Navigate using surname of instructor
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Jim Abraham

Jim Abraham has spent about 40 years studying weather, water and climate.  In his present role as Vice President of the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society.  He is a prt-time CBC meteorologist, and President of ClimAction Services Inc., Jim is well known nationally and internationally. He is frequently invited as an expert by a variety of organizations; including the insurance industry, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and the media.

As a senior executive within Environment Canada, Jim has managed a wide variety operational and research weather and environmental programs. He managed the weather, water, and climate observing program for Canada. Prior to that, Jim managed the weather research program. In the 1990’s, Jim started the Canadian Hurricane forecast and research program, which included being lead investigator for several reconnaissance flights into tropical cyclones threatening Canada
​[​top]

Bruce Adamson

Bruce Adamson is a civil engineer who practiced in Northwestern Ontario for 45 years, primarily as Regional Engineer with Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources.  His work included river regulation, design and construction management of numerous dams, roads and bridges.  He taught courses across Canada and the US about proper design and construction of “fish friendly stream crossings”.  Bruce has a keen interest in engineering history.  He enjoys sharing the experience and knowledge learned with others.
[​top]

Frances Anderson

​Frances Anderson trained primarily as a lichen taxonomist and field researcher at Maine’s Humboldt Field Research Institute at Eagle Hill, after retiring from 23 years as a librarian on Nova Scotia’s South Shore. She has coauthored one of the few field guides to lichens, five status reports on rare lichens for the Committee On the Status of Endangered Wildlife In Canada (COSEWIC), and several articles for peer-reviewed lichen journals. She discovered two new-to-science lichen species, one in Quebec and one on West Ironbound Island at the mouth of the LaHave River. Recognising that lichens are somewhat cryptic, small and often overlooked in the botanical world, she has conducted workshops, led field walks and given talks to interested groups as part of a growing trend toward raising lichens’ profile in conservation efforts around the province.
​[top]

Dee Appleby

 After managing a private art gallery for three years, Dee Appleby published two books on Nova Scotia artists, presented as gifts from the Province of Nova Scotia to delegates at the Vancouver Olympics. Passionate about art history, she is a graduate of the University of Montreal ('79) and has visited many of the major museums in North America and Europe. She has taught art history with SCANS since 2011. She is also a fine art appraiser with accreditation from the International Society of Appraisers. 
[top]

Nabiha Atallah

Nabiha Atallah has over 25 years’ experience in leadership roles at Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia (ISANS), a large multi-service immigrant settlement agency in Atlantic Canada. Currently, as Advisor on Strategic Initiatives, she leads ISANS’ research strategy and advises on policy development, sector best practices, institutional knowledge integration and government relations strategy.  She previously held the roles of Manager of Business Development Services and Manager of Communications and Research.
 Nabiha Atallah was born in Egypt and immigrated to Canada with her family when she was seven. Prior to moving to Nova Scotia, she taught and developed English as an Additional Language programs for ten years in Vancouver and Winnipeg, as well as in Cairo. 
​[top]

Mark Austin

Mark Austin has worked in the fields of community development, economic policy, film production, and in fields of wild blueberries. He has a Masters degree in the International Law of Human Rights and did undergraduate work in philosophy and fine arts. He was once a teaching fellow in Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University. His passions include world music, nature, cheese, and baseball.  
[top]

Ross Bartlett

Rev. Dr. Ross Bartlett was educated at Queen’s University (B.A. (Hons); M.A. (History); M.Div.), University of Toronto (Th.D. (Church History)) and Princeton Theological Seminary (D.Min). He has taught at Queen’s, Atlantic School of Theology and Vancouver School of Theology and is the author of several books and articles. His primary interests in history are the stories of people as living and vital actors on their own journey. He is currently the Lead Minister at Knox United Church in Lower Sackville, and Adjunct Faculty at AST.
[top]

Robert (Bob) Bauer

Bob Bauer worked for CBC radio for 30 years as a recording engineer and music producer, and co-founded ArrayMusic in Toronto, Upstream and Musikon, both in Halifax.   He is associated with three East Coast Music Award-winning recordings. He is a recipient of the Canadian League of Composers Award and a Gabriel Award for broadcasting.   He has been involved with the Oscillations Festival of Electroacoustic Music and the Canadian Music Centre. His compositions have been heard in live performances, recordings, and broadcasts across Canada, in the US and Europe.   Bauer has taught private music lessons in guitar, saxophone and theory, advanced 20th Century Music History and theory at Saint Francis Xavier University, and guest lectured at Dalhousie University on the creative process.
[top]

John Baxter

John Baxter is Professor Emeritus of English at Dalhousie University. He is the author of Shakespeare’s Poetic Styles (1980; rpr. Routledge, 2005) and co-editor of Aristotle’s Poetics by George Whalley (McGill-Queen’s, 1997) Selected recent articles include: “‘My Shakespeare, rise’: Ben Jonson’s Celebration of His Shakespeare,” Cahiers Elizabethain: A Journal of English Renaissance Studies. Vol. 90.1 (2016): 30-41; “The Aristotle-Coleridge Axis Revisited,” Proceedings of the 2015 George Whalley Conference, http://georgewhalley.ca/gwp/ (Fall, 2016); and “Tying the Knot in Othello,” Essays in Criticism 64.3 (July, 2014): 266-92. His essay, “Perilous Stuff: Poems of Religious Meditation,” Renascence: Essays on Values in Literature 62. 2 (Winter, 2010): 89-115, was the winner of the 2012 Joseph M. Swartz Memorial Prize. After 37 years of teaching at Dalhousie, he retired on June 30, 2017.
​[top]

Chris Benjamin

Chris Benjamin has travelled and worked in many countries including St. Lucia, Finland, Ghana and Indonesia. He writes fiction, news, opinion and features for newspapers and magazines across Canada. He is the author of three award-winning books: Indian School Road, winner of the Dave Greber Freelance Award; Eco-innovators, winner of the best Atlantic Published Award; and the novel Drive-by Saviours, winner of the H.R. Percy Prize. Chris has also published about twenty short stories in literary journals, magazines and anthologies. He has a Master’s degree in environmental studies from York University and a Bachelor’s in Commerce from Dalhousie. He has won a silver Atlantic Journalism Award and the Dave Greber Prize for social justice writing.
[top]

Paul Bennett

Paul W. Bennett, EdD (OISE/Toronto) is Founding Director of Schoolhouse Consultingand Adjunct Professor of Education at Saint Mary’s University, Halifax. Over a career spanning four decades, he has taught in high school and university, served as an elected school trustee, headed two of Canada’s leading independent schools, and produced a multitude of policy papers and newspaper commentaries. He has also written or co-authored eight books, including The Grammar School: Striving for Excellence in a Public School World (2009), Vanishing Schools, Threatened Communities; The Contested Schoolhouse in Maritime Canada, 1850-2010 (2011), and The Last Stand: Schools, Communities and the Future of Rural Nova Scotia (2013). Widely recognized as a leader in Canadian education reform, he is best known here in Nova Scotia as a co-founder of the Nova Scotia Small Schools Initiative (May 2012) and the chief proponent of transforming schools threatened with closure into Community Hubs.
[top]

Wanda Thomas Bernard

Dr. Wanda Thomas Bernard was appointed to the Senate in November 2016, as an Independent senator, representing Nova Scotia. Senator Bernard is a highly regarded social worker, educator, researcher, community activist and advocate of social change. She has worked in mental health at the provincial level, in rural community practice at the municipal level, and, since 1990, as a professor at the Dalhousie University School of Social Work, where she also served as director for a decade. In 2016, she was appointed Special Advisor on Diversity and Inclusiveness at Dalhousie, and she is the first African Nova Scotian to hold a tenure track position at Dalhousie University and to be promoted to full professor. Dr. Thomas Bernard has worked with provincial organizations to bring diversity to the political processes in Nova Scotia and teach community members about Canada’s legislative process and citizen engagement. She is a founding member of the Association of Black Social Workers (ABSW) which helps address the needs of marginalized citizens, especially those of African descent. As a former member of the Nova Scotia Advisory Council on the Status of Women, and as its past Chair, she was instrumental in the development of advice to ministers regarding frameworks for gender violence prevention and health equity. At the national level, she has served as a member of the National Coalition of Advisory Councils on the Status of Women. She has served as an expert witness in human rights cases and has presented at many local, national and international forums. Senator Thomas Bernard has received many honours for her work and community leadership, notably the Order of Nova Scotia and the Order of Canada.
[top]

Sandi Berwick

Sandi Berwick has been a registered dietitian in various health team roles in continuing care (long-term care, community, and acute care) from 1987 until this current time (PT Faculty MSVU); left her practice in 2015. Her area of focus and passion has been for an aging and older population. Sandi’s philosophy for achieving a sense of well-being throughout the aging process was the driving force to developing and teaching a course at Mount Saint Vincent University in 2016 (Culture Change in Medical Nutrition Care and Healthcare). Since then, Sandi has also taught Introduction to Client Care, Introduction to the Profession of Dietetics and Food and Nutrition for Successful Aging. Sandi has completed two undergraduate degrees (Bachelor of Science in Home Economics, Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Sociology) and a Masters in Family Studies and Gerontology). Sandi has been co-chair of the Nova Scotia Dietitians’ Continuing Care Action Group, and is currently a member of the Gerontology and Homecare Networks for Dietitians of Canada and has been a long-time Associate of the Eden Philosophy of Care.
​[top]

Ted Blackbourn

​Ted Blackbourn is a graduate of the music programs at Humber College and York University in Toronto.  He earned his BE from the University of Toronto and taught high school for the Peel District School Board (Mississauga and Brampton) for 29 years.  Throughout those years, Ted performed and recorded with a number of bands including his own jazz trio.  Since retiring from teaching, Ted has spent his time composing and arranging music for large jazz ensembles and has recorded three Big Band CDs featuring his arrangements.  Ted is a member of the Tuesday Night Big Band in Halifax and the Chester Brass Band.
​[top]

Stephen Booth

Stephen Booth, whose life journey has been in search of a pastoral ideal, holds a Graduate Diploma in International Rural Planning from and is a doctoral candidate in Rural Studies at the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development, Ontario Agricultural College, University of Guelph. Living in East Chester, he is a retired clergyman and serves as honorary assistant in the Anglican Parish of St. Stephen, Chester.
Born and schooled in the north of England, he emigrated to the U.S.A., where he earned a B.A. in English Literature from Amherst College, Massachusetts, in 1965. He subsequently earned an M.Div. at the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest, Austin, Texas. He has served urban and rural parishes in the Dioceses of Toronto and Western Massachusetts, been a Tutor in Divinity at Trinity College, Toronto, Chaplain of Hart House and a Senior Resident, Massey College, University of Toronto.
Since retirement he has continued his volunteer work in natural resource conservation, serving as Vice President of the National Resources Advisory Council of Trout Unlimited Canada, an organisation of which he was a founding member and as a member of the Board of the Nova Scotia Salmon Association. These interests and commitments are the result of his lifelong attraction to rural places, conservation and field sports.
His doctoral research is focused on communities, cultures and conservation in the Restigouche watershed of northern New Brunswick and the Gaspé region of Quebec, where the French and English settler communities, the indigenous Mi’gmaq people of Listuguj and riparian owners and leasees of fishing waters share a common resource, the threatened Atlantic salmon but are conflicted over its management.
Agreeing with Robert Frost that, “there is a book side to everything”, he is a reader and collector of rural literature and invites others to join him in exploring our affection for places and ecologies of the heart through literature, art, music and memory.
[top]

