2025 CERi Award Announcement

Tyson Singh Kelsall ਟਾਈਸਨ ਸਿੰਘ is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS); and part of the community-based, police oversight research project “P.O.W.E.R.” alongside Paul, Harley, Karl, Samona, Delilah, Aero, Molly, Dave, Jenn, Michelle, Carl, Kelsey, An, Elli, Darren, David, with support from Caitlin and Taz at Pivot Legal, Kali at Coalition of Peers Dismantling the Drug War (CPDDW), and many, many people who have made the heavy work lighter since summer ‘24. P.O.W.E.R. was shaped by and takes guidance from community leadership in k’emk’emeláy/the Downtown Eastside and beyond, including from Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society, VANDU, Surrey Union of Drug Users’ research and policy committee, CPDDW and Care Not Cops. Tyson Singh continues to learn from the tireless work of Laura and Justice for Jared. Among P.O.W.E.R.’s first 15 months of community incident reports, only 14% of respondents believed there was any prior documentation on their negative experience with law enforcement – and each peer-to-peer support group P.O.W.E.R. has facilitated by and for people negatively impacted by law enforcement has been at capacity (or over…) since July 2025. Tyson Singh is supervised by Associate Professor Dr. Kanna Hayashi, who together with P.O.W.E.R., are evaluating the nature and impacts of street-level policing and criminalization following BC’s “decriminalization framework.” The photograph used here is by Jackie Dives.

Chris McBride is the Executive Director of Spinal Cord Injury BC. Since 2010, Chris has served as the executive director of Spinal Cord Injury BC, where he brings a passion for making a difference for people with disabilities and their families. He also brings over 30 years of experience as a researcher and research-community network builder. After completing a PhD in Neuroscience from UBC, Chris served as the managing director of UBC ‘s ICORD spinal cord injury research centre, was the founding managing director of the Rick Hansen Institute (now Praxis Spinal Cord Institute), and was a co-leader of the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research-funded Disabilities Health Research Network. Recently, served as co-chair of the province of British Columbia’s COVID-19 Disability Working Group/Accessibility Legislation and COVID-19 Advisory Committee. Presently, he chairs Spinal Cord Injury Canada’s Executive Director’s Council and serves in a leadership role on several health- and service system-related initiatives’ steering committees and research projects.

Belinda Li is a PhD Candidate in the School of Resource and Environmental Management. Her doctoral research aims to strengthen the community composting movement through community-engaged research. Community composting is an often-overlooked approach to return organic materials back to the earth to enable local food production and improve food security. By partnering with and engaging community composters across British Columbia, her research sheds light on the challenges that they face and factors which contribute to their success. These findings can then be used to advocate for changes to policies to better support community composting. Through the connections that she has made in her research, she co-founded the CoCompost Network, a growing coalition of community composters across Canada. Beyond her work in community composting, Belinda is also member of the steering committee of the Vancouver Food Justice Coalition and co-founder of the Food Systems Lab.

Angel Kennedy is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Health Sciences at SFU and a community-engaged researcher whose work centers participatory, relational, and justice-oriented approaches to integrative health. Her research explores how youth and early career individuals engage in spaces that connect human, animal, and ecosystem health, and how these spaces foster collaboration, care, and social transformation in the context of intersecting global crises.

Angel is the co-founder of the Earth Hug Summit, a globally inclusive virtual community gathering that brings together over 700 participants annually from more than 50 countries to co-create visions for healthy, just, and sustainable futures while strengthening collective capacity for action. In her role as Research Manager for the RESET Lab (SFU), and Research Assistant for the LEAPH Lab (UNBC), Angel has also collaborated with Stellat’en First Nation and Cowichan Tribes to co-organize gatherings focused on bringing people together across sectors to discuss policies and initiatives at the nexus of health, land, water, climate, and community leadership, including ensuring youth participation at the gatherings. Locally, she has also contributed to community-led climate action planning on Cortes Island, and co-organized an SFU eco-social health field course on the Island (with Dr. Maya Gislason).