Showing 49 results

Jade Zhu (朱郁淇) was born in 1999 in Zhengzhou, China. She attended Huzhulu Primary School and Zhengzhou Experimental Foreign Language Middle School. During her senior year in middle school, Jade briefly moved to New Zealand to attend language school.

In August 2014, Jade moved in with the LaPlants in Poughkeepsie, New York and started attending high school at Our Lady of Lourdes High School. During which Jade participated in various sports teams and started to take interests in game development. After 3 years, Jade graduated high school and started attending Boston University in 2017, pursuing a degree in Computer Engineering. During her years in Boston, Jade was a member of the Boston University FAE Racing club and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers. She briefly worked as an usher at Agganis Arena before Covid shut down. Upon obtaining her degree in 2021, she attended the State University of New York in Binghamton for a degree in Psychology. She worked at the Binghamton University Speaking Center as a consultant in 2023.

Beginning in September 2024, Jade moved to Toronto, Canada, to study archive and record management at the University of Toronto.

Outside of her academic life, Jade enjoys various creative activities including photography, creative writing, making fabric arts and airplane models. She is also an avid sports fan, enjoying watching old recordings and making score cards.

Rae Zhang (b. 1996) is currently pursuing her Master of Information degree with dual concentration in Information Systems Design and Archives Management at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Information. Her academic and professional work focuses on developing user-friendly digital preservation systems for archival institutions.
Born and raised in Henan, China, Zhang attended the International School of Qiushi (ISQS), where she earned Student of the Year honors in both 2012 and 2013. She also won the first place in the school's 2013 Creative Showcase.
In 2014, Zhang began her post-secondary education at the University of Alberta as an international student. After facing challenges with cultural adjustment and enduring severe depression, Zhang withdrew from the University of Alberta after six months of study. She spent time in Los Angeles with family before returning to Canada in 2015. Re-enrolling at the University of Alberta, she pursued a major in Art History with a minor in Art and Cultural Management. Zhang later transferred to MacEwan University, earning her Diploma in Art and Cultural Management in 2019. Her practicum at the Royal Alberta Museum in 2019, where she managed public education collections, first sparked her interest in records management.
After graduation, Zhang developed her professional skills through client service roles at the Bank of Montreal while establishing her permanent residence in Canada (2020-2021). In 2022, she enrolled in the University of Toronto's Bachelor of Information program, gaining interdisciplinary expertise in UX/UI design, cultural technology, and data science.
During her Bachelor of Information program, Zhang completed a practicum at the Provincial Archives of Alberta (PAA) as an archives assistant. Having a chance to work directly with archival materials, she recognized the sector is facing a transition from paper to digital, and archies is looking for more accessible solutions for managing digital records. This work experience directly informed her current graduate research focus on developing user-centered archival systems that address contemporary digital preservation challenges.
Beyond her academic and professional pursuits, Zhang maintains active interests in fencing, tennis, and golf, and has been involved in animal rescue advocacy efforts in China.

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.

Early Education and Upbringing
Jason Kahei Wong was born on 1994 in Kowloon, Hong Kong. Growing up in a middle-class family, he was exposed to classical music in his early childhood. At the age of ten, he already attained the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) Level 8 Certification for classical piano, but the oppressive learning environment deprived him of the interest to continue developing this instrument. Two years later, he entered the Hong Kong Pui Ching Middle School (equivalent of grade 7), which is renowned for its creative music curriculum. During his middle school studies away from his parents, Wong was introduced to classical guitar by his mentor, James Lau. It soon became his passion and a key turning point of his career in music. Founded by missionaries of the Baptism Church, Pui Ching Middle School carries the mission to develop the virtues and ethics of its students. Wong accepted the Christian faith in 2007 in a school assembly. He remained active in a home church and strongly embraced biblical principles about love and care for communities.

Classical Guitar Career
Wong's years of classical piano training accelerated the progress of his newfound interest in classical guitar. In less than 2 years, he received near full scores in the ABRSM Level 8 Certification for classical guitar and competed for third place in the Hong Kong Schools Music Festival. In 2010, he was referred to Universe Wang, a local independent musician, by the school's program. Universe Wang's avant-garde approach to classical music liberated Jason Wong from the confinement of classical theory. He began composing fusion music with classical guitar techniques, mashing up genres that include Flamenco, R&B, gospel, traditional Chinese music, and 80s ballad. Wong's increasingly secular approach to guitar eventually led to the break-up between James Lau and himself. But Wong was determined about the modernization of classical guitar, especially advocating for a bigger role of un-plugged acoustic guitar in band and symphony. In 2012, he entered the Chinese University of Hong Kong to pursue a Bachelor of Art (Music) degree in contemporary fingerstyles and conducting theories. College education transformed his vision about audience and meaning of artistic interactions. He decided to fade out from traditional classical guitar competition, turning his efforts to street performances and chapel worships.