Alexander Boutilier

Alex D. Boutilier was born and raised in Sydney Mines, C.B. He studied at Saint Mary’s University and graduated with BA degrees in English and Psychology, as well as an MA in Atlantic Canada Studies. From 1998 to 2005 he was an instructor at Saint Mary’s University Writing Centre. Alex’s lifelong occupation was in sales and marketing for several industrial corporations. He currently lives in Fall River with his wife Rose.
[top]

Jacob Caines

Jacob Caines is a conductor, musicologist, clarinetist, and teacher in Halifax Nova Scotia. Having studied music education and conducting at Acadia University, he went on to complete a Master of Arts in Musicology at the University of Ottawa. Jacob's thesis was focussed on the Eastman School of Music and their first wind ensemble conductor, Frederick Fennell. This research allowed him to spend time at the Eastman School in Rochester sifting through the personal documents and scores of the late conductor.  After graduating from the University of Ottawa, he accepted the position of Director of Music and Choir Director with the First Unitarian Congregation of Ottawa and the Canadian Unitarian Council as their Music Director at the annual national conference. It was at this time that Jacob co-founded and became Artistic Director for Sesquisharp Productions. Jacob is currently a part-time faculty member of the Fountain School of Performing Arts and is the conductor of the Dalhousie University Wind Ensemble. Jacob has been working as a clarinet and saxophone faculty member at the Maritime Conservatory of Performing Arts and serves as a board member with the Nova Scotia Talent Trust. Jacob is an advocate for lifelong music education, community through art, and cultivating a love of all art forms and music.
[top]

John Calder

John is originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina. In the early 1950’s he moved to a farm in Southern Ontario. Then another move took him to Ottawa, where he completed his high school education. He then moved to Nova Scotia, acquiring degrees from Acadia and Dalhousie.
He taught Math at the high school level for most of his career, but has a strong background in Geology. After retiring, he has had numerous short contracts with NSCC teaching math to trades people, DND personnel and students in a Business program. He is always doing personal “research” on a wide variety of topics whether it be math, music, art, photography, etc. He has always liked to be on the “cutting edge” of technology. 
[top]

Stewart Cameron

Before retirement in 2017, Dr. Cameron practiced family medicine for 37 years in British Columbia, New Zealand and at the Dalhousie Department of Family Medicine. He earned a Masters Degree in Medical Education in 2008 and became an IMEX Scholar in 2015. He has published and presented locally, nationally and internationally on Health Information Technology, Medical Cannabinoids and Faculty Development. He has also published dozens of articles on medical language, medical history and humour. In 2017 he was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award in Family Medicine Research by the College of Family Physicians of Canada and the Lea Steeves Award from Dalhousie Medical School for Excellence in Medical Education.
[top]​

Steve Chipman

​I am not a professional philosopher but rather a recent retiree who has always been interested in philosophy not as an academic “parlour game” but as a guide to help me understand the world and how to live and flourish in it. After a BA in Philosophy and History, I embarked on a 40 year career in the financial industry, married a beautiful, strong woman and helped her raise four wonderful children. I now am resuming my interest in learning and discussing philosophy respectfully with others.
​[top]

Michael Collins

Dr. Collins received his PhD at University of East Anglia Norwich and lectured on Economic and Social History 1750 - post WW2.  Since coming to Canada, he has taught courses on the History of Clothing and Fashion, the British Industrial Revolution, The Soviet Union and 20th Century European History at Mount St. Vincent, Saint Mary's, Acadia and Dalhousie Universities as well as for SCANS.
​
First career as an Oil Industry ‘gypsy’ around the world.  Then BA in Economic and Social History and Soviet Studies.  Then PhD from University of East Anglia (England) in Economic and Social studies.  Teaching modern history (from 1750) British and European history and Soviet Studies.  Clothing and Fashion unit designed to be used as a ‘hook’ to teach Economic and Social History about 15 years hence, but then got a mind of its own and expanded every year.  Retired from full time teaching but teaching part time until mid-2011 at Acadia, Mount St Vincent and St Mary’s.
[top]

John Cowans

John received his early education at Bishop's College School in Lennoxville, Quebec. He earned a BA in English Literature from Sir. George Williams College in Montreal and a MA from Universite de Montreal, where he completed course work for his doctorate in English Literature; he has also studied at The Montreal Diocesan Theological College. 
In a teaching career spanning over 40 years, he has been a member of the teaching faculties of Stanstead College, Bishop’s College School, where he was Headmaster (1972-1982), Selwyn House, Universite de Montreal, McGill University, Bishop's University, College Marie-Victorin, and Vanier and John Abbott Colleges. During his career he has also held visiting lectureships at Mount Alison University and Universite de Sherbrooke. He has also produced and hosted POST SCRIPT, a weekly, half-hour television program of discussion about books, writers and writing.
He acted as a Lay Minister for the past twenty-five years in the Anglican Church of Canada, serving St. George’s Church, Georgeville, PQ, St. Matthias Church, Fitch Bay, PQ, and St. Stephen’s Parish, Chester, NS. He also served as the Chair of the Bishop of Quebec’s Task Force on Human Sexuality. At present, he lives in retirement in Chester, NS ,where he is a Past President of the Chester Playhouse, former Vice President of the Sir Christopher Ondaatje Theatre Foundation, a founding Director of the BCS Truth and Reconciliation Association Inc.,and a volunteer at Shoreham Village Retirement Community.
[top]

Kevin Cox

Kevin Cox has been a reporter for 42 years- five with the Hamilton Spectator, 23 with The Globe and Mail and 14 with Allnovascotia.com. His work has appeared in The Guardian, The Encyclopedia Britannica, Canadian Living and several other magazines and newspapers. He was an instructor at the School of Journalism at King’s College in Halifax for a decade. He has lectured on media issues at the University of Calgary, McMaster University, University of Western Ontario, Dalhousie University, Acadia University, Saint Mary’s University and University of Toronto.
He has an Honours BA in journalism from the University of Western Ontario and a Masters of Divinity from the Atlantic School of Theology.
He is now an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada on the Newport Pastoral Charge and writes three columns a week for allnovascotia.com. He has dabbled in chainsaw carpentry, growing giant pumpkins, old timer speedskating, umpiring fastball and running marathons.
[top]

Liz Crocker

Liz Crocker is a business woman, writer, health consultant, and teacher. She is the owner of “Woozles”, Canada’s oldest children’s bookstore, which she so-founded in 1978.  Liz also co-founded and co-owned (until 2014) P’lovers, the Environmental Store, and Frog Hollow Books (1984-1987).  Liz has written two children’s books and hundreds of articles found in books, magazines, and newspapers. She is the co-author of “Privileged Presence: Personal Stories of Connections in Health Care”, and “Transforming Memories: Sharing Spontaneous Writing Using Loaded Words”. She been a board member for various environmental organizations, the Discovery Centre in Halifax, Halifax Dance, Neptune Theatre, Shakespeare by the Sea, and she has established the Child Life Program at the IWK Children’s Hospital.
​[​top]

Peter Daly

Peter Daly came to Canada from Europe in 1964 with a B.A. and a Certificate in Education from the University of Bristol and a doctorate from Zurich, Switzerland.
From 1964 to his retirement at McGill he taught at four Canadian universities and one American university. He taught German language and literature of all periods, and in translation, but also advertising and emblems. He has always been interested in symbolism, whether in the written word of an Austrian baroque poetess or in contemporary visual applications. Daly has devoted himself to English and German literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to emblems, signs and symbols, and illustrated symbolic advertising. In retirement he has had time to read many works of contemporary fiction. 
[top]

GWEN DAVIES

Gwen Davies has been teaching creative writing for about 25 years. She started the Community of Writers at the Tatamagouche Centre, a four-stream writing event, and ran it for 15 years. She has had several stories published in literary magazines and has won a few prizes. Her book Facing the Other Way came out in 2016. She supported her writing habit with teaching, by working in literacy and other types of community endeavours, and recently retired from 35 years of consulting in clear language and design. She holds degrees from Wilfrid Laurier and King’s. She grew up travelling around Europe with her Air Force family in a VW camper, and took up parkour at age 62.
​[top]

GRAHAM DAY

Graham Day has over 35 years of International Public Service, first as an officer in both the British and Canadian Navies and second as an officer for the United Nations and several other International Agencies. Rising to Ambassadorial  Rank as a Deputy High Representative in Bosnia and  Herzegovina. Specialist in governance and political issues with a strong background in rule of law, Senior Fellow USIP 2000-2001. Published both alone and with others, numerous radio and TV appearances as both international expert and witness. Management and leadership skills in multi cultural field offices up to 110 staff. Demonstrated an ability to perform under extreme stress in the enclaves of Gorazde and Bihac during the Bosnian war 1993-1995. Advising and mentoring at cabinet and senior Flag level. Civil-military experience as high-level UN role player for NATO and UK operational level war games.
​[top]

Burris Devanney

Burris Devanney has been a teacher, teacher-trainer, educational administrator, program / project manager, international consultant and CEO in Canada and Africa. International Development Work in Africa spans 48 years and seven countries, including Rhodesia-Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Ghana, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Malawi, and Uganda. 
Publications: African Chronicles – a Memoir, New World Publishing, 2010, pp. 446. Awards for International Development Related Work: Award of Excellence, Atlantic Film Festival, Halifax, 1987, for co-producing, directing and writing the documentary The Gambia Project; Order of the Republic of The Gambia, 2000; Lewis Perinbaum Award in International Development, CBIE, 2003; Honourary Doctorate in Civil Law (Honoraris Causa), Saint Mary's University, 2004; Bill MacWhinney Award for Excellence in International Development, CIDA, 2004.
[top]

Donna de Ville

Donna de Ville earned her PhD in Communication Studies at Concordia University in 2014. She has taught film and media studies courses at universities in the US and Canada and is currently a part-time instructor at Dalhousie University while working for the Lunenburg Documentary Film Festival. She has published work in Film History, Scope, Incite, the Canadian Journal of Film Studies, as well as a chapter in Cinema Inferno: Celluloid Explosions from the Cultural Margins.
[​top]

John Dickinson

Dr. John Dickinson was educated at Birmingham University, England, where he completed his B.A.(Hons) and a Post-graduate Certificate in Education. He obtained his Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Nottingham University, England in 1968. After serving as a Teaching Fellow at Loughborough College of Education, England for two years, he emigrated to Canada. For the first six years he taught at St. Francis Xavier University, N.S. in the Psychology Department and subsequently moved to the School of Kinesiology at Simon Fraser University, B.C. serving as its director for fifteen years. His research was in the field of motor skill acquisition and retention. He is the author of two books and fifty peer-reviewed research papers in these fields and has also published two correspondence courses. He presented his work to learned societies in Canada, U.S., Mexico, Australia, Israel, France, England, Scotland and Wales. He retired to Mahone Bay in 2006.
[top]

Pamela Ditchoff

Pamela Ditchoff, poet and novelist, holds an MA in English/Creative Writing from Michigan State University (1985). She has taught creative writing for the past thirty years at various levels including the Creative Writers In Schools program. Her literary works have been recognized and highlighted at Michigan State University in their Michigan Writers Series. Ditchoff's first book, Poetry: One, Two, Three, was published by Interact Press (1989) as a guide for teaching poetry in the classroom. She is the author of five novels; her latest work, Phoebe’s Way, was published by ECW Press (Toronto) in 2014. Ditchoff was awarded the Chicago Review Award in Fiction in 1991, a John Ciardi Scholarship in 1991, and a Walter Dakin Fellowship in 1998. She resides in Liverpool, Nova Scotia.
​[top]

