Facilitators

Beth Sandore Namachchivaya is University Librarian at the University of Waterloo. As a member of the University’s senior leadership team, she provides overall leadership for over 100 staff in several library facilities for the delivery of library information services that support over 41,000 students, faculty, and staff at Canada's most innovative university. Prior to her appointment at Waterloo, she was Associate Dean, Associate University Librarian for Research, and Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Kevin George is Cree/Potawatomi, Fish Clan, from Kettle and Stony Point First Nation with matrilineal family on Fort McMurray 468 First Nation on Treaty 8 territory. Kevin enjoys a relational approach as an engaged Indigenous community member, facilitator and advisor, rooted in traditional knowledge and culture. In addition to his responsibilities in the community, he is currently the Associate Director, Indigenous Initiatives at the University of Waterloo Libraries.

Dorothy Hadfield was first introduced to archival work as a Waterloo English undergrad, when she spent her final co-op work term working with archivist Jane Britton to catalogue the photos documenting the University's early construction. Her subsequent graduate work on feminist theatre historiography gave her a chance to encounter archival collections from the research side and hooked her on the thrill of feeling that tangible connection with history. She now incorporates archival research into some of the courses she teaches in the English program at Waterloo so that students get to experience that same sense of curiosity and wonder about the past lives of authors and their texts.

Carter Neal is an Associate Professor in the School of Critical and Creative Humanities, where he teaches courses in first-year communication, rhetoric and American literature. At the University of Waterloo, most of his teaching is with the University Communications Requirement, which includes courses in rhetoric for students in the Faculties of Science, Engineering and Arts. The rest of his teaching and research focuses on interpersonal relationships, including the philosophy and lived realities of friendship and race in the long nineteenth century.

Melissa Eden is a Masters student at the University of Waterloo in the Tri-University History Graduate program, expected completion September 2026. She completed her Honours BA with a History major and Legal Studies minor at Waterloo in 2025. She is the grateful recipient of the IODE’s 2025-2026 Gladys Raiter Bursary and Waterloo’s Dan Watt Scholarship. Her current studies focus is on gender viewed through an intersectional, feminist lens in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in countries with a British colonial history.

Wendy Liu is a Master’s candidate in Classical Studies who has been working with the Edgar William Pyke coin collection since 2022. Her work has focused on creating updated catalogue records for coins from the Roman Republic period.

Event Support

Graham Yeates is an administrative assistant at the University of Waterloo Libraries. He helps coordinate event registration. If you have questions about this event, please contact him at libevents@uwaterloo.ca.