Miglena S. Todorova was born in Sofia, Bulgaria. She earned her Ph.D. in American Studies at the University of Minnesota, United States. Miglena’s training and experience cross both the social sciences and the humanities as she specializes in interdisciplinary studies of race/ethnicity, immigration and globalization. Miglena also specializes in qualitative methods of research and analysis. Since 2003, Todorova has taught courses at the University of Minnesota and Sofia University, Bulgaria. Her publications include “Imagining In-between Peoples Across the Atlantic” in the Journal of Historical Sociology (2006) and a chapter in Akau, Erickson and Pierce, eds. Feminist Generations: Life Stories from the Academy (2007).
Miglena moved to Canada in 2009. She has worked in several community research projects in Toronto, including the Local Immigration Partnership in Etobicoke and research on ethno-racial data collection practices for the Colour of Poverty. Miglena also contributes to the Bulgarian National Radio monthly programs on Canadian foreign policy, society and culture.
Miglena Todorova is the Lead Researcher of the Community Consultations held by the Intohealth Partnership. She is responsible for conducting and administering community consultations, method design and application, as well as qualitative analysis of the data gathered from the community consultations. Miglena also provides support and training to her fellow community researchers in the project.
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Raluca Bejan was born and raised in Romani. She lived and worked in Malta before moving to Canada in 2005. Raluca has a B.A in Political Sciences from Lucian Blaga University in Sibiu, Romania and a Diploma in Social Service Work from George Brown College, Toronto. Currently, Raluca is enrolled in the Master of Social Work (M.S.W) program at the University of Toronto. Her research interests are in the areas of immigration, health promotion and organizational change. Her publication record includes “Policy without Practice: Barriers to Enrollment for Non-Status Immigrant Students in Toronto’s Catholic Schools” and “A Recovery- Free Zone: The Toronto Bulletin,” Social Planning Toronto (2010).
Raluca Bejan provided research consulting services for the Intohealth- Healthy Communities Partnership with a particular focus on the Network Mapping research project. She also assisted with the administration of the Network Mapping survey and conducted follow up calls and emails to achieve a higher rate of survey participation. In addition, Raluca facilitated and co-facilitated focus groups with the Arab Community Centre and Parkdale Community Health Centre and performed data coding and analysis.
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Ziya Alsayyed was born in Palestine but moved to Canada recently. Ziya speaks Arabic and English. She holds a Bachelor Degree in Geology and Environment and is currently enrolled in Master’s program in Spatial Analysis. Ziya also has two years of experience in geological experiment- rock testing, soil testing, filed mapping- and sample preparation. Her hobbies include sport exercising and cooking.
Ziya facilitated two focus groups, created reports, coded data from the community consultations, designed Access Tool for food survey and assisted in the design of the project’s website.
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Katherine Smith was born and raised in Toronto and Newmarket, England. She holds a Master’s Degree in Public Health Sciences from the University of Toronto with a specialty in Community Health and Epidemiology. During her Master’s studies, she focused on understanding the relationship between mental health, immigration status and income level, work which was published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health. She currently works as a consultant focusing on population profiles and health equity research and as a Research Coordinator at the Centre for Research on Inner City Health at St. Michael’s Hospital.
Katherine developed a series of population health profiles for the Intohealth Community Picture.
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Sivajini Sivasamy has completed her honours degree in psychology and is currently pursuing certification in Human Resources Management. She is originally from Sri Lanka and speaks Tamil. Sivajini is passionate about issues facing immigrants and newcomers, community outreach (especially at risk South Asian population) and helping others. She helped facilitate focus groups and helped in data coding and demographic data input.
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Shiraz Nasr is a GIS and spatial analyst. She earned her Master in Spatial Analysis from Ryerson University. She is interested in applying GIS tools to reveal trends and inter-relationships in tabular data to allow policy makers easily visualize problems related to public health. She has a published peer reviewed article in Cartography and Geographic Information Science. She is of a Palestinian origin.
Shiraz’s work in the Intohealth project includes preparing maps and GIS analysis to identify priority areas for accessibility to healthy food stores in Toronto city. She also conducted community outreach and contributed to planning and decision making.
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Hodari Reuben Newton Clarke graduated from York University with a Bachelors Degree in Psychology and Social Political Thought in 2008. Hodari is interested in holistic health, art-based therapy, community development and community advocacy He has experience working as a community health worker and has partnered with several community organizations throughout Toronto. Hodari helped in developing the youth outreach strategy and facilitated youth focus groups for Intohealth.
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Alexander Lovell is a community researcher with several years experience utilizing GIS and statistical analyses in research on population health, human services evaluation and immigration and settlement. Alex is currently a Ph.D. Candidate in Geography at Queen’s University, where his research examines the impact of Canadian-Caribbean ethnic economies on trade in the Caribbean. His recent projects include contribution to a study of the well-being of children and families on the priority list for housing in Hamilton, Belleville and Peterborough done for the CMHC National Housing Research Committee Working Group on Homelessness; a study on the impact of the Places to Grow Act on human services costs in the Region of Peel; and a study on the housing needs of immigrants in Windsor.
As Intohealth Researcher, Alex facilitated focus groups, undertook the demographic profiles of community participants and the analysis of the Living with Disability Survey.
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Dona Ransirini Panditharatne is from Sri Lanka. She and her family settled in Canada two years ago. Dona has Attorney-at- law Diploma from Sri Lanka and a Diploma in Human Resource Management from the UK. Her areas of specialization are employment law, industrial relations and human resource management. Dona also has over 16 years of experience in employment relations, international labour standards and conventions of the ILO, as well as industrial relations and collective bargaining. Her hobbies are travelling, classical music & jazz, Yoga and spirituality. Dona speaks English, Sinhalese and Tamil.
Dona’s work for Intohealth included research for scholarly and expert publications on: Determinants of mental health strategies and recommended action and Policies (mainly on Canada but also including that of Australia, UK, US and New Zealand); Policies on Equity focused Health Impact Assessment; Enforcement strategies and evaluation on addiction and substance abuse; listing and citation. Dona also compiled an annotated bibliography in the fields of Addiction, Alcohol Strategies and Enforcement Evaluation. In addition, she coded data in the reports of the community consultations
While doing research for Intohealth, Dona happened to read about the green belt and its farms in Ontario. She was curious to see some of those farms and visited a couple of them in the Halton Hills and Guelph in the fall of 2010. She feels that these visits are a wonderful experiences for her and her family as newcomers to Canada.