Religious Life
Since become a Christian in 2007, Wong began attending the Mei Foo Home Church in his neighbourhood. But the worldview of Christianity inevitably collided with the morals and norms of the Chinese tradition. To navigate through these issues, Wong started a bible study group with his peers to parse the meaning of the scripture and its implications to teenagers in a Chinese society. To better grasp the semantics and etymology of Books from the New Testament, Wong started another group in 2018 that studied the Hellenistic Greek language, which is the original script of the bible. Through their studies, Wong and his peers were determined about a mission to care for other young students and minorities in the neighbourhood. They formed a youth fellowship program that would gather students from multiple universities for community service and outreaching.

Situation during and after the 2019 social turmoil
Since June 2019, a large-scale movement for democratization broke out in Hong Kong. Driven by Christian belief of love and care for the disadvantaged, Wong visited multiple petition sites in the city and wrote a series of political essays that raised awareness about human rights infringement and societal harmony. When the movement eventually died down, Wong, along others who did not feel safe living in Hong Kong anymore, moved to Canada for a new life, continuing his pursuit for a Master of Musical studies at the University of Toronto. Unfortunately, he suffered from an acute heart attack at the Rogers Centre as the Toronto Blue Jays lost to the New York Yankees by 5-16 on June 28, 2024. He passed away peacefully in the embrace of his family.

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.

Madeleine Vien (b. 2002) is a Métis writer, researcher, and graduate student living in Tkaronto (Toronto), Ontario. She received an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Sexual Diversity Studies from the University of Toronto and is currently pursuing a Master of Information, with a concentration in Archives and Records Management. Her academic and creative work reflects a sustained engagement with Métis identity, memory, and decolonial approaches to information practices. Vien has worked with community archives in both digital and physical capacities, contributed to exhibition curation, and created original works in poetry and multimedia. The records described in this fonds document her academic, artistic, and community-focused activities from 2020 to 2025.

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.

Chloe Thierstein (b. 1999) is a graduate student pursuing her Master of Information in Archives and Records Management at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information. Her academic and professional interests involve cultural memory preservation, forgetting, large-scale digitization, information management, and appraisal.

She grew up in Edmonton Alberta, where she attended the Victoria School of the Arts (Formerly known as the Victoria of Performing and Visual Arts) and McNally High School. In these institutions, Chloe gained an appreciation for arts and culture, practicing ceramics, drawing, photography, and other visual arts. In 2017 she enrolled at the University of Alberta, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology. Her coursework focused on a wide ranges of subjects such as demography, secularization, and slavic history. During a study abroad term, Chloe studied in Cortona, Italy where she learned about global iterations of crime and punishments and economic history. Following her graduation, she attended the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information’s Bachelor of Information program. In this program, she gained an interdisciplinary knowledge of the information field, exploring UX/UI design, GLAM, culture and technology, and data science. This experience broadened her horizons and led her to apply to the Master of Information program following her graduation.

Since joining the program,Chloe has continued to explore the social-cultural impacts of cultural institutions and influence of AI, here she integrates her interdisciplinary background to aid in her studies. She has also continued her artistic pursuits. She has become well integrated into digital ceramics and knitting communities, developing glaze recipes and knitting patterns. She has also continued in her passion for travel and photography, ensuring key moments of her life are preserved.

history

Shiyang Sun (2002– ) is an archivist and museum collections professional whose interests focus on cultural preservation, curation, and language revitalization within galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAM).
In 2018, Sun enrolled in the Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Toronto, where she pursued a double major in Linguistics and East Asian Studies. Her undergraduate coursework and research explored intersections between Chinese culture, history, and sociolinguistic changes, particularly emphasizing the adaptation of Chinese languages in North American contexts. In her third year, Sun worked as a research assistant in the Heritage Language Variation and Change (HLVC) Lab under the supervision of Professor Naomi Nagy. In her fourth year, she conducted independent research analyzing linguistic variations within Chinese communities in North America, presenting her findings at national academic conferences. Sun graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 2023.
In 2024, Sun started her graduate studies at the Faculty of Information (iSchool), University of Toronto, shifting her academic focus toward applied cultural preservation, archival practices, and the management of cultural heritage collections. She continued integrating her linguistic and cultural studies background into her professional objectives, completing her combined Master's degree in Information and Museum Studies in 2027.
After graduation, Sun worked at the Canada Language Museum as an exhibition assistant and later became the Archives and Special Collections Manager there. Her responsibilities encompassed language documentation and collaboration with curators to create and deliver language-focused exhibitions throughout Canada.
Throughout her academic career, Sun was actively involved in volunteering. Between 2020 and 2022, she provided online English tutoring to students in remote regions of China, simultaneously coordinating volunteer recruitment and program administration. From 2025 to 2027, she volunteered at the Multicultural History Society of Ontario, assisting with collections management and improving accessibility for researchers.