Frederick Edell

Dr. Frederick Edell is Professor Emeritus at the University of Saskatchewan. He has been Professor and Chair of Theatre at both the University of Saskatchewan and Acadia University, founding Director of Film and Theatre at the University of Manitoba, and a member of the founding Faculty of Theatre at the University of Victoria. He has also taught at Brock University, the University of Winnipeg, Selkirk College in BC, and LaSalle College of Fine and Performing Arts in Singapore. He has written on film for various Canadian and American publications and has broadcast film criticism for CBC in Vancouver, Winnipeg, and Halifax. Professor Edell has also directed numerous theatre productions in Canada, the US, and Sweden. 
[top]

Wendell Eisener

Rev. Dr. Wendell Eisener studied music at Acadia University and pursued theological studies in Ontario. He returned to Nova Scotia in 1995 and has had a career that includes the pastoral, secular, artistic and technical. He teaches at Saint Mary’s University and on occasion at the Atlantic School of Theology. An avid musician he has performed and conducted on both sides of the Atlantic. 
[top]

Bridget Elliott

Bridget Elliott is Professor Emeritus at the University of Western Ontario where she taught art, architectural and design history in the Department of Visual Arts. She specializes in the modern period and has published widely on women artists and modernism, arthouse cinema, and Art Deco.  Her most recent book (coedited with Michael Windover), The Routledge Companion to Art Deco, is forthcoming in 2019. She moved to the south shore a few years ago and is passionately devoted to exploring the coastline with her husband and two standard poodles.​
​[top]

David Ellis

Rabbi Ellis is the Regional Chaplain for the Atlantic Jewish Council and as such he travels throughout the Maritimes.

[top]

Jennifer Farrell

Nova Scotian soprano Jennifer Farrell appears regularly with professional Canadian ensembles in the fields of oratorio, opera, and choral music.  Her undergraduate studies were completed at Wilfrid Laurier University and she went on to earn a Master of Music degree and Doctor of Musical Arts degree with specializations in opera at the University of British Columbia. She maintains a busy career teaching at the Maritime Conservatory of Performing Arts in Halifax, and freelancing as a soloist.
[top]

William Fenrick

Dr. William Fenrick was a military lawyer in the Canadian Forces where he specialized in international and operational law matters. From 1992 to 1994, he was a member of the Commission of Experts appointed under Security Council Resolution 780 to investigate allegations of war crimes in the territory of the former Yugoslavia. Following retirement from the Canadian Forces in 1994, he was the Senior Legal Adviser on Law of War Matters in the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the Hague. Following retirement from the Tribunal in 2004, he taught International Criminal Law and International Humanitarian Law/Law of Armed Conflict at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University from 2005 until 2011. He has published widely on law of armed conflict matters. He has degrees from the Royal Military College (BA (Hons Hist) 1966), Carleton University (MA (Cdn Studies) 1968), Dalhousie University (LLB 1973), and George Washington University (LLM 1983).
[top]

Chris Field

Chris Field is Professor Emeritus of Statistics at Dalhousie and has been an active birder for about 40 years. He has published several papers on birds in collaboration with Professor Ian McLaren, a well-known ornithologist at Dalhousie. Much of his most recent research has been on issues arising from the biological sciences. You can see his research interests and publications at https://www.mathstat.dal.ca/~field/wiki/doku.php.
[​top]

Ian Fraser

Ian Fraser spent most of his career at the Nova Scotia Agricultural College where he taught Algebra, Trigonometry, Calculus, Advanced Calculus, Differential Equations, and Linear Algebra. He has also taught Mathematics at Dalhousie and at the University of Maine (Orono). He ended his full time career teaching Finance at the Dalhousie School of Business.
Ian and his wife Carol have lived in Truro since 1960. They have two adult sons, two granddaughters, and one “granddog”. His hobbies are (or were) hiking, canoeing, carpentry and gardening.
He holds B. Sc. (1960), MA in Mathematics (1967) and MBA in Finance (1996) degrees.
[top]

Greg Galbraith

Greg Galbraith is a graduate of the University of New Brunswick who thoroughly enjoyed 34 years teaching secondary school English, history and physical education in Vancouver and Halifax. Early in his career he was asked to develop a new Western Civilization 12 course that radically changed his approach to learning and teaching. Being a visual learner who loves stories, he began taking art history courses and soon realized that images, particularly of art and architecture, greatly enhanced his students’ interest and ability to recall significant events/eras. Frequent trips to Italy, with and without students, fostered his passion for the Italian Renaissance, a topic he has lectured on frequently since retiring from teaching in 2014. 
[top]

Peter Glenister

Peter Glenister is a Halifax native who worked as a librarian at Mount Saint Vincent University from 1968 until 2012 and in 2014 was named Librarian Emeritus.
His interest in music began as a pre-adult church choir member and continued through university glee club participation culminating as a member of the Atlantic Choir and the Halifax Chamber Choir, 1972-1991. Around 1961 his interest in Glenn Gould began on hearing the 1955 recording of the Goldberg variations from which time he was hooked as a Gould aficionado and on discovering that his and Gould’s birthdates were a day (and 11 years) apart.
[top]

Milton Graves

Milton Graves retired from Dalhousie University in 2015 after 15 years of teaching Earth Sciences.  He has an MSc from Dalhousie University and worked as a geologist before teaching.  He taught a second-year course entitled “Dinosaurs” at Dalhousie for 10 years.
​[top]

Bruce Gray

Bruce Gray was educated at the McGill University and taught mycology and plant pathology at the Nova Scotia Agricultural College for 25 years.  
[top]

Wayne Grennan

Dr. Grennan holds a MA from Dalhousie University and a D.Phil. from Oxford University and has taught in the Philosophy Departments of St. Thomas University and Saint Mary’s University. He currently holds the position of Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy at Saint Mary’s. He has taught courses for SCANS in Dartmouth, Bedford, Halifax and Mahone Bay.  
[top]

Alan Griffiths

Alan Griffiths has lectured on multimedia and consulted worldwide for organisations as diverse as the British Library, IBM, the Portuguese Airforce, the European Union and Eastman Kodak. He has lectured at the University of Sheffield, been Visiting Professor at the University of Massachusettsand Chief Information Architect for a dot com start-up. He has maintained an interest in photography throughout.
Alan started developing www.luminous-lint.com in 2005 as a personal exploration of the history of photography. To date photographs from over 2,000 organisations, photographers, photographic galleries and private collectors around the world have been included. This allows users to explore an ever-expanding online history through over 600 online exhibitions, numerous biographies, techniques, timelines and a visually rich website..
[top]

Elizabeth Haigh

Dr. Elizabeth Haigh earned a B.Sc. (Hon) in Biochemistry in 1962 and a M.Sc. in Pharmacology in 1963 from the University of Alberta. After some two years working in the Food and Drug Directorate in Ottawa, it dawned on her that she was better suited to reading about science than to working in a lab. She earned a Ph.D. in the History of Science from the University of Wisconsin in 1971 and was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship in the Wellcome Institute of Cambridge University. She taught the History of Science and Russian & Soviet History at St. Mary’s University, retiring in 2006.
[top]

Dawn Harwood-Jones

Dawn Harwood-Jones is highly experienced in video production.  She worked 20 years as a television producer for CBC, where she won several international awards.  After CBC, she co-founded Pink Dog Productions producing hundreds of video including one that persuaded leaders in Mecca to change the way they thought about recycling during the Hajj.  Throughout her career she has taught creative production.  Now that anyone can shoot video with their phone, her focus has become teaching that anyone can shoot great video if they understand the basics of quality recordings.  She has taught youth, university students, businesses and seniors.
​[top]

Andrew Hebda

Andrew Hebda is the Curator of Zoology at the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History. He began his career with the Department of National Defence, holding a number of administrative and command appointments from 1971 to 1985. While serving, Andrew completed his B.Sc. at Carleton University and his M.Sc. at York University, both in Biology. He went on to work as a biologist in a variety of positions in both the public and private sectors. He became Curator of Zoology at the Nova Scotia Museum in 1995. Andrew enjoys the range of opportunities afforded by his museum work. On any given day, he might find himself studying any number of fish, molluscs, insects, mammals, reptiles or amphibians. He has done extensive research on fish and fish habitat, but is currently focussing on “at-risk” Molluscs.​
[top]

Joel Henderson

Joel Henderson and his colleagues are lawyers who practice in Truro.
[top]

Susan Hoover

Susan Hoover taught Literature at Dawson College in Montreal for 30 years. Since retiring, Susan worked with a group to build the Osprey Arts Centre in Shelburne and lead the organization for nine years. Susan remains an active member of the arts community in Shelburne, facilitating the development of writers. Susan will be editing, with Alex Pierce, an anthology of Shelburne County writers in the coming year.
[top]​

Beverly Hymes

Beverly Hymes (M.Sc.) studied algal ultrastructure under Professors K. Cole (University of British Columbia) and T. Sawa (University of Toronto). She has taught the Diversity of Algae course at Dalhousie University for a decade.
​[top]​

Valda Kemp

Valda was born in Riga, Latvia in 1934. The family was forced to flee during World War II and lived in Denmark for 7 years.  Arriving in Canada in 1951, Valda attended Leaside High School and the University of Toronto where she earned a Bachelor of Music Degree In Musicology. She has an ARCT Diploma in Piano from the Royal Conservatory of Toronto, and a teacher’s diploma in the Orff Method of teaching music. She has taught piano privately, and has given many Orff classes and lectures describing the method and was music teacher at Halifax Grammar School for 12 years. She was Facility Coordinator at the Nova Scotia Centre for Craft and Design for 7 years, from where she retired.  She has done volunteer work with Opera Nova Scotia and has been a volunteer on the Board of the SS Atlantic Heritage Park Society as President and now Treasurer.
[top]

Walter Kemp

Dr. Walter H. Kemp has a Ph.D. from Oxford University, an M.A. from Harvard, and a B.Mus. and M.Mus from The University of Toronto.
His musical career encompasses: founder-chair of the Music Department, Waterloo Lutheran University; retired full professor and Chair of the Department of Music, Dalhousie, and Director of the Dalhousie Chorale; former Director of Music Saint Paul’s Anglican Church and the Kings College Chapel. He is now Inglis Professor, University of King's College; Conductor of the Walter Kemp Singers; Choral Director Emeritus of the Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo, and Honorary Vice-President of the Royal Canadian College of Organists. His principal present activity is as Artistic and Administrative Director of Opera Nova Scotia, and he continues his over 30 years of service as broadcaster on Dalhousie’s radio station CKDU-FM. He was presented the 2015 Portia White Award in recognition of his cultural service to the Province.
[top]

Brent King

Trained in journalism, Brent King first wrote for The Financial Post, then explored freelancing. Subsequently, Brent taught professional writing at Mount Saint Vincent University for almost three decades. He taught newswriting style, persuasive writing as well as organizational storytelling and personal narrative. Whatever the form, his goal was to have PR students view themselves as “thinking writers and writing thinkers.” He was recognized with an Instructional Leadership Award, retiring as Professor Emeritus. He was strongly committed to experiential learning, whether through client-oriented projects and assignments or internships. Brent’s interest in secular pilgrimage itself arose experientially too. He made two journeys across northern Spain, trekking the Camino de Santiago. He would like to undertake another significant walking journey to a distant destination.
​[top]

