Eve Blouin-Hudon, PhD, is a positive psychologist and expert on creativity and imagination. She is a university instructor at Carleton University in the Department of Psychology, where she teaches courses on creativity, play, and innovation. She is also the founder of Bevy Creative, a consulting agency delivering evidence-based workshops, talks, and one-on-one tools to both individuals and organizations.

Elaine Kicknosway is Wolf Clan, originally from Northern Saskatchewan, and a member of Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation. She is a survivor of the 60’s scoop era and returned home in the mid 1990’s back to her community. She is a singer, women’s traditional dancer, participant in ceremonies and ongoing learner. Elaine supports and helps within drumming circles, ceremonies, talking circles, discussion related to intergenerational impacts of residential schools and how child welfare has impacted the family today. She has been within ceremony life since returning home in her 20’s. She has been a blanket exercise facilitator and trainer for the past 7 years. She is the co-founder of the National Survivors of Child Welfare.

Stephen Legari holds a Master’s in Creative Arts Therapies from Concordia University and a Master’s in Couple and Family therapy from the School of Social Work of McGill University. Legari is Program Officer for art therapy at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. This comprehensive museum-based program creates specialized projects for diverse groups including neuro a-typical adults, adults with disabilities and those living with long term illness, trauma, and grief. Legari is in constant search of new ways for the fine arts to be a source of connection and recovery.

JP Longboat is a Storyteller, Multi-disciplinary Artist. He is Mohawk, Turtle Clan from Six Nations of the Grand River, Southern Ontario. JP has a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree through combined education at the University of Michigan and the Ontario College of Art and Design. He has extensive professional training and practice in traditional and contemporary forms of visual art and live performance.

Max Montalvo, MD, is an award-winning visual artist and a practicing emergency room physician in Kingston, Ontario.  He has directed and produced music videos for various Canadian musicians, most notably The Tragically Hip, earning the Much Music best rock/alternative video award for the band’s single ‘In A World Possessed By The Human Mind’ (2017).  Further collaboration with the Hip produced the short film ‘Raspoutine’, an inside-the-studio look at the band’s album recording process and ‘161!’, an online visual poem that explores human perception. Montalvo directed his first feature length film, ‘El Payo’ (2009), a documentary chronicling the tragic story of David Phillips, an obscure and influential non-gypsy guitarist who spawned a vibrant flamenco culture still thriving across Canada.  The documentary received the People’s Choice award at the Bay Street Film Festival (2010) and the Royal Reel Award at the Canada International Film Festival (2010).

Montalvo blends his passion for the arts with his role as a physician.  He is actively involved in the use of visual art, film and sound in medical education, creating a series of short films that have been used in the Faculty of Emergency Medicine at Queen’s.  Several medical conferences have featured his workshops, guiding participants in the use of the short-film genre as a novel method of medical teaching. Montalvo appeared as a guest on CBC’s White Coat Black Art in the episode ‘Where art and medicine meet’.

Allison Morehead, PhD, Associate Professor of Art History and Cultural Studies at Queen’s University, studies the links between modern art and the medicalization of modern life. Her pedagogical practice, including work in the critical medical humanities, emphasizes first-person encounters and interactions with things in the world, both art and non-art.

Melissa Smith is the Assistant Curator of Community Programs at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Her responsibilities include inclusive public programs for adults and accessibility advocacy. Motivated by a sustained commitment to exploring the unique relationship between art and audiences, Smith was awarded the Royal Ontario Museum Visitor Engagement Award in 2014 and one of Smith’s AGO programs was awarded the 2016 People’s Choice for Quality Improvement by the City of Toronto Long Term Care Homes and Services. She holds a Master of Arts in Art History from Western University and a Masters of Museum Studies from the University of Toronto. She is also a Sessional Instructor in the Inclusive Design Graduate Program at OCADU and sits on the Board of Directors at the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre.

Savneet Talwar, Ph.D., ATR- BC, Professor, is a Professor and the Chair of the graduate art therapy and counseling program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She received her PhD in American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD in 2010 and her MA in art therapy from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, IL in 1992.  Savneet is a founding member of the Critical Pedagogy in the Arts Therapies think tank. Her current research examines feminist politics and pedagogy, critical theories of difference, social justice and questions of resistance.  Using an interdisciplinary approach, she is interested in community-based art practices; cultural trauma; performance art and public cultures as they relate to art therapy practice and pedagogy. Talwar is the author of Art Therapy for Social Justice: Radical Intersection and has published in Arts in Psychotherapy, Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, and contributed several book chapters in edited volumes.  She is also the founder of the CEW (Creatively Empowered Women) Design Studio, a craft, sewing, and fabrication enterprise for Bosnian and South Asian women at the Hamdard Center in Chicago. She is the past Associate Editor of Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association (2015-2018).

Janis Timm-Bottos, PhD, ATR-BC, PT, is the founder and director of the Art Hives Initiative (http://www.arthives.org/). She promotes arts-based social inclusion through the development of neighborhood and institutional third spaces of mutual care for all ages, along with specialized studios for groups requiring support to regain their participation in society. A former physical therapist, Timm-Bottos is an art therapist, associate professor in the Faculty of Fine Arts and the primary investigator for an interdisciplinary FRQ-SC engAGE Living Lab Mall project with and for older adults. The Art Hives Network is an open source online community connecting 190 Art Hives worldwide.