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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.

Amy Ellis is a white student currently enrolled in the University of Toronto's iSchool. She was born in St John's, Newfoundland on February 6, 1995. Ellis attended Bishop's College High School (now defunct) from 2009-2013 and Memorial University of Newfoundland (2013-2022) where she obtained her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in English Literature. In 2024, she enrolled at the University of Toronto to study archival science. Ellis has provided freelance editorial work for various publications since 2019. She in known to practice illustrative work in her spare time.

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.

August was born on June 22, 2000, to an American mother and a Canadian father. Growing up in Toronto's East York neighbourhood, he was aware of his dual identity from a young age due to the alternating Christmasses he spent with his relatives on the East and West coasts of the United States. He was an active member of his local Scout troop until high school, when he began to take a greater interest in film. During adolescence and university, August completed several video projects, mostly for school assignments. In 2018, he was a layout editor for his high school's yearbook team.

In 2018, he started attending the University of Guelph, majoring in Computer Science. Soon realising he was more interested in and better suited to the humanities, August changed majors, graduating in 2023 with a Bachelor of Arts - History (Hons.). As a history student, he was a co-editor for the 2021 issue of "Footnotes: The University of Guelph's Undergraduate Journal of Gender, Sexuality and Social Change" and had a paper published. For his academic achievements he was awarded both the Marion McKenzie Scholarships for Outstanding Achievement in History and the W.S. Reid Undergraduate Thesis Prize. He worked for several of his professors as a summer research assistant and transcriptionist, but his most notable position was as Webmaster for the Rural Diary Archive under Dr. Catharine Wilson. This work endeared him to primary sources and the value of archives, and in 2023 he applied for a Master of Information in Library and Information Science at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Information.

August studied at the University of Toronto from 2023 to 2025, graduating in June 2025. He was hired as a TALint student intern at the UofT Media Commons Archives, making connections which helped him apply to study at the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation in Rochester, New York, to which he was accepted in April 2025. He also founded Film Freaks Club UofT, a student organization which hosts weekly film screenings and events, in October 2024.

August had long been interested in photography, but in summer 2024 - inspired by his work at the Media Commons Archives - he begin learning to shoot film photography. Though this did not extend far beyond that summer, the experience familiarized him with the fundamentals of photographic technique; in early 2025, he purchased a digital camera from a friend. When asked, he says he will keep it as a hobby for life.

Lauren Tremblay was born in Ajax, Ontario, and grew up in Oshawa, Ontario. Her family hails from Oshawa and Windsor, Ontario. As a hobby, Tremblay enjoys painting and reading biographies and art history texts, reflecting her strong interest in both visual arts and historical scholarship. Furthermore, Tremblay has worked as a ski instructor, and is passionate about fitness and travel. Tremblay pursued a Bachelor of Arts in Art History and Curatorial Studies at the University of Toronto, Scarborough from 2019 to 2024. During this time, she developed a passion for art history and curatorial practices. In 2024, Tremblay traveled abroad to Paris, France, to further immerse herself in her passion for art before returning to Toronto in September 2024 to begin her studies in the Master of Information program at the University of Toronto, specializing in Archives and Records Management.
Tremblay currently resides and works in Toronto, Ontario. She works as a bartender and as an archival intern at a bank, gaining practical experience in the field of information management while continuing her graduate studies.

Sonya Richards is a Canadian archivist and poet. She was born in Spanish Town, Jamaica, in 1992. In 1996, she immigrated to Canada with her mother, father, and two siblings. After living in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 2001, she and her family moved to Brampton, Ontario. She attended Cardinal High School and graduated in 2010. She graduated from York University with a HBA in 2019. After this, she attended Sheridan College and completed a post-graduate certificate in 2021. Richards then received her MI from the University of Toronto in 2025. Outside of her academic pursuits, Richards wrote several unpublished short stories and poems.

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.