Robyn Bachmeier is an archaeologist, Classicist, and currently an archival student at the University of Toronto in the MI program. She was born in Calgary, Alberta in 1996, and moved to Burlington, Ontario in 2000 with her family. She went to McMaster University in Hamilton for her undergraduate degree in Classics and master’s degree in Classics and archaeology (2014-2021). While a graduate student at McMaster, she worked as a Teaching Assistant for the Classics department for two years (2019-2021). For the completion of her MA degree, she conducted original research on Roman numismatics and on findings from the excavation of the archaeology site “The Villa of Titus”, in Italy. She spent four field seasons in Italy working on archaeology sites as a supervisor with McMaster University (2017- 2022), and she worked as an archaeologist in Ontario, Canada for two years (2022-2024).
She presently volunteers at an archive in a Canadian military museum in Toronto, Ontario. Her current and future interests are in working with and preserving historical archival materials, archaeological materials, rare and ancient books and in the study of Classical Latin linguistics and literature.
Sofia Harwell (1978 - ) is a fine arts librarian at the University of Victoria in Victoria, BC, and a former arts sector fundraiser for various non-profit organizations in Toronto and North Carolina. In the arts world, she is best known as a collage artist and author of three children’s books featuring her collages as illustrations. Her collages, which Canadian Art has described as “whimsical cautionary tales,” are noted for their intricate mosaic-like appearance, their depictions of Canadian landscapes and animal-like creatures, and their focus on the human impact and encroachment upon the natural world. The works use a combination of handmade papers, black-and-white photographs, leaves and dried botanical samples that have been collected from around the world.
Education
Sofia grew up in the mountains of western North Carolina in a rural area near Asheville. She spent her freshman year of high school abroad in Russia and Austria, where she developed her passion for art and international travel. She attended university at a small liberal arts college in New England, graduating with a BA in Russian and Classics, and went on to complete a “master’s international” program in Washington, which combined two years of Peace Corps service in the Republic of North Macedonia (2006-2008) with a dual Master of International Studies in Eastern European history and Public Administration (2011). She moved to Toronto in 2011 and worked in arts sector fundraising before returning to her studies in 2016 to complete a master’s in Information Science with a dual concentration in Archives and Records Management (ARM) and Library and Information Science (LIS) at the University of Toronto’s iSchool. Since graduating in 2019, she has worked at the University of Victoria as a fine arts librarian, while continuing to pursue her arts practice.
Collage Art and Writing
Sofia’s Peace Corps service from 2006-2008 was heavily influential on her direction and arts practice – a fact she has often cited in media interviews. While living in central Macedonia in the country’s central wine region, she volunteered with a local oyster mushroom-growers collective and a traditional woodcarver’s association, in addition to teaching grant-writing and English to adults.
While serving in the Peace Corps, she traveled to Zagreb, where she met Croatian collage artist David Maljkovic. According to interviews, she credits this experience as integral to her decision to pursue collage art more seriously. It was during this time that Sofia began experimenting with materials and produced the collages and story lines that would eventually become the first two of three published children’s books: “Mushrooms for Mae”, published in 2016 by Annick, and “Beeker and Bock Go To the Meadow”, published in 2018, also by Annick. Drawing heavily on her experiences as a volunteer, and using photographs and dried botanical samples from the region as materials, both books deal with environmental themes: namely, the benefits of waste reduction and low-impact cultivation and the danger of invasive species to native plants and animals. Both are written to appeal to children ages 4-7.
In 2019, she began work on the collages and story for her third book, “What Plants?”, which explores all the everyday things other than food that are made from plants. The book was published in 2020, also by Annick.
While Harwell had no formal training in studio art, she often credits the teachers and fellow students in the various short-term workshops she has taken as guiding her on her journey, including people she has met at the Penland School of Crafts, Haystack and the OCAD U continuing studies program.
In 2022, she began to branch out into fiction writing for adult audiences and took a yearlong creative writing class, “The Big One”, at Firefly Creative Writing in Toronto, Ontario. She has since returned to children’s writing and will be publishing a fourth book in spring of 2026.
