Professor Amelia Clarke
Dr. Amelia Clarke has been working on environment and sustainability issues since 1989, including as President of Sierra Club Canada (2003-2006), the first Director of the University of Waterloo's Master of Environment and Business degree (2009-2018) and the Associate Dean Research for the Faculty of Environment (2018-2022). She is now a Full Professor in the School of Environment, Enterprise and Development (SEED) at the University of Waterloo.
Dr. Amelia Clarke is the co-creator and principal investigator of the Youth & Innovation Project. At the age of 23, Amelia founded the Sierra Youth Coalition, a national youth environmental group. Now, she has an active research program on youth impact (the Youth & Innovation Project), and a second large research program on climate mitigation in cities (Municipal Net-Zero Action Research Partnership). She also has over 100 publications and has made hundreds of presentations to academic and non-academic audiences. She holds a PhD in Management from McGill University.
Professor Ana Ferrer
Dr. Ferrer graduated from Boston University in 1999 and is currently associate Dean of Research in the Faculty of Arts and professor of Economics at the University of Waterloo. She is an external Research Fellow at the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM) at the University College of London, and an IZA Research Fellow since 2017. She holds different service roles in the Economics Community as founding director of the Canadian Labour Economics Forum (CLEF) - where she continues to serve as member of the Board – and currently as the Secretary of the Canadian Economic Association (CEA).
Dr. Ferrer’s research focuses on labour markets, with an emphasis on immigration and family outcomes, and the intersection of both fields. She focuses on Canadian issues and makes extensive use of Canadian data through the Research Data Centre Network.
Professor Heather Lawford
Dr. Lawford is a Canada Research Chair in Youth Development, Director and founding faculty of the Knowledge Mobilization Graduate Certificate, and a professor in the Psychology Department at Bishop’s University. She also serves as Co-Director of Research at the Centre for Excellence in Youth Engagement at the Students Commission of Canada. In 2024 she was also named a 3M National Teaching Fellow in recognition of her educational leadership. Her research focuses on early generativity, that is, how young people are motivated to care for future generations. Further, her knowledge mobilization work focuses on how youth-serving organizations can create space for young people to engage with and shape their legacies of lasting and meaningful change.