Team

As a trained musician (classical singing and piano), Méi-Ra St-Laurent holds a doctorate in musicology from the Université Laval. Her doctoral thesis entitled Métal noir québécois: l’analyse du récit identitaire d’une communauté black metal marginale focused on a community of black metal groups from Québec, in which she draws links between music, texts and the discourses emanating from them. Previously, her master’s thesis analyzed the narrative in extreme metal music. Specifically, she studied how music and lyrics form a unique narrative, often transgressive in scope. Ms. St-laurent has published several articles in different academic journals (Metal Music Studies, Journal on the Art of Record Production or Intersections : revue canadienne de musique) and presented her work at several international conferences (Art of Record Production Conference, International Association for the Study of Popular Music, International Society for Metal Music Studies). Ms. St-Laurent works with Vivek Venkatesh as part of her postdoctoral fellowship funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). Her current research focuses on the increasing concern about the use of inclusive discourse (so-called “political correctness”) in the North American context of popular music, where she will draw connections with the circulation of hate speech in public spaces.

Tarik Tairi is an intercultural mediator specialized in conflict resolution, intervening in the reception and integration of immigrants at SANC Sherbrooke. He is a doctoral candidate in Contemporary Religious Studies at the University of Sherbrooke. His doctoral thesis focuses on the place of Islamic religious discourse in programs for deradicalization and the prevention of violent extremism. The research will make recommendations on how to integrate Islamic religious discourse, as a calming and tolerant alternative discourse, into a prevention/deradicalization program and strategy. 

Leslie Touré Kapo specializes in the social construction of race and its impact on the life trajectories of inhabitants from working-class neighborhoods and immigrant backgrounds. His research and teaching expertise is based on a wealth of experience in social intervention and popular education in marginalized urban spaces in France and Québec. As part of his doctorate at the National Institute for Scientific Research (INRS), he carried out an ethnographic survey exploring the process of racialization in the daily and ordinary experiences of young Montrealers. This ethnography was awarded the prize for best thesis 2020–2021 by the INRS Urbanisation Culture Société Research Centre.

Shawn Tse 謝兆龍 is a father, multidisciplinary artist, and community organizer living in amiskwacîwâskahikan/Edmonton. His practice centres around community engagement, social justice, and storytelling from underrepresented voices. He is an actor in Thirdspace Playback Theatre, co-founder of Aiya哎呀 which dreams of new futures for Chinatowns, video director at Fallout Media, and creator of the intergenerational cooking show, Seconds, Please!

Kathryn Urbaniak has been Program Manager of Project SOMEONE since 2014. Throughout the years, she oversaw the design and development of the Project SOMEONE portal and content. She also led various projects in the field of primary prevention, including the Massive Open Online Course titled ‘From Hate to Hope: Building Understanding and Resilience’. Additionally, Ms. Urbaniak has managed more than twenty public engagement events under the Project SOMEONE and Grimposium banners. She is an accomplished learning-experience designer, instructor and researcher with degrees in educational technology, information technology, and business. She has authored publications in the fields of online hate, online communities and education. Ms. Urbaniak has trained over 1,000 teachers in 40 countries and also acted as a Canadian advisory committee member on the development of the international standard ISO 29993 (education and learning services).

Wynnpaul Varela is the coordinator of the Innovative Social Pedagogy project. Since arriving in Montreal in 2009, Wynnpaul has worked as freelance editor, researcher, and learning experience designer. Before that, he taught English in Japan for 15 years. He holds a PhD in Education with a focus on how music students practise their instruments.

Emma Vargas Lemeltier is a student in the Master’s program in Applied Politics – Security and Intelligence at the Université de Sherbrooke. Her interdisciplinary background in international relations and law has led her to focus on national security issues ranging from the protection of democratic institutions to contemporary forms of ideological violence.

Laurianne Veilleux is a student in applied political studies with a major in international relations at the Université de Sherbrooke. Her fields of interest are feminism, the rise of radicalization and the place of women on the political scene, from an international perspective. As part of her duties at the Chair, she currently holds a position as a research assistant and plans to continue her studies at graduate level.

Jason Wallin is Professor of Media and Youth Culture in Curriculum at the Faculty of Education of the University of Alberta. With over a decade of international field research about extreme music cultures and youth, Mr. Wallin created an opportunity to address problems of sexism, racism, and fascism related to the concerns of black metal producers and consumers. As part of Project SOMEONE, he coordinated and contributed (with Jessie L. Beier, University of Alberta) to the development of an anti-hate graphic novel based on youth interviews about personal experiences with hate and hate speech. The ‘anti-hate comic’ project was widely seen, having been exhibited around the world, profiled in numerous media interviews, and having comprised a visual centerpiece to UNESCO’s Summit on radicalization and extremism in Montréal.