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Jae Kim is a second generation Korean-Canadian emerging archivist, writer, and community organizer residing in Toronto, Ontario. Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, on April 22, 2002, Kim relocated to Toronto, Ontario with their parents in 2013 and has lived there since. From 2013 to 2018, Kim maintained ties with important relationships in Vancouver through handwritten letters and email correspondences.

In 2016, Kim entered high school and joined the school’s only 2SLGBTQ+ club, which became their first formal connection to a queer community. Around the same time, he began exploring his gender identity through creative writing, publishing anonymously in online writing communities. These anonymous digital spaces were critical to his self-discovery, as many of their closest collaborators also identified as queer and/or trans. Kim’s first public and non-anonymous piece was “Selling Flesh,” published in the 2022–2023 edition of The Hardwire: The Undergraduate Journal for Sexual Diversity Studies.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kim began to identify as transmasculine, adopting he/they pronouns. Motivated by the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on marginalized groups, he co-founded a youth-led mutual aid organization that supported marginalized youth. Personal and academic events in Kim’s life drove his continued engagement with marginalized communities from then on. In late 2022, Kim experienced a significant estrangement from their biological family after coming out as queer and trans. In July 2023, he began hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and sought greater connections with other queer and trans BIPOC folks navigating familial rejection. In 2022, Kim added a Sexual Diversity Studies minor alongside their Book and Media Studies major and English minor, and graduated in June 2024 with a Bachelor of Arts. His coursework led him to focus on queer archives, and in 2023, Kim began working as an Archives Assistant at the Sexual Representation Collection.

In 2024, Kim was accepted into the Master of Information program at the University of Toronto, specializing in Archives and Records Management. He took on multiple professional roles during his first year (2024-2025), including becoming a Research Assistant at The ArQuives: Canada’s LGBTQ2S+ Archives in November 2024 and the Blackwood Studentship position at the Art Gallery of Ontario in January 2025. In June 2026, he graduated with his Master of Information.

One of Kim’s most significant public-facing projects emerged from their volunteer work at The ArQuives. In September 2024, Kim began curating an exhibit focused on trans and gender-diverse individuals from the Asian diaspora in Canada. Drawing from archival materials and contemporary narratives, the exhibit centred on queer kinship and aimed to deconstruct the “coming out” narrative by showcasing the diversity of trans and gender-diverse experiences across time and space. This project concluded in July 2025. Afterwards, Kim partnered with Dr. Naveen Minai, a former professor turned close friend and mentor, to expand the work of the exhibit into a long-term research project.

Yoon Kyung Kim was an author and Japanese language instructor at the University of Toronto, living between 1989 and 2024. Born in Seoul, Korea, Kim moved to Vancouver, B.C. with her family in 2004. Kim attended the University of British Columbia, earning a B.A. in English and psychology in 2012. From summer 2009, Kim started to travel widely whenever she was able, and left impressions of the places she visited in fictional works, nonfiction prose, illustrations, and photographs. Kim moved to Toronto in 2013 and pursued an M.A. degree in East Asian studies at the University of Toronto, studying the politicization of court poetry in medieval Japan. After earning the M.A. in 2015, Kim went on to teach the Japanese language at the Department of East Asian studies in 2015, but gave up her post in 2017 to focus on writing. During the pandemic, her travellogues with illustrations gained popularity and international recognition. Kim went back to studying in 2022 and pursued an M.I. degree in archiving and records management at the University of Toronto. She died November 11, 2024. Kim is best known for her novel “Pen-Man-Ship,” an interpretation of the Korean folk tale “Keum-o sinhwa” in the contemporary Canadian context, “The Pelican Pilot,” and “Midnight Letters from Around the World,” a collection of illustrated travellogues.

Teofil Eugene (Ted) Kulczycky was raised in Toronto and has lived in Vancouver and Montreal. He is a non-fiction author, archival researcher, library worker and aspiring archivist.

He studied philosophy, film and popular music at Toronto’s York University from 1992-1996, when his studies were interrupted by an anxiety disorder. From 1997-2020, while earning a living in the restaurant and remainder book businesses, he continued to publish sporadic nonfiction writings, and was closely associated with WORN Fashion Journal. During this period, he also participated in other creative pursuits including songwriting and performing with the bands BedBugBites and The Chorus Barloff, directing the short film Real Me and the music video for Telefauna’s "Tombstone," DJing and event hosting as Teddy the K. Although he has long been collecting published materials relating to the Jonathan Demme/Talking Heads concert film, Stop Making Sense, since 2014, he has been actively developing Stop Making Sense project, a multi-media research mission which includes original documents and firsthand research.

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Kulczycky completed his bachelor’s degree in philosophy at York University, and in 2021 began a masters degree in information studies part time at the University of Toronto. Since spring of 2022, Kulczycky has been a page at the Toronto Reference Library. At the same time, he has also been doing archival research for documentary films, most notably Kids in the Hall: Comedy Punks.

On August 22 2023, Kulczycky was critically injured when struck by a car upon exiting a Toronto streetcar. Most serious among his injuries were multiple spinal fractures. Despite the severity of his condition, and still being hospitalized, Kulczycky was permitted to attend a Talking Heads reunion/Stop Making Sense 40th anniversary screening at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival on September 11 2023. Upon discharge, Kulczycky managed to attend over twenty theatrical screenings of the film over the subsequent weeks, which garnered him a degree of media attention, resulting in Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper deeming him an “Artist of the Year 2023.”

Kulczycky gradually resumed his educational, creative and professional pursuits over the following two years.

Victoria Kwok was born in Hong Kong on February 5, 1969, to a first-generation family from Chaozhou, Guangdong. From 1987 to 1990, she attended the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) for her B.A. in Religious Studies and Italian Studies. Her year abroad in Siena, Italy in her undergraduate programme sparked her interest in food. Following her M.A. in Food Studies (1991-1993) at the University of Toronto (UofT), she completed an Italian cuisine chef training programme in the Scuola di Arte Culinaria from 1993 to 1995.

