I am a Master’s student in Adult Education and Community Development at OISE, the University of Toronto, with a strong background in education, social service, and community engagement. I hold an Advanced Diploma in Social Service Work, a Master’s degree in Art, and a Bachelor of Education in Pedagogy and Education.
Professionally, I have over 15 years of experience as a high school teacher and counselor, as well as several years working in non-profit and social service sectors in Canada. My roles have included Employment Counsellor, Outreach Worker, and Community & Settlement Counsellor, where I supported newcomers, refugees, women, and marginalized communities in overcoming barriers to education, employment, and social inclusion.
My interest in sustainable development stems from my commitment to advancing equity, inclusion, and lifelong learning. I believe education and community empowerment are essential to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly those related to quality education, reduced inequalities, and sustainable communities.
Carolyn Oei is a PhD student in the Adult Education and Community Development program (Collaborative Specialization in Environmental Studies) in the department of Leadership Higher and Adult Education. As an educator, her pedagogy centres participation, community engagement for social change and the possibility of a return to the commons. Carolyn focuses her work on the nexus points of community development, participatory culture, government relations and environmental justice. She is a volunteer tutor with the Adult Literacy Services department at Davenport-Perth Neighbourhood and Community Health Centre, a member of the West TO Literacy Collaborative. She is also the Vice President Academic of the OISE Graduate Students’ Association, an OISE Fellow and a recipient of the 2025-2026 Ontario Graduate Scholarship and Wilfred Rusk Wees Fellowship. Carolyn is also an artist with a professional background in law, public relations and corporate communications, and she earned her Master of Education (English) degree from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
Megan Boler is a Professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. In addition to being a member of the Department of Social Justice Education, Prof. Boler is an affiliate faculty member of Innis College, the Center for the Study of United States, Knowledge Media Design Institute, Institute for Women's and Gender Studies, and Cinema Studies. Her research interests include affect theory and philosophy of emotion, social media studies, feminist theory, digital media and democracy, philosophy of education, critical media literacy, and emotions and education. Prof. Boler teaches philosophy, cultural studies, feminist theory, media studies, and social equity courses at OISE.
Sarah Urquhart (she/her) is a PhD candidate in Curriculum & Pedagogy and SSHRC Doctoral Fellow at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. Prior to this, she worked as a secondary educator in Mexico City, Hong Kong, and Japan. Currently, Sarah is a course instructor and coordinates professional learning opportunities in sustainability, environmental and climate change education.
Sarah’s research uses an anti-colonial orientation and participatory approach to centre the experiences and narratives of newcomers as they engage in environmental education in Toronto. Her interests are in exploring curricular and pedagogical possibilities for fostering community engaged, place-based, and justice-oriented environmental and climate change learning in a range of contexts.
Kiran Mirchandani is a Professor in the Adult Education and Community Development Program, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto. Her research and teaching focuses on gendered and racialized processes in the workplace; transnational service work; critical perspectives on organizational development and learning; criminalization and welfare policy; and globalization and economic restructuring. She is the author of Phone Clones: Transnational Service Work the Global Economy (2012), co-author of Low Wage in High Tech: An Ethnography of Service Workers in Global India (2019), Closing the Enforcement Gap: Improving Employment Standards Protections for People in Precarious Jobs (2020) and Criminalizing Race, Criminalizing Poverty: Welfare Fraud Enforcement in Canada(2007). She also co-edited (with Winnie Poster) Borders in Service: Enactments of Nationhood in Transnational Call Centers (2016).
Adriana Marroquin is a Ph.D. candidate in Higher Education at the University of Toronto, specializing in comparative and international education. With a Master of Education from the same institution and a Bachelor of Engineering from Javeriana University in Colombia, Adriana brings a multidisciplinary approach to her research and practice.
Her doctoral research examines the intersection of privilege, precarity, and well-being among international students, while her broader academic work delves into sustainability practices in higher education worldwide, shedding light on critical issues within the field.
Adriana is deeply committed to sustainable development, having participated in initiatives such as the Advancing SDGs at UofT workshops and engaging with institutional strategies to promote sustainability in higher education. Through her academic work and professional experience, Adriana bridges research, multicultural perspectives, and industry practices to promote inclusivity, well-being, and sustainable growth.
Dr. Claudia Diaz-Rios is an assistant professor at OISE with a PhD in political science. Her research focuses on the right to education in crisis contexts, examining how global actors and decision-makers in the Global South negotiate policies related to SDG 4. Dr. Diaz-Rios has published extensively on educational responses for refugee students and has previously explored neoliberal education policies in Latin America.
Elizabeth Dhuey is a Professor of Economics whose primary appointment is at the Department of Management at the University of Toronto, Scarborough, with graduate appointments at OISE in the Department of Leadership, Higher, and Adult Education and at Rotman in the Economic Analysis and Policy Area. Her research focuses on the economics of education, emphasizing three areas: early childhood development, special education financing, and preparing all children for the future world of work. Her interest in sustainable development drives her commitment to reducing inequities, aiming to create educational systems that promote opportunity for all.
Michal Perlman is Professor at the Department of Human Development and Applied Psychology Michal Perlman has a PhD in developmental psychology and is a Professor in the Department of Human Development and Applied Psychology at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. She is cross appointment at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. She is the Director of the Dr. R.G.N. Laidlaw Research Centre, also at the University of Toronto.
She studies how early environments are associated with children’s wellbeing. She is particularly interested in the quality of interactions that children have with their caregivers both at home and in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) settings. She has helped develop efficient ways of measuring the quality of interactions (and more global measures as well) and is developing interventions to improve the quality of interactions children experience. She also studies how to conceptualize and measure ECEC quality, parents as consumers of ECEC services, associations between ECEC quality and child outcomes and a range of policy questions related to ECEC. More recently Michal and colleagues who co-lead the FutureSkills centre at the University of Toronto have been identifying key skills needed for success in the 21st century and how to teach these skills to young children. Michal has published her work in a variety of peer-reviewed journals and her work has been funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the McCain Foundation, the Lawson Foundation a range of government counteracts and many others.