John Kirk

John Kirk taught at Dalhousie for many years, and his research has focused on Cuban political history—and in particular Cuba’s foreign relations and healthcare.  He has written several books on Cuba, and has been travelling to the island for research purposes since 1976. He travels frequently to the island.
​[top]

Natalia Koutovenko

Natalia Koutovenko has vast experience with and knowledge about the Hermitage Museum since she had been working as a guide at the "Intourist" company before coming to Canada in 2002. She was also the Head of the Department of Foreign Languages at the International Banking Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia and the Assistant Manager in Foreign Affairs of the Library of the Academy of Sciences. In Canada Natalia worked as Assistant Professor and Instructor at the Department of Russian Studies at Dalhousie University. Currently she is working as an Interpreter in the courts and for ISANS (Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia) and teaching Russian Language and Literature at the Russian School in Halifax.
[top]

Rebecca Langlois-Warnat

Rebecca Langlois-Warnat is a researcher at Dalhousie University, with nearly 20 years of experience in ocean sciences. She started her BSc in marine science at Southampton College convinced that she was going to study sea turtles. At the end of those four years, she left the USA to take a Fulbright Fellowship in Kiel, Germany to study a group of specialized bacteria. She obtained a PhD. in Marine Biology from the University of Kiel, never having directly studied sea turtles with no regrets. Rebecca’s research combines biology, chemistry, and geology to study how nutrients and other biologically important chemicals circle through the globe. She is an active member of Dalhousie’s Lets Talk Science, a group that brings science to classrooms and pre-schools. She has also organized hands-on public experiments about global warming for Doors Open Halifax.
[top]

Peter Leslie

Peter Leslie grew up in Eagle Head and now resides 250 feet over the boundary line in the neighbouring community of West Berlin. He is a direct descendant of William Wentzell, the first settler of Eagle Head. He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from Acadia University, a Juris Doctorate, a Masters of Business Administration and a Masters of Arts (litt.) from Dalhousie University. He was admitted to the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society in 1985 and retired the end of 2015. He also qualified as a Chartered Accountant (CA) in 1987. He spent his entire legal career with the Federal Department of Justice, the last 10 years as the Atlantic Regional Director. He is an avid genealogist and history buff and is currently co-chair of the advisory committee of the Queens Museum of Justice.
​[​top]

Daphna Levit

After completing her Ph.D. studies in Comparative (Japanese) Literature at Indiana University, she went on to take additional graduate degrees in Finance (MBA) and East Asian Studies (Economics)(MA) from Cornell University. She spent much of two decades in Japan, a third in London, England and New York employed as a financial analyst by some of the giant Wall Street firms that adversely topped the headlines. She got out of the industry in the late 1990s to teach MBA students. In 2002 she moved to Nova Scotia and wrote a weekly column in the South Shore newspaper on global financial matters; opera reviews for the national magazine Opera Canada and teaching courses on Japanese history, Japanese Film, on the history of Zionism and on Economics in various academic institutions. She joined the SCANS BOD early in 2010, served on it for four years, developing and then coordinating the three SCANS chapters in the South Shore. In 2011 she co-authored a book on the Middle East and in 2020 she published a second book entitled Wrestling With Zionism. She has given several talks on that subject all over Canada. She now lives near Lunenburg.
[top]

Roland Lewis

Roland Lewis completed his early schooling in Halifax, and after graduation with a BSc from St. Mary’s University, began his Microbiology career at the old Halifax Infirmary Laboratory. After completing a Diploma in Bacteriology at the School of Hygiene, University of Toronto, he returned to Halifax and received his Masters and Doctorate at Dalhousie. After a twelve year posting in Kingston, Ontario at Queen’s University and Hotel Dieu Hospital, he ventured to Qatar, as Consultant Microbiologist for Hamad Medical Corporation. During his five-years in the Middle East he taught at Qatar University. Upon returning to Canada he took up a position at the Cape Breton Regional Hospital Laboratory and continued his teaching at the University of Cape Breton. He has extensive teaching and laboratory experience, specializing in Infectious Diseases and their control. He is a Fellow of the Canadian College of Microbiologists. Since retiring he has been active in SCANS, where he is currently on the Board as Past President. He has taught a number of courses for SCANS in the area of Microbiology.
[top]

Serena Lewis

Serena Lewis is a Social Worker who has worked within the field of Mental Health, Corrections, and Hospice Palliative Care. She has extensively studied and is deeply passionate about grief, has taught various courses to medical professionals in the field on the significance and impact of grieving in North American society, and has developed a variety of groups to address loss within the community. 
[top]

Bosko Loncarevic

Dr. Bosko Loncarevic is a retired Marine Scientist.   He has participated in more than 30 research missions on oceanographic vessels. In 1970 he was on board CSS Hudson, the first civilian ship to transit the NWP west-to-east carrying out non-military research
[top]

Jockie Loomer-Kruger

Jockie attended Acadia University for a Junior Diploma in Education. She has had a varied career which included, but is not limited to, nursery school teacher, receptionist/bookkeeper, florist, as well as being a small business owner (antiques and collectibles shop). For several decades she has developed her own creativity as a folk artist. Her most recent recognition was being invited to participate in the 2022 Lunenburg Folk Festival. Her work is in private collections Coast to Coast, and in the collection of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, and the Acadia University Gallery. She is also a published author (Valley Child – A Memoir, 2016, and a novel, Until the Day We Die, 2021). Her original folk art illustrations from her first book are on permanent display in the West Hants Historical Society Museum, in Windsor, NS.
​[top]

Ian MacDonald

Mr. MacDonald was born in India to United Church of Canada missionary parents. He was educated in India, at Woodstock School in the foothills of the Himalayas, and in Nova Scotia, at New Germany and Onslow, before going to Mount Allison University, where he earned a BSc degree in geology and chemistry and a BEd degree. He then taught at Queen Elizabeth High School in Halifax from 1972 until his retirement in 2005. During his teaching career he taught courses in Geology (grade 12), Chemistry (grades 11 & 12), and Comparative World Religions (grade 12) -- a course to which he contributed the design of the syllabus and the writing of curriculum materials. Since retirement he has done work for the Religious Studies Department of Saint Mary's University as a researcher and author of a chapter on the Sikh Faith and the Sikh community in Nova Scotia.
[top]

Scott MacDougall

Scott was born in Moncton in 1944, too young to meet Northrup Frye and too young to serve in either World War II or Korea. He was educated in small grade schools, bussed to high schools, and shaped, partially, by years at Mount Allison and Dalhousie Universities. He had one remarkably good professor, the architectural historian, David Crook; who died much too young. Circumstance blocked close acquaintance with George Grant during his two stays in Halifax but his writings have been a constant in Scott’s life and several people close to Grant became cherished friends. Marriage has blessed him twice; his second wife, the painter and teacher, Andrea Johnson, inspires him every day. His two sons, Randy and Alex, keep him happy. His major task with relatives and friends is to suggest ways in which they might spend more time with poets and poetry, to suggest the truth in Wordsworth's proposition that "Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge..." His professional life was spent working and reading in various libraries. In 1974 he took a one-year job as a senior administrator at NSCAD, leaving 24 years later with an increased knowledge of craft, art, and design and an enduring devotion to the life of the loom and easel. Most of what he knows about human interaction was formed by adjudicating quarrels over the optimum use of space and materials. Time spent with engaged students doing what they love to do has kept him purposeful. That experience has continued into the last six years with his active involvement in the Halifax Humanities seminar where he helped lead classes on George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Jan Zwicky, Wallace Stevens, and Ernest Buckler. One of these days he will complete a short book on the great historian and anti-philosopher, Jack Hexter. 
[top]

Wayne MacIntyre

I am a retired teacher/administrator from the Halifax Regional School Board (now HRCE).  Though I was not aware of it at the time, I laid the groundwork for my profession back in 1972 when I began traveling around the world.  This guided me to what would become my teaching career path.  In the classroom I taught modern languages and social studies.  After twenty-four years in the classroom, I became a vice-principal. One of my duties was to assist teachers with the delivery of curriculum.  During my time as a vice-principal, I successfully accomplished the steps and interviews needed to advance into the principal’s pool. 

​The principal purpose of language is to communicate with others.  Being able to communicate with others helps broaden my understanding of the world while helping me get my needs met.  Communicating with others also allows me to expand my circle of friends and acquaintances filling one of my needs: sharing with others.  Because of this, I see every language as valuable.   
 
Upon retiring, I began learning my family’s history, of which Scottish Gaelic forms a large part.  Had history unfolded differently, Gaelic would have been my mother tongue.  I turned my attention to learning this language with the understanding that language is perhaps the very core of culture.   Along the way, I took classes in person (before COVID) in Halifax, spent week-ends a few times a year immersed in Gaelic at the Gaelic College in Cape Breton, took the Gaelic College’s one month immersion course, enrolled in the total immersion program (2 weeks) at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig (the Gaelic Institute on the Isle of Skye), and continue to study and use Gaelic online in multiple language groups from Scotland to Vancouver, Canada.  Learning Gaelic assists me in reconnecting with a culture that was in many ways lost to me.  More than that, it allows me to make new friends and acquaintances in that culture.  And this can happen for anyone who wants to learn about the Gaelic language and culture: one does not have to be a Gael.  So, to all who are interested in this language and culture, I say “Failte oirbh,” Welcome to you all.”
​[top]

Mac MacKay

Mac MacKay was born in Quebec City and spent the early years of his life there and at a family summer cottage on the shores of the St. Lawrence River, watching ships. Various family members, although strictly arm chair sailors encouraged Mac's interest in close observation, drawing, recording and eventually photographing ships.
The family moved to southern Ontario where Mac attended elementary and high school. Occasional trips to the various ports of the Great Lakes widened Mac's interest in all things ship related. The yearly return to the summer cottage on the St. Lawrence was a time to enjoy the passing parade of ships, but also to witness the construction and opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway.
Over the years Mac accumulated a number of friends and mentors who encouraged his interest in shipping, but set standards for record keeping, and further fueled Mac's innate curiosity.  Mac had the wisdom to move the Halifax to go to university and remain here after graduating in architecture, and to practice his profession here for more than forty years. With a port at his doorstep, Mac was never far from the harbour when time allowed and when it didn't he made time for a variety of research and other projects, all the while photographing, drawing and painting ships.
He did not limit his activities to Halifax however, having visited most of the major ports of the world, and continuing his annual summer break on the St. Lawrence shores.
​As an observer of Halifax Harbour for more than fifty years, Mac has a unique perspective on the life and work of the port.
[top]

Malcolm MacLeod

Native of Armdale (Halifax); degrees from Dalhousie University, and the Universities of Toronto and Ottawa (PhD 1974). Professor of History at NS Teachers College 1973-8, Memorial University 1968-70 and 1978-2003. Since 2011 he has presented five courses and two special lectures for SCANS. Author of numerous scholarly articles and several books, including "A BRIDGE BUILT HALFWAY: A HISTORY OF MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY COLLEGE 1925-1950" (McGill-Queens Univ. Press, 1990), and "A HALIFAX BOYHOOD" (Halifax, Formac, 2014) 
[top]

Michael MacMillan

Dr. Michael MacMillan is Professor Emeritus in Political Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University. He received a PhD in Political Science from the University of Minnesota. He has taught courses at Mount Saint Vincent University for four decades in political theory, political behavior, Canadian politics and Canadian public policy and administration. Two of his principal areas of research, publication and teaching interest are human rights and democratic theory. His book, The Practice of Language Rights in Canada, published in 1998 by the University of Toronto Press, was short-listed for the prestigious Donner Prize for the best book in public policy published in that year
​[top]

Ian MacVicar

LCol (Retd) Dr. MacVicar served for over 40 years in the Canadian Armed Forces, serving in numerous intelligence-related posts  He spent five years as an On-Site Arms Control Verification inspector on multi-national inspection teams as a Team Leader, Photographer, Inspector, and as a Russian interpreter. He participated in over 50 inspections in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and the nations of the former Warsaw Pact in eastern Europe.  He is now the Director/Principal Analyst of Ian MacVicar Universal Security Intelligence Cognitive Solutions (I-MUSICS) Consulting, Inc., which hosts 17 networked consultants from military, intelligence, police, business, legal, and healthcare backgrounds. He is a Senior Writer with Calian Group, Ltd., where he has been employed as the lead writer in the revision of the Canadian Army’s principal tactical manual, the Combat Team Commander’s Handbook, and in disaster response exercise design. He is a graduate of the Canadian Armed Forces Joint Staff College and of the Canadian Army Staff Course. Dr. MacVicar has presented his research on cognitive traps (i.e. distortions in thinking) in security planning at conferences in the United Kingdom and Canada. His SCANS SpySchool 101 and 201 lectures delivered with colleague Hugh Williamson, specialize in the history of intelligence, espionage, and associated legal oversight regimes. His SpySchool 301 course examines the psychological aspects of intelligence analysis. He has published articles on leadership, human security, and the Responsibility to Protect doctrine.  His most recent article, “What About the Camp Followers” is published in the Spring 2020 edition of JD-Journal for Deradicalization. Ian has also presented on how to develop psychological resilience in leaders to government and business audiences. He is a 2017 graduate of the Veteran Trainers to Eradicate Child Soldiers program, and his current research includes developing intelligence protocols for addressing the phenomenon of child soldiers. Dr. MacVicar is a Director with numerous Boards, including (formerly) the Halifax Military Heritage Preservation Society; the Army Cadet League of Nova Scotia, Canadian Military Intelligence Association Halifax Chapter, and the Canadian Intelligence Network-Réseau canadien de renseiegnement. Dr. MacVicar is a Royal United Services Institute Nova Scotia Research Fellow, specializing in intelligence and security policy issues, and in veteran’s issues. Ian is also a Certified Yoga Teacher, specializing in Trauma Informed Yoga Teaching and Therapy, a Certified Koru Mindfulness Teacher, qualifying in Trauma Informed Mindfulness. He is a Member of the Advisory Council of the Canadian Accessibility Network and a Certified Supplier with the Inclusive Workplace Suppliers Council of Canada. Ian is also a Mentor for new business owners with the NS Government sponsored Centre for Entrepreneurship and Educational Development. ​
[top]

Brian McGowan

Brian McGowan (BSc,MSc,P.Eng) has over 35 years in the oil and gas industry, with significant experience in the design and operation of heavy and conventional oil and gas facilities, and pipelines both onshore and offshore (singlephase and multiphase). He has extensive experience in design and operation of ethylene and polyethylene facilities and has held key engineering and operations positions with major oil and gas, petrochemical and engineering design companies. His experience is extensive in the design of petrochemical facilities, gas plants, SAGD facilities, grass roots refineries, and upstream oil batteries, and also in the revamp of these facilities.
[top]

Patricia McMullen

​Patricia McMullen received her Ph.D. in cognitive psychology at the University of Waterloo in 1988.  Following that, she pursued post-doctoral research at Carnegie Mellon University under the direction of Dr. Martha Farah where she gained expertise in cognitive neuropsychology or the cognition of individuals who have experienced brain damage. In 1991, she was hired as professor in the area of visual cognition in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Dalhousie University. Her interest in mindfulness has continued throughout most of her adult life and teaching a course on the science of mindfulness is a meeting of two long-standing fascinations.
​[top]

David McNeil

​David McNeil was a professor in the English Department at Dalhousie for 34 years.  He taught a range of courses in eighteenth-century literature, the novel, and satire.  He also taught a class on hockey literature and culture (regular and online formats).  He is the author of The Grotesque Depiction of War and the Military (1990), In the Pressure of the Moment: Remembering Gerry McNeil (2016), and a number of other articles.  With Ron Huebert, he has also contributed to and edited a collection of essays, Early Modern Spectatorship: Interpreting English Culture (2019).  His research interests currently range from self-likenesses in Italian frescoes/British murals, the history of sports photography and eighteenth-century memoirs.
​​[top]

Paul Manning

Dr. Manning holds a BSc Agriculture from the Nova Scotia Agricultural College, and a DPhil in Zoology from the University of Oxford. He is a newly appointed Assistant Professor at Dalhousie University (Faculty of Agriculture) in the Department of Plant, Food, and Environmental Sciences. His research program is focused on understanding on the importance of insect biodiversity to the health of agricultural ecosystems and sustainable food production.
​​[top]​

Roger Marsters

Roger Marsters is the Curator of Marine History with the Collections Unit of the Nova Scotia Museum. His academic work examines the role of indigenous maritime knowledge in the development of northeastern North American settler societies. His current museum research projects examine the maritime experience of Mi’kmaq and African-Nova Scotian individuals and societies. 
​[top]

Anne Mills

​Anne Mills is a retired biologist who spent 26 years as a Senior Biology Laboratory Instructor at Dalhousie University in two courses, General Biology and Terrestrial Diversity. Both courses led her down a diverse path encompassing every subject from microbiology to ecology and through many aspects of plant and animal biology. After retirement a new opportunity to study the taxonomy and ecology of Bryophytes (mosses, liverworts and hornworts) led to taking courses at Humboldt Field Research Institute, Eagle Hill, Maine over the past 15 years. Two papers have been published as a result; Lead author of The Bryophytes of Sable Island and a paper on a moss that had not been recorded for the Maritime Provinces. Anne has been involved in several BioBlitzes, in giving talks, contributing photos and text for books, leading field trips for students and the general public, and giving workshops.
​[top]

Barry Mills

After completing his Master’s degree in English literature at Dalhousie University Barry Mills taught at l’Universite de Moncton.  Studying literature across linguistic boundaries appealed to him, so he resumed study and gained a second Master’s degree in comparative literature at Carleton University.  This was followed by three years’ study at the doctoral level at the University of Alberta.  Although he met all the course and examination requirements, he declined the thesis for personal, rather than academic, reasons.  He taught English and comparative literature for a number of years at the U. of A. in Edmonton.  His association with SCANS is two-fold, since he has served as lecturer and curriculum committee member since 2012.  Barry has recently been reading in German literature, in particular,  E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Princessin Brambilla.
​[top]

David Monaghan

David Monaghan is a Professor Emeritus from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax. He has published and edited books on Jane Austen, Jane Austen Film Adaptations, John le Carre and the literature of the Falklands War.
[top]

Nick Newbery

Nick Newbery was born 1944. Educated in England and Ireland. To Canada in 1970. Taught French in Toronto for 6 years then spent 30 years in Canadian Arctic teaching all subjects and for 17 years ran program for at-risk Inuit youth. Did a lot of photography, published 3 trilingual photo books and 27 teacher manuals. Gave all my photos to Govt. of Nunavut where it was put on a website (newberyphotoarchives.ca). To NS in 2005, teaching courses on Nunavut at MSVU where have raised money for 5 students to do northern one month practicums in Baffin so are well orientated before getting teaching job there. Re-visit Baffin annually to supervise students. Married, home in Porter’s Lake.
​[top]

Suzanne O'Callaghan

Suzanne O'Callaghan is a self-taught painter and Canadian artist.  Born in Toronto, she studied at Ryerson University, the University of Toronto and the Ontario College of Art & Design (design communications).  Her expressionist and fauve-influenced figurative paintings often explore the lives of women and her feminist views are deeply entrenched in her practice, which strives to illuminate how much more we have in common than we bear differences and how extraordinary is the so-called ordinary person.  For several years Ms. O'Callaghan was an award-winning designer and art director with an international advertising agency.  She has lived and worked in places as diverse as Toronto, Rome, New York, Charlottetown and Havana. She is the author of several books, including The Sea & Other Red Roads, Beach Glass (both verse) and The Visual Poetry of Painting Light (instructional) and a sought after lecturer on women's art and women artists.  A former instructor-of-record with the UPEI Senior's College, Ms. O'Callaghan moved to Halifax in the spring of 2017 and began exhibiting in Halifax with a show at the Nova Scotia Public Archives in August.  Ms. O'Callaghan is an advocate for artists and artist's rights and a former board member of CARFAC Maritimes.  Her work is in private, public and corporate collections across North America, Europe and Cuba. This is her first offering at SCANS.
[top]

Vernon Oickle

Vernon Oickle is an international award-winning journalist and editor with 33 years experience working in community newspapers on Nova Scotia’s South Shore. In addition to his newspaper career, he is the author of 20 books including the recently published “I’m Movin’ On: The Life and Legacy of Hank Snow.” He is also the author of several ghost story and folklore books. His 21st book — Nova Scotia Trivia — will be released in the fall of 2014.
[top]

Randy Olson

Dr. Randy Olson is a retired professor of biology from Dalhousie University’s Faculty of Agriculture. He has over 35 years of both teaching experience and research in various areas of plant biology at the NSAC and more recently at Dalhousie University’s agricultural campus in Truro. His botanical research interests were concerned primarily with sexual reproduction in flowering plants and morphological reduction of flowering plants with very specialized modes of nutrition.
​​[top]

Rosalie Osmond

Rosalie Osmond was born and brought up in Lunenburg and educated at Acadia University, Bryn Mawr College and Cambridge University, from which she received her Ph.D in English Literature. She has taught at the University level in both Canada and the UK. She is the author of 4 published books, three academic and one novel.
[top]

David Overton

Before he retired in 2008, David Overton was a Professor in the Dalhousie Theatre Department for almost forty years. During that time he taught a wide range of classes, including classes in film and musical theatre history. Since retiring he has continued to be active as a freelance director and writer. His most recent musical, The Passion of Adele Hugo, was produced by Eastern Front Theatre in 2012, and his most recent directing project was Spring Awakening for Neptune Theatre School in the spring of 2014.
[top]

Harold Pearse

Dr. Harold Pearse, with degrees from UBC, Sir George Williams (Concordia) and Dalhousie, has over fifty years of experience teaching art and art education at the public school and post-secondary levels. He has taught art education and drawing at NSCAD (1971- 2001) and the University of Alberta (2001-2015) and drawing at the Lunenburg School of the Arts (2016/17). As a practicing artist, he has had numerous solo and group exhibitions, with art work in public and private collections. He is particularly interested in the history of teaching drawing and is dedicated to daily sketch book drawing, a practice he began in 1988 and continues, filling almost 100 books.
[top]

