About Us — Canada Team

Headshot of Dr Nxumalo smiling in front of the ocean, hair in braids, wearing silver hoops and a denim jacket over a patterned collared shirt

Dr. Fikile Nxumalo

(PI, Associate Professor, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto) has expertise in climate change education, climate justice education, early childhood education and research, community-based participatory research, and Indigenous ecological knowledges. She is a speaker of one of the South African regional languages (Zulu) and has conducted internationally recognized community-based and action research in decolonial and Indigenous environmental contexts including in her home country of Eswatini, the United States, and Canada.

damian is wearing a burgundy, yellow and blue plaid shirt, wearing circular glasses with a short ginger beard. his left hand rests holding his chin, while smiling gently at the camera. behind him, a black backdrop and vines of red virginia creeper

Dr. Damian Maddalena

(Co-PI, Assistant Professor, Geography, Geomatics, and Environment, University of Toronto) has content expertise in GIS, agriculture, climate change, and open-source tools. His research examines agricultural sustainability in a changing climate at various scales, with a focus on the interface between agricultural and natural systems.  

headshot of dr yanping li wearing a black blazer over a beige mock neck. she stands in front of a light blue-grey backdrop

Dr. YanPing Li

(Co-Applicant, Associate Professor, Canada Research Chair in Climate Change Risk and Resilience, Western University) researches climate change, employing a coupled cryosphere-land surface-climate modeling system. Her research employs a modeling tool that is instrumental in comprehending how the coupled Earth system responds to climate variations, providing crucial insights to inform decision-making processes and address sustainability and resilience concerns. 

Research Assistants

Nisha Toomey smiles wearing a black top and sweater, wearing a gold oval locket on a thin gold chain, red lipstick and fine dangling gold earrings

Nisha Toomey (she/her)

Project Coordinator 

Nisha Toomey holds a PhD in Social Justice Education from the University of Toronto. Her research examines the links between settler colonialism, racial capitalism and land theft in the context of travel, migration, and humanitarianism and international aid work. 

Correnda Downey bio pic, smiling. Behind her is a picture on the wall of an illustrated heart

Correnda Downey (she/her) 

Graduate Assistant  

Correnda is a doctoral student at the University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute of Studies in Education studying curriculum and pedagogy.  She is a Graduate Assistant at the Childhood Place Pedagogy Lab and an Ontario Certified Teacher interested in instructional design, curriculum development, and educational systems. Broadly, her research interests are focused on racial literacy and mental health and wellness practices in education, with a specific emphasis on racialized populations. 

Femi-Cole bio pic, Canada Team Grad Student, wearing green silk and glasses

Megan Femi-Cole (she/her) 

Megan Femi-Cole is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research practice is grounded in the wisdom and inherent multiplicity of black communities. Her work addresses transatlantic slavery and colonization as world altering forces that intertwine migration, blackness and placemaking. A PHD candidate at the University of Toronto (OISE), she is also deeply invested in understanding the creative ways black people (s)  learn to nurture connection, and honour difference within and across distinct geographies. Prior to doctoral studies, Femi-Cole was a Youth Worker and Employment Counselor. She grew up in Freetown, Sierra Leone and North York, Ontario Canada.

Codi Carelse (he/him) (grey tee) bio pic, wearing glasses

Codi Carelse (he/him)

Codi is a schoolteacher and community member on the Cape Flats in South Africa. His work is rooted in story, relation, and land as essential to the ways we learn and live to together. He is also an intergenerational farmer, learning from all beings and the changing seasons.

JP Craig is pictured smiling facing the camera - they are holding a waterbottle, wearing a navy windbreaker, in front of a green cliff-like backdrop, a lake in the far distance

JP Craig (they/them) 

Graduate Assistant 

JP Craig (Louisiana Creole) is a PhD Candidate in Social Justice Education at the University of Toronto. Their collaborative, participatory research thinks alongside youth and Black and Indigenous communities to make meaning of climate change, more-than-human relationalities, and climate justice. Their work contributes to community-led frameworks for climate change education and policy.  

Kaitlin Rizarri is pictured wearing green glasses, long dark hair over a patterned sweater, wearing a grey scarf around her neck. She is on a big rock, up high, above an autumnal outdoor scene below and lots of blue sky above

Kaitlin Rizarri (she/they) 

Graduate Assistant  

Kaitlin Rizarri is a doctoral student in Social Justice Education at the University of Toronto (OISE). She is a community farmer and focuses her practice on growing plants that are nourishing in teas. Her research thinks about the future of urban farming in relation to lands and waters.