Roxanne Quelhas was born in Mississauga, Ontario in 2001 and currently resides there. She completed a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in English at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University) in 2024. After completing her Bachelor's degree, Quelhas enrolled in a Master of Information, concentrating on archives and record management at the University of Toronto.
During Quelhas’ Bachelor, between 2020 and 2024, she engaged in various research projects within the Political, Sociology, History, and English disciplines that focused on gender, sexuality, and systems of power. Through her research, she interacted with archives and museums, using primary materials as the foundation for her academic work. Quelhas worked as a file clerk while completing her Bachelor’s, which further developed her interest in records.
Throughout her undergraduate degree, Quelhas volunteered articles to the independent student newspaper, The Eyeopener, at Toronto Metropolitan University where she wrote and interviewed students on topics concerning student life and mental health.
Besides her research, Quelhas is a creative writer who has developed a portfolio of short fiction stories. Her creative work was done academically and independently as she pursued her creative interests through courses and writers' workshops in the GTA, which she currently attends as she continues to pursue her creative interests.
Aaron Andrew Wickberg was born in Dallas, Texas on May 22nd 1997 to parents Alan and Nancy Wickberg. His brother, Brendan, was born around three years later on January 17th 2000, after which the family moved frequently for his father's work, with prolonged stops in Tokyo and Taipei, until settling in Beijing in 2002. Aaron spent his early years with an intense focus on reading and creative expression, and was diagnosed with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in 2009. His family would move to Taipei in 2011, where he would be captivated by theater and creative writing. Graduating in 2015, he decided to major in theater at the University of British Columbia. During that time, he would come to realize that his love for theater was not in its study, but in performing it, and would switch majors to Classical Studies, finishing his Bachelor of Arts three years later in 2020 with a minor in creative writing. During this time, he developed a love for tabletop roleplaying games as an alternative method of creative expression.
With work difficult to find, Aaron would spend the next few years working odd jobs, and trying to find creative work. He would eventually decide to return to his studies, in hopes of finding a career path that drew upon the critical thinking skills he developed in his undergraduate degree. A conversation with and encouragement from archivist Luciana Duranti would set his trajectory towards archiving, and he would apply and be accepted to the program at the University of Toronto in 2023.
Aaron is currently finishing his graduate degree, and spends his free time pursuing further creative ventures and volunteering as an archivist with The Queen's Own Rifles of Canada at Casa Loma. His current interest and focus in the archival field include trying to find the 'invisible' minorities within records, something that is of particular import to him as a person of Taiwanese and Swedish descent, and an out bisexual.
Rebecca was born December 28th1995 in Ajax, Ontario. Growing up she expressed interest in music, science, animals and museums. She attended St.Elizabeth Seton from 1998-2009 followed by St.Mary from 2009-2013. She spent her time in the Greater Toronto Area from birth until the age of 17 went she began University. She started her undergraduate degree at the University of British Columbia finishing with a BScN in Natural Resources conservation in 2017. Within her undergrad years she worked at the UBC pool as a lifeguard and swim instructor, as a nutrition researcher at the Toronto Zoo, as a horticultural specialist at the City of Pickering, as a policy assistant at the Government of Western Australia and as an educator at Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada.
After finishing her undergraduate degree, she completed her master’s degree in Geomatics for Environmental Management also at the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Forestry graduating in 2018. After this she moved back to Toronto continuing her career as an educator at Ripley’s Aquarium while she began to pursue her PhD at Trent University in 2019. After a year as a PhD student the 2020 covid-19 pandemic began leading to her leaving her studies and briefly becoming an administrative assistant in medical offices until 2021.
Rebecca then moved to Kamloops in British Columbia to work as GIS analyst from 2021-2023. She moved back to Toronto in 2023 continuing her career as an educator at Ripley’s Aquarium and a remote GIS analyst. Rebecca started her master’s degrees in 2024 and is currently working towards those degrees in Archives and Records Management as well as Museum Studies while working full time at the aquarium. Despite growing up in a Jewish-Catholic family, Rebecca identifies as agnostic and left wing politically.
Kayla Kendall was an ADHD-haver and a Star Wars droid enthusiast who attended the iSchool from September 2023 through Summer 2025.
Kayla Middleton is an ARM student at UofT. She was born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario.