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Alston So was born to Chinese immigrants on May 3rd, 1999 in Vancouver, BC. He was an experienced artist, writer, and amateur archivist. At a young age, Alston was interested in drawing and writing, hence why some sketchbooks and journals have survived to this day.

He studied fine arts at Emily Carr University in 2017. He specialized in the ceramic and drawing medium. Through the art community, Alston participated in many student-run art shows that supported queer artists. In 2019, Alston So decided to drop out in order to take a break from academics.

During this break in 2020, Alston was generating a large amount of textual material through creative output. A self inspired project, he created many journals that detailed serious issues, his life, and the mundane. He took on many odd jobs, such as a baker, bartender, library page and a clown at one point.

Alston was accepted into the University of British Columbia in 2020. He obtained his Bachelor’s Degree in Asian Studies and creative writing minor at the University of British Columbia in 2024. Many of his research and publications during this period focused on the Asian Diaspora, through a critical queer lens.

By 2022, Alston relocated to Tokyo University of Foreign Studies to further his academic knowledge. He began exploring Tokyo’s underground art scene, taking in inspiration for his own writing and art. Between 2022-2023, Alston So created hand-bound zines and distributed them between emerging artists across Japan. At Tokyo University of foreign studies, he focused his learning on Japan and Asia as a whole. There, he met Dr. Iris Haukamp, a professor of Asian film and art studies. Under the tutelage of Dr.Haukamp, Alston completed his senior thesis titled “Evolution of Asian Art through the Asian Diaspora”. After, Iris became a close confidante and supported Alston’s studies back in Canada.

In 2023, Alston returned to Vancouver to complete his studies. One of the most significant publication Alston released, is “A Study of Asian Ceramics: 1000 years of history” (2024), commissioned by Keishirou Nakamoto, a professor at the University of British Columbia. The partnership between Keishirou and Alston was fruitful, as his report went on to help in the creation of an exhibit hosted at the Museum of Anthropology. After graduating from UBC, Alston was accepted into the Master of Information program at the University of Toronto. He chose to focus on Archives and Record Management and Library Information Sciences.

Unfortunately, Alston was unable to complete his studies. On March 10th, he was declared missing and was last seen at Crother Woods. Alston So’s body was found on March 17th and declared deceased.

Born January 1st, 1995 in Markham, David Slipetz grew up north of Toronto in Newmarket, ON. Here he attended Notre Dame Catholic Elementary School and Sacred Heart Catholic High School. He lived between Singapore and Malaysia in the summers of 2009 - 2012 during the summers of high school with his father that worked abroad. In 2012 he began his degree at McMaster University studying Anthropology. He lived and studied abroad in Japan for the school year of 2016 - 2017. He continued his studies of Anthropology with a focus on archaeology and participated in two academic archaeological expeditions during the following summers in Italy and Greece respectively. Upon return, he graduated with his degree in Honours Anthropology in 2018. He returned to graduate studies in 2024 as a Master's Graduate Student at the iSchool of University of Toronto studying Archives & Records Management & Museum Studies in the Combined Degree Program.

David Slipetz also travelled extensively. Living abroad for multiple months to years at a time. In 2022 he travelled to New Zealand and Australia where he lived for a year abroad on a Working Holiday Visa. After this year abroad he moved to Portugal in 2023 to partake in another Working Holiday Visa. As David extensively travelled around the world for his personal, professional and academic life he built a substantial photographic record. It appears that photography acted as an avenue of documentation and an artistic outlet for David which marked the beginning of his career in travel photography. As such, much of the fonds consists of the records of David's travel, photography and as persistent representations of the activities he engaged with.

Adam Sapa is a student studying Archives and Records Management at the University of Toronto's iSchool.

Dinah Samuel was born in 1999 in Toronto, Canada and spent most of her life in Pickering, Ontario from 2009 onwards. She was born to Eritrean Catholic immigrants to a family of five. She has attended St. Barbara Catholic Elementary School (2003-2009), St. Anthony Daniel Catholic Elementary School (2009-2012), St. Wilfrid Catholic Elementary School (2012-13), and Notre Dame Catholic Secondary School (2013-2017).

Her past education includes a BA at the University of Toronto Scarborough in History (2017-2021) and an MA in History (2022-2023). During her BA education, she was a member of the Historical and Cultural Studies Student Association (HCSSA) as the Vice President (External) (2019-2020) and President (2020-2021). Her Masters History paper was titled "The Eritrean People's Liberation Front Ideological Trajectory" detailing the Eritrean revolutions' ideological shifts and international relations from the 1960s to their independence in 1991.

Her past careers predating her current education include several summer positions as a Production Assistant at Celestica (2018-2020), a Collections Assistant at the Sharon Temple Museum and National Historic Site (2018-2019), and a Local History Assistant at the Oshawa Public Library (2022-2023) and Pickering Public Library (2025).

She is currently a University of Toronto student at the Faculty of Information studying Archives and Records Management, with an interest in community archives and decolonial archival practices.

Isabella Ruiter (b. 2001) is a female international museum and archival studies student based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She was born an American citizen in New Jersey, USA to a Pakistani-American mother and Dutch-immigrant father. Ruiter was born and raised a Baha'i, a somewhat recent Abrahamic religion that her parents adopted independently of each other before they met. As a Baha'i, one of the principles of which is service to humanity, Ruiter spend most of her free time growing up planning and facilitating service projects for her community, including painting murals in her hometown, tutoring elementary school children, and organizing multi-faith and racial literacy events as a few examples.

Ruiter graduated from Hillsborough High School in 2019, then pursuing a gap year of service work in the Baha'i World Centre in Haifa, Israel. She worked as a gardener amongst other global volunteers for nine months, the year cut short due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

In 2020, Ruiter started her undergraduate studies in History and Cultural Anthropology at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, but remained living in Hillsborough. Though her degree is in General History, she had a particular interest in ancient and medieval European studies, taking many extra classes in Classics. In 2022, she studied abroad in Rome, Italy at John Cabot University for a semester, taking immersive history classes around the city. She studied abroad in Benin for a period of three weeks in the summer shortly after arriving back from Rome. The trip to Benin was focused on cultural heritage, hosted by École du Patrimoine Africain (EPA) in Porto Novo. During her undergraduate experience, she developed a passion for Public History, receiving a certificate upon graduation. As a Junior, she was accepted by Rutger's Career Exploration and Success office to participate in the FIGS (First-Year Interest Group Seminar) program as an instructor, leading her to develop, design, and execute a lesson plan for a class of 25 freshmen students over the course of a semester.

Ruiter graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in History with a minor in Cultural Anthropology in 2024, summa cum laude. In the same year, she was accepted into the University of Toronto's Faculty of Information to pursue their Combined Degree Program, which includes a Master of Information in Archives and Records Management as well as a Master of Museum Studies. She was granted the Faculty of Information International Fellowship upon admission into the program. Ruiter has since relocated to Toronto to pursue this degree with her husband, whom she married in the summer of 2024. She is currently an International student at the University of Toronto, but intends on staying in Ontario permanently and is in the process of applying for Permanent Residency through marriage.