After working as a chef in Palermo, Italy, she returned to Hong Kong and held a research position at the University of Hong Kong from 2005 to 2015. During this time, her interest shifted from Italian cuisine to the food history of Hong Kong. In 2013, "A History of Cha Chaan Teng" was published.

In 2016, she migrated to Toronto and earned her PhD at the UofT in East Asian Studies (2016-2021), specialising in the Cantonese food culture in diasporic communities. She is a researcher at the same institution where she continues her food history research.

Katelyn Law (b. 2002) is a third-generation Chinese-Canadian born and raised in Toronto, Canada. As a young child, she was introduced to many different activities such as swimming, soccer, painting, and singing which influenced many of her future activities.

In 2012 Katelyn joined her church choir to sing in the Youth Christmas choir to be able to sing Christmas songs. It was through this choir group that she found the impact of teenagers and young adults on her experiences which encouraged her to later join the weekly church choir as she enjoyed her time with the youth group. She collected recordings of the different Christmas choirs and an array of different songs and variations of music. Through 2018-2020, she helped to lead and organize the Youth Christmas choir and documented specific notes about the music composition and experiences of leading a group of children. In these later years, she started to write about her religion and her disenfranchisement of the Catholic Church.

As a high school student, she she attended York Mills Collegiate Institute from 2017-2020 (grade 10-12), and was a member of the swim team. She also participated as a stage crew in a theatre performance. She was an avid student in Technological Design, where she learned skills about woodworking and drafting design sketches. At her graduation, she received an award for taking Technological Design classes throughout high school, and having the highest grade in her grade 12 class. Outside of school, she worked as a lifeguard and swim instructor at a pool near her house.

After high school in 2020 she moved to Montreal to complete a Bachelor of Art and Science majoring in Biology and Anthropology, at McGill University. She also joined the Redpath Museum Society, a student club that worked to promote museums and historical knowledge about natural history and science. From 2022-2023 she was elected as the Communications Manager, and was elected as the President in 2023-2024. She worked to create different events for students relating to museums and hosted a mini-lecture series relating to Natural History. She also became a volunteer coordinator for a gardening space where she organized weekly meetings and special events about plants and local harvests for the growing herbs. Through her time at school, she started to correspond with her family and friends through letters and collected various cards and photos of different experiences. She became friends with Aesop Ivaihk, a prominent figure in Canadian Global Affairs, with whom she continues to correspond through her travels and work worldwide.

She returned to Toronto in 2024 after completing her Undergraduate degree, where she now resides and is a Masters student at the University of Toronto in Archives and Record Management and Museum Studies. She is currently the secretary of the Museum Studies Student Association.

Zoe Mack is a graduate student at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Information. She has a Bachelors of Arts from Queen's University where she majored in history. She currently works as a TALInt student at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library.

Elizabeth Macleod (b. 1994) is a graduate student the University of Toronto's Faculty of Information, specializing in Archives and Records Management. She was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, attending St. Cecilia Catholic School from 1999 to 2006, Fairview Public School from 2006 to 2009, and St. Mary's Catholic High School from 2009 to 2012. She then pursued a Bachelor's degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Calgary, taking a slight detour after the first year to study Interior Design for one year at Mount Royal University. Deciding the Interior Design field was not her preferred career interest, Macleod returned to U of C to complete her Bachelor's in Biological Sciences, graduating in 2017. After graduation, she entered the veterinary industry, performing a variety of administrative and managerial roles over the course of several years.
In 2024, Macleod moved to Toronto, Ontario to enter the Archives and Records Management graduate program at the University of Toronto Faculty of Information, where her academic studies focus on archival theory and informational sciences, with particular interest in areas of decolonization efforts and community-based strategies within current archival frameworks.

In addition to her professional activities, Macleod has a noted enthusiasm for music, having studied and performed the violin since her childhood years both as a solo and orchestral performer, as well as participated in many other musical pursuits and instruments including the piano, clarinet, saxophone, and choirs in various private and conservatory institutions, and school music councils and university music programs.

Yasmina Maitland (b.1991) is a female Canadian researcher and archival studies student from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She is a second-generation immigrant of Filipino, French-Canadian, and Scottish descent.

In 2009, Maitland moved to Montreal to begin undergraduate studies in Classics and Studio Art at Concordia University. She transferred in 2010 to the University of Toronto, where she completed an Honours B.A. in English with a double minor in Art History and Visual Studies in 2014.

Her undergraduate thesis in Art History examined colonial influence on women’s sleeve construction across empires to modern day. This led to a short published article for Dress, a journal by the Costume Society of America. From 2014-2015, she completed an editorial internship at Modern Painters magazine in New York City.

Between 2012 and 2018, Maitland contributed annually as a visiting artist at the Etobicoke School of the Arts, delivering lectures and workshops on contemporary art, sculpture and textiles.

In 2016 she returned to Toronto and subsequently spent two years rock climbing across Canada, the United States, and Europe. She maintained sketches and field notes documenting moderate traditional routes and hiking approaches. In 2017, she self-published a climbing guidebook focused on moderate traditional routes in Milton, Ontario; the guide went out of print by 2019.

In 2020, she was accepted into the MPhil program in textile conservation at the University of Glasgow but declined the offer due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Since 2024, Maitland has been pursuing a Master of Information at the University of Toronto, with a concentration in Archives and Records Management. Her academic research focuses on legacy and corporate fashion archives, and on digital heritage and preservation. She worked as a Teaching Assistant for the course Information Practice in Organizations.

Maitland currently resides in Toronto.