Jon Peirce

Jon Peirce has been writing since his high school days.  After working as a reporter and assistant editor for his college paper, he worked as a reporter for the Springfield (Mass.) Union before coming to Halifax to do an M.A. and a Ph.D. in English at Dalhousie.  While in graduate school, he worked briefly as editor of the Amherst (N.S.) Daily News and read a number of his free-lance pieces on CBC Radio in both Halifax and Moncton.  He has taught at Susquehanna University, Central College, and Queen’s University, where he developed a writing program.  Active in the literary community in Ottawa, where he lived and worked for many years, Jon has facilitated a number of writing- and editing-related workshops for the Ottawa Independent Writers.  His book of essays, Social Studies, was published by Friesen Press of Victoria, B.C. in 2014.  He is also the author of Canadian Industrial Relations, an introductory industrial relations text which ran to three editions after its initial publication by Prentice-Hall Canada in 1999.  He is a professional member of the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia.
For many years, Jon has run his own free-lance writing and editing business, Jon Peirce Editorial Services.  His articles, book reviews, and essays, on a broad range of subjects, have appeared in such periodicals as The Globe & Mail, Old Farmer’s Almanac (Canadian edition), Christian Science Monitor, Books in Canada, Toronto Star, Ottawa Citizen, Winnipeg Free Press, Kingston Whig-Standard, Dalhousie Review, Halifax Magazine, and Halifax Chronicle-Herald.
Jon has taught a number of writing courses as well as a Canadian Literature and Introduction to Poetry course for SCANS over the past few years.  An actor as well as a writer, he has appeared in five plays at Bedford Players, Dartmouth Players, and Theatre Arts Guild.  He’s currently working on two plays (both comedies) as well as a memoir and a second book of essays.
[top]

Allen Penney

​Allen Penney was educated in England, Registered Architect at age 23, 2 years compulsory military service becoming 2nd Lieutenant in Royal Engineers. Worked as an architect in London, Barbados, Washington, DC, Boston, and Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Taught at the AA School of Architecture in London, at University of Cambridge, NSTC, now Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, as a visitor to Universities of Manitoba, Harvard, Pennsylvania.
Member of the ICOMOS Wood Committee and a Research Associate at the Nova Scotia Museum.  Have given talks at Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society, Nova Scotia Museum, Heritage Canada, NS Heritage Department, Heritage Trust, Dalhousie and St Mary’s Universities.
​[top]

Norman Pereira

Norman Pereira is Emeritus Professor of History and Russian Studies at Dalhousie University, where he taught for 36 years. He is the author of three monographs and dozens of articles, as well as numerous reviews and opinion pieces. His research publications have included 19th and 20th century Russian and Soviet History, historiography, and comparative politics. Since retirement from full time university teaching he has been studying the comparative histories of the Abrahamic religions, with particular emphasis on Islam.
[top]

Faye Pickrem

Faye Pickrem taught English Literature and Cultural Studies at Trent University in Peterborough for many years. Faye grew up in Halifax and received her Bachelors and Masters degrees from Dalhousie and Acadia respectively; she has done post-graduate work at the University of London and Strathclyde University, with doctoral studies at York University. In 2006, Faye was nominated for TVO's Best Lecturer in Canada. In addition to renovating a heritage home in Lunenburg, Faye enjoys writing, theatre and film, travel, gardening, and good conversation. She currently divides her time between Lunenburg and Toronto as a communications consultant and writing coach.
[top]

E. Alex Pierce

E. Alex Pierce is the author of Vox Humana, published by Brick Books in 2011. After ten years teaching writing at Cape Breton University (poetry and poetics, playwriting, and composition), she returned to East Sable River to establish E. Alex Pierce Writing & Editing. She is senior editor for Boularderie Island Press, and currently serves as Writer in Residence for the Shelburne County Arts Council’s Mentorship Program. Pierce gives public readings of her work, and conducts manuscript review workshops across Canada. Her MFA (Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing 1997) is from Warren Wilson College, North Carolina. She has participated in the Banff Centre’s Writing Studio and the Sage Hill Poetry Colloquium. Her most recent work appears in the Literary Review of Canada, and she is working on two long poems as the basis for her next collection of poetry. www.ealexpierce.com 
[top]

Nancy Pitts

​Nancy Pitts is trained in food chemistry and analytical chemistry and has a personal interest in nutrition. After doing several years of research and extension work with Alberta Agriculture, she then spent almost 30 years teaching and doing research at NSAC (now the Faculty of Agriculture, Dalhousie University).
​[top]

Jack Potter

Jack Potter has an extensive background in life-long learning and community development. He received his M.A. in English from the University of Waterloo, where he taught creative writing and literature courses, and also at Dalhousie University’s Henson College and Saint Mary’s University. Mr. Potter was a member of the original task force formed by the Dalhousie Retirees Association, which founded SCANS. He has taught courses for SCANS since its origin.
[top]

Catherine Prosser

​Catherine Pross began the study of fungi in her efforts to understand the ecology of Gaff Point, Lunenburg County, and the role fungi play in the health of trees. Her experiences as high school teacher, librarian, and writer, as well as courses taken at the Dalhousie University Biology Department and the Humboldt Research Institute at Eagle Hill, Maine, have helped in this undertaking. She was chair of the Indian Path Common Stewardship Committee for fifteen years, and co-editor of the sold-out book Indian Path Common: Its Flora, Fauna and History.
​[top]

Allan Purdy

​R. Allan Purdy MD, FRCPC, is Professor of Medicine (Neurology) at Dalhousie University. He was Professor and Head of the Department of Medicine, and Chief of the Medicine Service of the Department of Medicine at Dalhousie and Capital Health from 2005 to June of 2011. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada, and was elected a Fellow of the American College of Physicians in 2008. He previously was the Professor and Head of Neurology at Dalhousie from 1994 to 2006. He is a Fellow of the American Headache Society and is the current Past-President of the American Headache Society.  He has numerous teaching awards, publications and over 40 years as a clinical neurologist.
[top]

Mary Lu Redden

Mary Lu Roffey Redden has been a clergy wife for over 30 years.  She has an MA in Philosophy of Religion, was a doctoral candidate in that field and has taught at both the university and community college level.  She has recently retired as director of Halifax Humanities 101, an innovative liberal arts education program offered to adults living on low incomes.  For her work as an advocate for the Humanities, she was recently awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of King’s College, Halifax.
[top]

Cameron Reed

A native of Toronto, Dr. Cameron Reed is the Charles A. Dana Professor (Emeritus) of Physics at Alma College in Michigan. He retired to the Halifax area in 2018 after a 35-year career of teaching and research at universities and colleges in Canada and the United States. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Waterloo in 1984. His research interests have included both astronomy and the history and physics of the Manhattan Project. He has published over 100 articles in scientific journals as well as five  books on the Manhattan Project.
​​[top]

Barnett Richling

Barnett Richling is an anthropologist with longstanding interests in the history of Indigenous peoples of Canada’s arctic and subarctic regions, and in the ever-changing story of human evolution.  Now retired, he is a senior scholar in the Department of Anthropology, University of Winnipeg, and Adjunct Professor at Mount St. Vincent University.
​[top]

Alex Roberts

A native of Yorkshire, England, Alex Roberts taught in Halifax for 28 years (Statistics, Economics and Computer Science). After leaving teaching in 2005, he spent several years as an educational presenter and is now a freelance writer, with over 200 articles published. Hobbies include being a railway buff, coin collecting and cricket. The former co-owner of Entertainment Contacts (booking) Agency, he currently owns and operates The White Rose Cricket Forum. He holds a B.A (Economics), a B.Ed, an M.Ed (Curriculum Theory), and graduate studies (Economics)
[top]

Victoria Rosenberg

Dr. Victoria Rosenberg taught for many years at Dalhousie University and Mount Saint Vincent University. Her particular interest is the work of Henry James and she has lectured and published on his novels. She is currently working on a book on The Book of Psalms, Book One, including English translations of the original Hebrew, keeping true to the literal Hebrew. Her co-translator is Amram Maccabi; hers are the Notes on the translations and Commentaries on each of the 41 Psalms of Book One.
​[top]

Barbara Ross

Barbara Ross has worked in the field of Addictions and Mental health for more than 30 years both in the UK and Canada.  After qualifying and practicing as a RN, Psychiatric Nurse, Midwife and Public Health Nurse, she spent six years providing care and support for people infected and affected by HIV and four years as Team Lead with the Outreach Harm Reduction Team in Dundee, Scotland.  Barbara and her family moved to Calgary, Alberta in 2003 and was employed as a Crisis Counselor with AVENTA Centre of Excellence for Women with Addictions followed by Alberta Health Services as Provincial Harm Reduction Manager until her retirement and move to Nova Scotia in 2016. In partnership with the University of Calgary, Barbara was a guest lecturer on the Masters of Public Health Course at the University of Bugando, Mwanza, Tanzania. Barbara also holds a BA in Community Health Studies, MBA and qualifications in Counselling and Addictions.
​[top]

Sally Ross

Born in Halifax and educated in Canada and France, Sally Ross has been doing research on Acadian history and culture since the 1970s. She co-authored with Alphonse Deveau the prize-winning book The Acadians of Nova Scotia. Her book Les écoles acadiennes en Nouvelle-Écosse 1758-2000 traces the history of public schools in the Acadian regions of Nova Scotia. Her most recent publication is a biography entitled Louis R. Comeau: Portrait of a Remarkable Acadian. She has also written articles and translated books related to Acadian history and culture. She is currently secretary of Les Amis de Grand-Pré and a member of the Commission de l’Odyssée acadienne, which commemorates in a tangible and permanent manner the Deportation of the Acadians.
[top]

Rami Rudnick

Abraham (Rami) Rudnick is a psychiatrist, a certified psychiatric rehabilitation practitioner, a PhD-trained philosopher, and a Professor at Dalhousie University, as well as the Clinical Director of the Nova Scotia Operational Stress Injury Clinic. He trained in Israel and at the University of Toronto, and immigrated to Canada in the mid-2000s. He has worked across Canada as a leader of mental health services and of health research, and he has contributed nationally and internationally to health related organizations. He has published more than a hundred peer reviewed papers and nine books about health, health care and related research, and has been awarded national and international awards for his health related leadership, particularly for his person-centered mental health work.
​[​top]

Christene Sandeson

Early in her art career Christene exhibited her paintings and sandstone carvings regionally, receiving the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation award. She has taken many active roles in art education including that a part-time professor of Art at the former N.S. Teachers College; providing Art Expression programming with Correction Services Canada; producing the televised programming “Secrets of Seeing” with Eastlink TV; and,  teaching Visual Arts 10 – 12 with the Chignecto Central Regional School Board. In addition to private collections her work can be found in notable public collections such as The N.S. Court of Appeal, Institute for Early Childhood Education, and, Isaac Walton Killam Children’s Hospital in Halifax. With the formality of teaching now behind her, Christene has returned to her studio practise. Her current work can be viewed online through Art Bomb or her website www.christenesandesonart.ca
[top]

Heather Schellinck

Heather (MacIntosh) Schellinck is a native of Pictou County who has lived in Halifax for many years. She received a PhD in Experimental Psychology from Dalhousie University in 1995 and subsequently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Sub-Department of Animal Behaviour, University of Cambridge, U.K. She returned to Dalhousie in 1997 to what is now the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience. She taught a variety of psychology and neuroscience courses and coordinated an introductory psychology class of 1000 students each year until she retired in 2013. She also had an active research career and maintained a government funded behavioural neuroscience lab devoted to understanding memory in rodent models of human disorders.
[top]

Tony Schellinck

Tony has always had an interest in astronomy; but it wasn’t until age 55 that he became active as an amateur astronomer. A former Dalhousie professor, he knows that the best way to learn a topic is to teach it. He therefore participates in public viewing sessions around Nova Scotia, has become a regular presenter at the Halifax Planetarium, and has given lectures at parks and libraries around the province. His most recent innovation is his flat screen planetarium show held at the Astor Theatre in Liverpool and the Osprey Arts Centre in Shelburne where he shows people how to observe the night sky using binoculars.
​[top]

