief-focused care, integrating music, movement, and creative expression as pathways for integration. She facilitates grief groups and family programs, including dance-based workshops through Moving with Grief, and is passionate about creating gentle, inclusive spaces where individuals of all ages can explore loss, connection, and expression through the arts.
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Sarah Kim is a physician, independent dance artist and somatic arts educator based in Toronto/Tkaronto. She is the Medical Education Health Humanities Theme Lead at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, where she is also Assistant Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine and Director of the Program in Health, Arts & Humanities. Her clinical practice is specialized in Narrative Medicine, Sports & Exercise Medicine, and Medical Psychotherapy. In both medical and pedagogical settings, Sarah integrates the arts, humanities, mindfulness, and movement as generative practices of resilience, ethical interdependence, and compassion-based care. Her approach to teaching and embodiment is non-intrusive, affirming, and rooted in care, dignity and compassionate inquiry.
Instagram: @sarahkim_md |
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Dr. Sarina Isenberg is a Senior Investigator and Chair in Mixed Methods Palliative Care Research at Bruyère Health Research Institute. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine and School of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Ottawa. Her research focuses on ensuring that all people receive the highest possible quality of palliative care. Dr. Isenberg has been a principal or co-investigator on over 60 research projects (totaling $55 million). She has published over 125 peer-reviewed publications. Along with Karen Oikonen and others, she developed a framework for arts-based knowledge mobilization in health services research, called the research-to-public-to-research feedback loop, which has been actualized and exemplified through various design installations, including Going Home to Die, The Terminal Diner, the Archive of Forgetting, Meet me Where I am, and the Art and Wisdom of a Good Death.
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Karen Oikonen is a design researcher and service designer specializing in participatory approaches to understanding the complexities of the human experience within environments, systems, networks, and communities. After losing her dad to cancer in 2010, she became dedicated to creating public spaces for reflection and conversation about death and dying. She has collaborated on numerous participatory installations that invite people into these essential dialogues, including Death Sucks, Constellations: The family experience of end of life, The Terminal Diner, Going Home to Die, and The Reflection Room. Most recently, she collaborated with Dr. Sarina Isenberg on the Archive of Forgetting, exploring memory, loss, and identity as part of the Good Mourning Festival at Evergreen Brickworks. Karen is a Principal at The Moment in Toronto. She holds a Master of Design in Strategic Foresight and Innovation from OCAD University
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Dr. Rebecca McGuire-Snieckus is a Research Associate with the Isenberg Lab at the Bruyère Health Research Institute. Her work focuses on applying arts- and design-based research-to-public-to-research feedback loop methods in palliative care, supporting interdisciplinary knowledge mobilization, and co-creating equity-focused interventions with patients, families, and clinicians. She brings extensive experience in mixed methods research, community mental health, and participatory practice, with a strong emphasis on relational and collaborative approaches. Her work bridges research, practice, and public engagement to support inclusive, meaningful, and practice-informed palliative care.
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Arial is a Master's candidate in Epidemiology at the University of Ottawa, under the co-supervision of Drs. Jess Fiedorowicz and Sarina Isenberg. She is also a health services Research Coordinator in the Isenberg Lab at Bruyère Health Research Institute, supporting mixed methods research and arts-based knowledge translation for end-of-life care. Aria is passionate about understanding and improving the quality of life and care for marginalized and underserved populations, and bringing research to life in creative ways that resonate, engages, and empowers.
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Mary Ellen Macdonald, PhD is an anthropologist and Professor in Palliative Medicine at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She holds the J & W Murphy Foundation Endowed Chair in Palliative Care, with the mandate of contributing to palliative and end-of-life care research and practice across Nova Scotia. She has been researching death, dying, and bereavement for two decades, and is particularly passionate about supporting death and grief literacy across the diverse communities in the province. See her TEDx talk on ‘Grief, memory, and caring for the dead.’ She writes about this work in academic publications and at www.GriefMatters.ca
Susan Cadell, PhD, RSW (she/her) is a social work researcher and educator. Her research interests include grief, grief literacy and tattoos. She is the co-founder, along with Mary Ellen Macdonald, of Grief Matters, (https://griefmatters.ca/), an organization to promote grief literacy. She is a Professor at the School of Social Work at Renison University College, which is affiliated with University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Her work on tattoos can be viewed at https://storiesfromtheskin.com/. |
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Thera Barclay & Carolyn MauleBorn in Ottawa, ON, Thera Barclay is in demand as an interpreter of operatic, recital, and concert repertoire, and has graced stages across Canada, Europe, and the United States. Performance highlights include Ilia (Idomeneo), Gretel (Hansel and Gretel), Flora (The Turn of the Screw), Marie (La fille du régiment), Marzelline (Fidelio), Zerlina (Don Giovanni), and Mabel (The Pirates of Penzance). She holds an Artist Diploma from The Glenn Gould School, a Master of Music in Opera from The University of British Columbia, and an Honours Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance from Wilfrid Laurier University. Ms. Barclay has a vested interest in curly hair products, craft beer, and befriending neighbourhood cats.
Much in demand as a vocal accompanist, Canadian pianist Carolyn Maule has worked with such renowned artists as Michael Schade, Monica Whicher, Patricia Racette, Isabel Bayrakdarian, Norine Burgess, Elizabeth Turnbull, and is often heard in recital with her husband, baritone Russell Braun. She has performed in London’s Wigmore Hall, New York’s Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu, the National Arts Center, Roy Thomson Hall, Koerner Hall and accompanied recitals in Salzburg, Hamburg, Chicago, Cleveland and New York, as well as at music festivals across Canada, most recently the Festival of the Sound in Parry Sound, and Sweet Water Festival in Owen Sound. Carolyn Maule’s performances have been broadcast on BBC Radio, CBC Radio, Radio- Canada and WQXR-FM in New York. She is featured on recordings including Schubert's Winterreise (CBC Records) Le Souvenir (CMC Records), two CDs of Bach excerpts with the Toronto Bach Consort, as well as recordings for the Ukrainian Art Song Project. |
