Sarah Matthews was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee. No accomplishments to report.
Luke Harasen was born in Regina, Saskatchewan and continued to live there until enrolling at the University of Toronto in 2018.
Arden Hody (b. 1995) grew up in Bells Corners, Nepean, in the west end of Ottawa, Ontario. She attended Bell High School and was active in Girl Guides (GGC) throughout her childhood. The Hody family attended the First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Ottawa from 2001, where Hody participated in Religious Exploration classes and was active in the youth group. During high school, Hody took on leadership roles at church and in Guiding and attended conferences and camps in New York, Switzerland, New Brunswick, Alberta, and Ontario. She went to Doe Lake Camp for sleep-away camp in 2004 and transferred to Camp Woolsey in 2005, returning every summer until 2010.
Hody started working at Unicamp of Ontario, a Unitarian Universalist summer camp and conference centre, in 2012. Working variously as a counsellor and a cook between 2012 and 2015, she often attributed this time in her life for her love of cooking. Hody was the inaugural Out-Trip facilitator and led trips for Unicamp youth in the Massassauga Provincial Park on Georgian Bay in 2014 and 2015. In 2016, Hody was promoted to Assistant Director and took over responsibility for the day-to-day operations of the camp. She held that position for in 2016, 2017, and 2019. In 2018, Hody went to work as the Camp Director at Camp Wyoka and Camp Adelaide (GGC) during their last year of operations.
Hody attended the College of Humanities at Carleton University between 2013 and 2018, pursing honour research in religious studies. She participated in a reciprocal exchange program in 2015-2016, attended the University of Stirling in Scotland. In 2019, she returned to Carleton to complete a Master of Public History and a Graduate Diploma in Curatorial Studies. In 2020, Hody moved to Toronto for her research into the display of mortuary objects at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). She received an Ontario Graduate Scholarship in 2020 to complete her degree, graduating in 2021. Hody returned to school in 2023 to pursue a Master of Information in Archives and Records Management at the University of Toronto.
While at Carleton University, Hody became active in CUPE2600, the union that represented teaching assistants. Her work recognized by the History Department when she was invited to be the TA mentor in 2020-2021. Hody developed resources for teaching undergraduate research skills and circulated news letters throughout the academic year.
In 2019, Hody began her career in museums and archives. She completed practicums at the Canadian Museum of History and the National Gallery of Canada before the first COVID-19 lockdown. She continued to perform remote contract work for museums occasionally over the next two years while working in communications. In 2023, Hody was hired by the ROM to consolidate three disparate herbarium collections of Crataugus specimens. She worked in the Green Plant Herbarium (TRT) throughout the first year of her MI. In 2024, Hody went to the Royal British Columbia Museum to contribute to their "Prep, Pack, and Move" project. In 2025, Hody graduated with her MI and started work at the Trent University Archives.
Allison Mei (2002-2025) was born in London, Ontario, where she spent most of her childhood and attended high school, graduating in 2020 at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. After high school, she attended Queen’s University from 2020-2024 where her first year was online, majoring in History with a minor in Philosophy. It was here where she first encountered public history and archival professions, completing two different internships as a Collections Assistant at a local Kingston museum and as an Archives Intern at the Queen’s University Archives.
During her third year of undergrad, she completed an exchange term at the University of Manchester, taking advantage of her proximity to Europe to travel on her downtime, taking many photographs along the way and engaging in UK specific history courses.
After completing her undergrad, she enrolled in the Master of Information program at the University of Toronto in the Archives and Records Management stream beginning in 2024 with hopes to become an archivist after graduation.
Throughout her time in school, she participated in many different courses, as well as activist groups on campus, including the Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) sector at Queen’s. Through this group, she ran a No-Vote Campaign against an incoming student committee running for Alma Mater Society (AMS) student representatives, one of the first ever No-Vote campaigns ran in Queen’s history.
Allison was also an avid photographer, writer, and traveler in her personal life, keeping journals, engaging in photography both on film and digitally, and documenting her many travels throughout her early adult life.
On March 15, 2025, Allison was killed in a plane crash heading to Prague from Pearson Airport for a solo Spring Break trip.
Omar Al-Samadi is a multidisciplinary artist, researcher, and information professional based in Tkarón:to (Treaty 13) / Toronto, Ontario. Born in 1986 in Burlington, Ontario, to a Seychellois-Creole mother and Iraqi-Arab father, Al-Samadi was raised in a mixed-race household and came of age in the post-9/11 era. They experienced early educational barriers as a result of systemic racism, including academic streaming in high school that delayed access to university level education until their mid-thirties. These formative experiences continue to inform their commitment to equity, representation, and memory work.
Al-Samadi’s early professional life began in wealth management, where they worked as a financial advisor at Scotiabank and Scotia Capital from 2007 to 2009. A departure from the corporate sector led them into the music and cultural industries, where they spent over a decade as an artist manager, event producer, and community organizer. During this period, they held leadership roles at Embrace Presents and Culvert Music, co-founded Rare Beef Records and the monthly dance music event Course of Time, and later founded the consulting firm Ovātus Group while collaborating with the inclusive nightlife collective Deep Gold Presents.
Working under the artistic moniker Abandoned Affair, Al-Samadi has maintained a longstanding creative practice in photography. Using primarily 35mm film, their visual work explores portraiture, landscape, and urban documentation, and has been featured in magazine publications such as PhotoED and NAKID. Their work is rooted in narrative, contemplation, and aesthetic care.
Returning to formal education in 2019, Al-Samadi completed a Social Service Worker diploma with honours at George Brown College, followed by a B.A. in Social Development Studies from the University of Waterloo in 2024. During this time, they worked and volunteered in harm reduction, notably with Breakaway Community Services for their Pieces to Pathways program providing peer support and counselling for 2SLGBTQ+ youth who struggle with substance use.
As of 2024, Al-Samadi is pursuing graduate studies at the University of Toronto in the combined Master of Information and Master of Museum Studies program, specializing in Archives and Records Management. Their research interests include decolonial archival theory, community-driven archiving, inclusive appraisal methodologies, and the preservation of marginalized voices. A significant moment in their archival trajectory occurred in 2022 during a visit to the Seychelles National Archives, where they uncovered historical records of their East-African enslaved ancestors—an experience that continues to shape their scholarly and creative pursuits.
Al-Samadi is fluent in English and French, with additional proficiency in Arabic and Italian. Their work across disciplines is guided by a desire to build bridges between artistic expression, institutional critique, and community memory. Their fonds reflects a layered and evolving narrative of lived experience, creative practice, and critical inquiry.
Emily Bridgland was born and raised in the GTA, attends Hope Bible Church in Oakville, and attended Robert Bateman High School (now defunct) from 2015-2019, the University of Toronto, Mississauga from 2019-2023, and the University of Toronto's iSchool from 2023-2025.