Pierre Schmit

Dr. Pierre Schmit MD is a former Paris (France) University Hospital resident: he worked for three years under Pr Cl. Fauré in Paris (France) during which his interest and orientation developed in pediatric imaging and more specifically musculoskeletal imaging. He, then successively worked as a staff pediatric radiologist in two other university hospitals in Paris. He was also involved in a pediatric imaging private practice.
​
Finally, he landed in Halifax in January 2006 and since has worked as a staff radiologist at the IWK until he retired in December 2020. He was head of the IWK Diagnostic Imaging department for 5 years and promoted to Professor in Radiology on July 2018.
He has been a guest lecturer at 23 radiology international conferences, 42 national and 13 local ones. He has presented over 100 scientific presentations in both French and English. He has authored 57 peer reviewed articles and 18 radiology textbook chapters
​[top]

Jamie Simpson

Jamie Simpson is a lawyer, forester and writer based in Ferguson’s Cove, Nova Scotia.  He is an advocate for progressive forestry practices and environmental rights for Nova Scotians.  He has written two best-selling books about our native forests, and he is honoured to have received several awards for his environmental advocacy, including the Elizabeth May Award for Environmental Service.  He has worked for the Ecology Action Centre and the East Coast Environmental Law Association, and currently runs a general and environmental law legal practice: www.juniperlaw.ca.​.
[top]

Vladimir Sitnikov

Before Vladimir - professional musician for more than 20 years - made Canada his new home, he mastered his guitar and composition in Russia. A prize winner of an international classical guitar competition, he graduated from Rostov State Conservatory and toured across Europe with the Bis Band, as well as a solo player.
In Canada Vladimir continued his musical career. He has released CD's "Classical and Jazz Compositions for Guitar", "Bossanova Live and More" and "Back To The Future". Has been teaching music at Talent Studio, Kingsview Academy and SCANS in Halifax and Ontario Conservatory in Toronto, performing with such bands as Maderaz, Lady Son, Bossanova and many more at venues and festivals all across Canada, including Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto and Maritime Museum and Dalhousie University in Halifax, writing songs and arrangements. He appeared on award winning records such as Reflection's "Stress Less" and Lady Son's "Semillas", TV and radio stations including CBC. Currently, Vladimir is the musical director of The Shining Lights Choir - a community choir for homeless and disabled people as well as the host of weekly classical music program From Bach To Beatles on CIOE 97.5 FM radio station, both in Halifax, NS.
With Maderaz Latin Music Vladimir performed around 100 educational shows per year in schools across Ontario as a part of Prologue To The Performing Arts for ten years, collaborating with such children performers as Lois, Sharon and Bram, Jack Grunsky, Eric Nagler, Balet Creole.
​[top]

Angus Smith

Angus Smith recently retired after 30 years in the Canadian intelligence community, a career that included work on Latin America, the Middle East, Russia and Eastern Europe, police corruption, organized crime, terrorism and national security.
Angus currently lives on the South Shore of Nova Scotia where he keeps bees and writes for a variety of publications including The Jewish Review of Books, Rural Delivery and The Police Chief.​
​[top]

Tom Smith

Rev. Tom Smith B.A., B.Ed. was born, raised and educated in Halifax. His professional career began as a post secondary administrator at Saint Mary's University and the College of Trades and Technology, St. John's Newfoundland. He was an elementary school teacher and Principal in Halifax for 28 years retiring in 2004. He was ordained a Deacon of the Roman Catholic Church in 1990 serving parishes in Fairview and Bedford. He has been married to Rose Marie for the past 43 year and they have raised and are raising 15 children. He has presented courses in creative writing at the parish in Bedford.
[top]

Sid Sodhi

 S.S. (Sid) Sodhi worked as a teacher, lecturer, and Manpower Officer in India before immigrating to Canada. From 1961-1965, he was a high school teacher in Alberta, and from 1965 to 1966, he served as a guidance counselor in Alberta College, Edmonton. From 1968-1970, he was an Assistant Professor of Counselling and Guidance at Memorial University, St. John’s, Newfoundland. From 1970-1993, he was Professor of Special Education and Counseling at Dalhousie University. S.S. Sodhi continues to be a practicing registered psychologist in Halifax.
[top]

John Stackhouse

John Stackhouse taught at NSAC/Dalhousie University from 1975 to 2018. He was a Professor of Agricultural Economics and Agri-Food Business. He has taught in a number of areas including but not limited to: microeconomic and macroeconomic theory, agricultural/economic policy, mathematical economics, mathematical program modelling, operations management, logistics, statistics, statistical modelling, financial accounting, managerial accounting, marketing and finance. He was involved in a number of different research projects in the public and private sectors that drew upon his academic, professional and personal experiences. He was also part of an International Management team involved in curriculum development, administration, and delivering a dual degree program in International Food Business with NSAC’s partner university, Dronten CAH ( now Ares University) in the Netherlands. He held the dual appointment as first Director of Academic Computing Services at NSAC. In that position he was responsible for organizing, delivering, and coordinating computing services to the campus before returning full time to his academic appointment. In the private sector, at different times he was a co-owner of Costabyte Computers PLC with Dr. John Cook, delivering systems to dental offices in The Maritimes as well as Director of JB Stackhouse and Associates, a Computer Consulting Partnership providing services to different businesses in Nova Scotia
​[top]

Colin Starnes

Dr. Colin Starnes, on graduating from Bishop’s University in 1963, won a Rockefeller Fellowship and studied theology for three years at Harvard. After a two year interlude fishing lobsters from his own boat on the South Shore, he took an MA in Religious Studies at McGill and a PhD in Classics at Dalhousie where he taught until retirement. Between 1993 and 2003, Colin served as the president and Vice Chancellor of Kings’ College where he had started teaching in the Foundation Year Programme (FYP) from its inception in 1972. After retiring in 2003, he organized and taught a version of FYP for the mostly professional parents of his former students. He still teaches a not-for–credit, but free, version of FYP to marginalized adults who never had the opportunity to attend university.
[top]

Virginia Stephen

Virginia Stephen has recently returned to Nova Scotia and is excited to be living in Lunenburg and to becoming involved in the community while building on her art and consulting practices.

Previously Executive Director, Liberal Studies, Faculty of Extension at University of Alberta Virginia Stephen brings to her practice over 40 years of experience as an arts educator, museum educator, and senior arts administrator. She was as Acting Director of the Arts and cultural Management Program at MacEwan where she taught Museum/Gallery Management, Human Resources and advocacy for several years. She was Deputy Director (Head of Programs and curator of Education) of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and Executive Director of the Edmonton Art Gallery. As an educator, artist, writer and curator her focus has been to facilitate individual and group interaction with art to enrich ways of knowing, ways of interacting with the world and other people, and ways to achieve innovation with students, adults, and corporate groups. She has worked and presented across Canada and been guest speaker at education, museum, healthcare, and leadership conferences and symposia in the United States and Europe. She has written exhibition catalogues and books for museum audiences of all ages and contributed to arts education and museum periodicals, anthologies and peer reviewed journals in Canada and the United States.
​
Ms Stephen holds an MA in Visual and Performing Arts Education and undergraduate degrees in both art history and arts education. In 2003 she was the only Canadian participant in the prestigious Getty Leadership Institute’s ‘Museum Leadership Institute’. As a consultant, her client list includes the Government of Alberta (Alberta Education, Alberta Foundation for the Arts and Arts Branch of Community Development), MacEwan College and individual clients. She is a creativity facilitator for the Leadership Development and Aboriginal Leadership Development departments at The Banff Centre. Current areas of interest and exploration are the arts in healthcare, and curatorial and art museum education theory and practice as personal growth and competency building modalities for leadership development.
​[top]

John Stone

Born and raised in Nova Scotia, John Stone was an educator in the province for fifty-three years. He earned degrees from King’s (BA, Classics), Dalhousie (MA, Classics), University of Alberta (BEd.) and the University of British Columbia (MEd.) and was a Fellow at The Atlantic Institute of Education. He taught at the secondary (primarily junior high), undergraduate and graduate levels and served as teacher, vice-principal, principal, and provincial (Nova Scotia) curriculum consultant. His assignments were always in the social sciences, his core focus being the role of archaeology and historiography in the teaching of history. His teaching methods embraced the learner-centered classroom and he felt his major responsibility to his students was to have fun, expose them to the richness and excitement of the human experience. to think critically, and to facilitate their passage, with confidence, into their own next chapters.
​[top]

Hilda Taylor

Hilda Taylor obtained a BSc from the University of Liverpool and a PhD from the University of Waterloo. After moving to Wolfville in 1971 she taught a variety of courses in the Biology Department at Acadia University. Her research interests were mycological, in particular mycorrhizal fungi associated with the vascular plants of the salt marsh. For several years she ran the Scanning Electron Microscopy unit. She was active in several organizations involved with equity matters, and served on the CAUT Status of Women Committee.
[top]

Geraldine Thomas

Geraldine Thomas was a long-time (1969-2007) faculty member at Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, in the Department of Modern Languages and Classics, where she taught Classics courses, including Greek and Roman History, Latin, the History of Ancient Art, and Women in Antiquity. She has published in Classics and on the Greek community in the Maritime Provinces. For several years she was Chair of the Department at Saint Mary’s and later the first Associate Dean of Arts. She has won various teaching awards including one at Saint Mary’s, an Atlantic Regional Award for Instructional Leadership as well as a National 3M Award for Teaching. In the last two years she taught courses on Women in Ancient Greece and Rome for SCANS and has also given lectures to the ElderLearners and Halifax Humanities groups. She is currently the President of the Saint Mary’s University Retirees’ Association and serves on the national executive of CURAC (Canadian University Retirees’ Association) where she is the Board Committee Chair. She has traveled frequently in Europe and in the Middle East, having visited most of the lands associated with ancient Mediterranean societies. Her most recent trip took her as far as India, Oman, Jordan and Israel.
[top]

Alec Tilley

Alec Tilley is a teacher, composer and musician. During his 34 years as a secondary music specialist with the Halifax Regional School Board, he taught at Queen Elizabeth High School, conducted the QEH String Ensemble and all three of the school’s choirs as well as directed over 20 full Broadway productions. He conducted the Halifax Schools’ Symphony Orchestra for over two decades, and was Double Bass instructor for many years. As Choir Director at St. Andrew’s United Church, he directed three choirs and led a busy music program.
Since his retirement, he has been Choir Director at St. George’s Round Church, Double Bass player with Chebucto Symphony Orchestra, Electric Bass player and back-up vocalist with the bands “Runaway” and “Comeback”, conductor of Messiah from Scratch (2008-2010), and Double Bass player in the Morningside Jazz Trio. He has also composed and arranged a number of new works, including two masses and a number of motets and anthems for the Senior Choir of the Cathedral Church of All Saints, Halifax, where he is a regular choir member. 
[top]

Vladimir Tobin

Vincent Vladimir Tobin was a member of the faculty of Saint Mary's University from 1965 to 2005. He holds graduate degrees in Classics, Theology, and a PhD in Egyptology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is proficient in a number of ancient and modern languages, and has taught a variety of courses over the years. He has published widely in the fields of Egyptology, myth, Egyptian thought and literature, and Orthodox Christian theology, and has presented numerous papers at Egyptological conferences in both North America and Israel. Although retired from the regular active life, he is very active in the SSEA (a Canadian society for the study of ancient Egypt). He is also an Orthodox priest and pastor of St. Vladimir's Orthodox Church in Halifax.
[top]

Herb Vandermeulen

Dr. Herb Vandermeulen is a retired marine habitat ecologist from the Bedford Institute of Oceanography. He competed his doctoral thesis on Colpomenia (a brown seaweed) at the University of British Columbia.
​​[top]

Fred Vaughan

Fred Vaughan was born in Halifax and received his PhD in Political Science from the University of Chicago. Before retirement he taught at the Royal Military College in Kingston and the Political Science Department at the University of Guelph, during which time and since, he has been the author of many books and articles. Along with James G. Snell, he has authored the first full history of the Supreme Court of Canada. He has also written two judicial biographies: Aggressive in Pursuit: the Life of Justice Emmett Hall and Viscount Haldane: 'The Wicked Stepfather of the Canadian Constitution' as well as other books on the judicial development of the Canadian constitution. He is currently completing a book on the Court tentatively titled: "Judicial Progressivism in the Supreme Court of Canada.” He has taught several courses in the SCANS program since its inception and served on the Board of Directors. He also taught the first course given in Chester in 2012. 
[top]

Lynette Wahlstrom

Lynette Wahlstrom is a Collaborative Pianist and Vocal Coach at Dalhousie University Department of Music, as well as Music Director at First Baptist Church Halifax, and Accompanist for Halifax Camerata Singers. She plays regularly for Nova Scotia Choral Federation, Opera Nova Scotia, Halifax Summer Opera Festival, and has recently completed a Maritime tour with National Youth Choir, with conductor Hilary Apfelstadt. Lynette has worked as Collaborative Pianist under the batons of Jakub Martinec, Caron Daley, Jeff Joudrey, Julian Wachner, Robert Ingari, and Patricia Abbott, as well as the studio classes of Sanford Sylvan, Lucy Hayes-Davis, Greg Servant and Marcia Swanston, placing her in demand as repetiteur, coach and accompanist. Lynette holds a Bachelor of Music from Brandon University, Licentiate Diploma and Master's of Accompaniment from McGill University, mentored by Michael McMahon, and a Master's of Piano Performance from Université de Montréal. She is active on the Boards of Opera Nova Scotia, Early Music Society of Nova Scotia, and RCCO (Royal Canadian College of Organists) Halifax.  
[top]

Glenn Walton

Glenn Walton is an award-winning filmmaker, journalist, musician and teacher. His first film, The Room at the Back, won the Best Short Film award at the Atlantic Film Festival in 1990, and his latest, Chamberpiece, won the Best Actor Award at the same festival. In 2002-04 Glenn wrote a popular column for The Daily News, and as musician he has recently composed and produced the CD soundtrack to his play If I Were a Blackbird. He is presently writing a musical staging of his favourite children’s book, The Wind in the Willows. Professor Glenn spends much of his free time teaching English Literature at Saint Mary’s University, a job he enjoys more and more each year
​[top]

Yongmei Wang

Yongmei Wang moved to Halifax from China in 2008.  Previously, she studied at the University of Newcastle in the United Kingdom and graduated with a Masters Degree in Cross Cultural Communication and International Management. She taught English related classes, and Cross Cultural Management at Jinling Institute of Technology in Nanjing, China. She also worked at Huawei Technology as a Training Specialist where she trained managers who were working in European, African and Oceania countries managing multicultural teams. After she came to Halifax, she worked as a teaching assistant with ISANS, the Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia. She also taught Chinese Culture and tutored Chinese Language at Dalhousie University. With the knowledge and experience she acquired studying, living and working in different countries she can bring an international perspective to her classes.
​​[top]

Phil Warman

Dr. Warman has a PhD degree in Soil Biochemistry from the University of Guelph. In the 1970s, he was an organic fruit and vegetable farmer near Tavistock, Ontario and Rigaud, Quebec; since 1982, he has researched the use of various organic amendments at his property in Nova Scotia. He is the second recipient of NSAC’s Lifetime Research Award (1997). Dr. Warman is author or co-author of more than 105 peer-reviewed scientific and technical papers and over 20 technical reports including over 50 papers on compost and composting. He has taught "Compost Science and its Utilization" since 1993 to undergraduate & graduate students, extension personnel and technicians both here in NS and internationally. Dr. Warman is the President and CEO of Coastal BioAgresearch Ltd. (CBA), a federally incorporated research and development company. Through CBA, he was Co-Chair of the International Composting Symposium held in September 1999 and Co-Editor of the Proceedings of the Symposium published in 2000. He is now Adjunct Professor at Dalhousie and McGill University where he supervises post-graduate students and instructs graduate modules.
[top]

Kit Waters

Kit Waters retired from the Nova Scotia Department of Justice after 30 years in the criminal justice policy field.  Over the past ten years she has taught a number of criminology courses at Saint Mary’s University.  She is the Past President of the Nova Scotia Criminal Justice Association and the President of the John Howard Society of Nova Scotia.
​[top]

Gary Welch

 A native of California, Gary Welch immigrated to Halifax in 1974 to help found the astronomy program at Saint Mary's University. He is now Professor Emeritus in the Department of Astronomy and Physics. During his career at Saint Mary's Dr. Welch used telescopes in space and on earth to help understand the properties of galaxies. He taught courses ranging from introductory astronomy for freshman arts majors to specialty topics for post-graduate students. He also found time to give a large number of presentations to Metro area secondary schools as part of the Dalhousie University program Scientists and Innovators in the Schools.
[top]

Philip Welch

Dr. Welch is a medical graduate from the University of Edinburgh. He was awarded a Research Fellowship at John Hopkins earning a Ph.D. in Human Genetics. He was the first medical geneticist to locate in Atlantic Canada and initiated a Cytogenetics Laboratory in the IWK Children’s Hospital where he served as Director for over 20 years. He is the recipient of the Founders Award for Excellence in Medical Genetics from the Canadian College of Medical Geneticists. 
[top]

Hugh Williamson

Hugh R Williamson an adjunct professor with a Marine Affairs Program at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. He is a lawyer with a background in Law of the Sea, ocean resources management, naval intelligence, maritime security and enforcement and integrated maritime management issues. He is also a senior research fellow of the Mari-time and Environmental Law Institute at the Schulich School of Law, and the Interna-tional Ocean Institute. He has consulted extensively on fisheries and ocean management in the South Pacific and Caribbean. In addition to Dalhousie University, he was on the faculty of the World Maritime University in Malmo, Sweden, the University of the South Pacific, in Fiji where he directed the ocean resources management program, and the Uni-versity of Papua New Guinea faculty of law. He also had a lengthy career in the Royal Canadian Naval Reserve, where he served as a diving officer, naval intelligence officer, and naval control of shipping officer, commanding NCS Unit three. He lectured exten-sively in the Canadian naval fleet schools on the law of the sea, law of armed conflict, maritime law, law of intelligence and law of naval operations.
[top]

Marjorie Willison

Marjorie Willison is a well-known CBC radio gardener and author, with an undergraduate Diploma in Occupational Therapy (Alberta), an M.Sc. in Ecology (Dalhousie), and a background in community development. She is currently pursuing a graduate level Certificate in Aging and Continuing Care through Dalhousie’s School of Occupational Therapy.
[top]

Martin Willison

Martin Willison is a retired Dalhousie University professor currently appointed as an Adjunct Professor at the university. He attended St. Andrews University (B.Sc. 1966), Nottingham University (Ph.D. 1973) and Dalhousie University (Killam Post-doctoral Fellow, 1974-1976, Microbiology Department). In 1976 he was appointed as an Assistant Professor in the Biology Department at Dalhousie University and subsequently held a wide range of appointments including Biology Department chairperson (1991-1996).  He held academic appointments at the Full Professor level in Biology (Faculty of Science), School for Resource and Environmental Studies (Faculty of Management), International Development Studies (Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences) and Marine Management Program (Faculty of Graduate Studies).
[top]

Alan Wilson

Dr. Wilson earned a B.A. in English in 1948, an M.A. in History in 1950 from Dalhousie University and a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 1959. He taught at Acadia, Western and Trent universities. Dr. Wilson was the Founding Chair, History & Canadian Studies, at Trent. He has published 3 books and has a fourth in press. He has published over 50 articles and lectured in Canada, US, Mexico, England, Scotland, France and the Soviet Union.
[top]

Rex Woollard

Rex Woollard has been involved in teaching for over 30 years, most recently, teaching students at Algonquin College and Carleton University in Ottawa. In the private sector, he has developed Computer-Based Training (CBT) systems that have been used by corporations, government agencies and individuals around the world:

• Corporations: Nortel, IBM, Prentice-Hall, Waite Group Press, Addison-Wesley, McGraw-Hill.
• Government Agencies: CIDA, Canada Post, Canadian Army, Canadian Air Force.
• Individuals: Nearly 100,000 individuals who purchased the CBT material distributed by the publishers listed above.

Following his retirement, his wife and he have purchased a property on the South Shore, and are now setting down new roots.
​[top]

Alan Young

Alan Young came to Canada in 1967 to teach English at Simon Fraser University. Later he taught for almost thirty years at Acadia University. After taking early retirement in 1998, he taught Shakespeare courses online for a further ten years. He has published extensively on English Renaissance literature, and Shakespeare in particular.
[top]

G. Frederick Young

G. Frederick Young is a Professor Emeritus in the History Department of Saint Mary’s University. During his career his interest has been mostly in European history since Napoleon, with a research interest primarily in German history in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, he has latterly become captivated by Polish history, regretting that that country’s history has been, during the bulk of his lifetime, generally overlooked and neglected in consequence of Poland being a ‘communist country’ behind the Iron Curtain. But Poland was the cockpit of the 20th century: where Bolshevism and Fascism confronted each other, overran each other, and sought to annihilate each other. Consequently its history ought to be much better known.
[top]

Marty Zelenietz

Marty Zelenietz trained as a socio-cultural anthropologist at the University of Manitoba and McMaster University, receiving his Ph.D. in 1980.  His fieldwork with the Kilenge people of Papua New Guinea in the late 1970s and early 1980s enabled him to write scholarly papers on a wide range of subjects including contemporary development, sorcery, the impact of the Second World War, kinship and social organization, and more.  Marty retired from Saint Mary’s University in 2017, after three and a half decades of teaching at several Maritime universities and the University of Papua New Guinea.
​[top]

Joel Zemel

Joel Zemel has been a musician/guitarist for 45 years. During this time, he has worked in various venues with numerous musicians: concerts, radio, television, recording production, documentary filmmaking and theatre. Musically, his interests cover most genres but are mainly in the area of jazz. He is also an historical researcher, an award-winning author and book editor for a local publishing company. He has always enjoyed teaching, whether it involves instruction of the guitar itself or the rich history of 20th century music.
[top]

Marcos Zentilli

Born and educated in Chile, Marcos Zentilli completed a doctorate at Queen’s University, Kingston, and decided to stay in Canada. After working as exploration geologist in Newfoundland, Dr. Zentilli joined Dalhousie University in 1973, where he taught and, together with numerous students, carried out geoscience research specializing in rock dating methods, mainly in the Andes mountains, onshore and offshore Atlantic Canada and lately in the Canadian Arctic. There is a Zentilli volcano in the high Andes, named in recognition of his earlier work in the area. Retired from Dalhousie as Emeritus Professor, he remains active doing geoscience research and as international consultant.

In 2023, Zentilli was awarded the Professor Juan Brüggen Medal of the College of Geologists of Chile.  Read his acceptance speech here.
[top]