Ontario Chapter Executive

our health promotion leaders in Ontario

Susan Stewart

Susan Stewart

Chair/alPHa Representative

Susan Stewart is a member of the senior leadership team at Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox & Addington Public Health where she is the Director of the Community Health & Well-Being Portfolio. She also serves on the Board of Directors both the Association of Local Public Health Agencies (alPHa) and the Ontario Physical Health and Education Association (Ophea) and chairs the Ontario Chronic Disease Prevention Managers in Public Health network. Susan has over 25 years of experience in health promotion, research, and evaluation. She is passionate about chronic disease, substance use and injury prevention, effective public health practice, and health promotion.

Stephanie Tea

Stephanie Tea

Vice Chair

Stephanie is currently an Acting Supervisor at Peel Public Health, overseeing two critical public health programs. Over the course of the pandemic, she has been involved in a variety of roles that includes supporting proactive planning to ensure business continuity and planning the reopening of priority programs. In her base position as a Health Promoter on various program areas, she has led the implementation of a new provincial dental program for low-income seniors, supported post-secondary campuses in the implementation of smoke-free policies, and using population level approaches to prevent emerging alternative tobacco products use amongst youth and young adults. Stephanie has a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Guelph and a Bachelors of Arts in Health Studies and Biology from Queen’s University.

Outside of work, Stephanie enjoys serving the community through the form of mentorship for girls. She also enjoys being active, such as running and yoga.

Janette Leroux

Janette Leroux

Stakeholder Engagement Coordinator

Janette (she/her) lives and works in Kingston Ontario, the traditional Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee territory. She is currently a postdoctoral research fellow in the School of Rehabilitation Therapy at Queen‘s University, and her research is on families and mental health. Janette is an independent research consultant, and works with agencies and organizations in the gender-based violence sector. She is active in her local community, participating in advocacy initiatives that contribute to equity and sustainability. Janette’s training is in health promotion and social epidemiology. She is interested in applied, collaborative, community-based methods. In her free time she enjoys being outdoors, swimming, biking, hiking, and park-hopping with her toddler.

Shalon Jeffers

Shalon Jeffers

Membership Coordinator

Shalon works as a Health Promoter at Halton Region Public Health and lives in Toronto, Ontario. She is also a Registered Dental Hygienist, and oral health is her passion. Shalon completed a Master of Public Health degree at the University of Waterloo, and a Bachelor of Science degree at York University.

Some of her interests include health advocacy and equity. In her free time Shalon enjoys volunteering with non-profit organizations in the GTA and abroad.

Ketan Shankardass

Ketan Shankardass

Advocacy Coordinator

Dr Ketan Shankardass is an associate professor in the Department of Health Sciences at Wilfrid Laurier University, where his teaching focuses on "cell-to-society" approaches to health inequalities. As a health promotion researcher, Dr. Shankardass leads a program of transdisciplinary research through the Health Equity Systems Interventions (HESI) research group (https://researchcentres.wlu.ca/ccrla/research/health-equity-systems-interventions/index.html). Current projects include studying the implementation of Health in All Policies initiatives by local governments in Ontario and Québec; developing an information system for urban resilience planning based on analysis of emotions in geo-coded social media expressions; and collaborating with Yellowknives Dene First Nation to design and implement a study about the direct and indirect impacts of Giant Mine on stress over the lifetime and across generations for people living near the mine site (Hoèla Weteèts’eèdeè: Understanding Community Wellbeing Around Giant Mine; ykwellbeingstudy.ca). Dr. Shankardass is also an affiliate scientist at the MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions at St. Michael’s Hospital. In his spare time, Ketan enjoys listening to music, watching films and getting outdoors.

Benjamin Rempel

Benjamin Rempel

Member at Large

Benjamin Rempel has worked in senior health promotion roles for public health and prevention agencies since 2004. He holds a Master’s in public health, an undergraduate degree in health promotion, and certificates in program planning, leadership, and journalism. He is a senior analyst at the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer contributing to public policies focused on the prevention of cancer. He also works as a public health freelance writer with articles published in The Toronto Star, National Observer, Healthy Debate, Health Promotion Practice, and other outlets. He has served on the HPO executive committee since 2017.

Contact him at: linkedin.com/in/benjaminrempel

Lourdes Button

Lourdes Button

Member at Large

Lourdes is an incoming Master of Public Health candidate at City, University of London (UK). She received her Honours Bachelor of Science from the University of Toronto in Forensic Science and Biology for Health Sciences. During her final year of her undergraduate degree she conducted research relating to the opioid crisis at the University of Toronto, in collaboration with scientists at the Centre of Forensic Science and Ontario Forensic Pathology Services. While out of school, she has been working with the City of Hamilton in COVID-19 vaccine clinics across the city, assisting in the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccination program. Lourdes is passionate about health promotion, especially surrounding harm reduction practices for substance use, and hopes to conduct research related to these topics during her Masters and professional career.

Bethany Gaudet

Bethany Gaudet

Communications Coordinator

Bethany works for Lambton Public Health as a Program Planning and Evaluation Coordinator. She has a Master’s in Public Health from Western University and a Bachelor of Public Health from the University of Waterloo. Bethany has experience in various areas of public health including family health, school health, and mental health & addictions.

Her interest in health promotion and public health stem from rural roots as well as the multidisciplinary aspect that helps create a lasting impact on the population. Some of her interests include vaccine hesitancy, gerontology (age-friendly communities), mental health promotion, and health equity. Bethany brings passion for systems thinking and population-level interventions to support the work of Health Promotion Ontario.

Outside of work Bethany enjoys running, hiking, travelling, and synchronized skating.

Danielle Knight

Danielle Knight

Member at Large

Danielle is a fourth year kinesiology undergraduate student at Western University. She enjoys being in the outdoors especially when she is hiking. Her desire to work in public health started from a young age when she realized that she wanted to break down barriers that stand in the way of one‘s access to public health resources. Currently Danielle’s research interests are looking at how income affects sport participation in Canadian youth.

Julia Kurzawa

Julia Kurzawa

Professional Development Coordinator

Julia is the Manager of Knowledge Mobilization at the Knowledge Institute on Child and Youth Mental Health and Addictions. Together with her team, she translate research into practice in the child and youth mental health and addictions sector in Ontario. Julia completed her Master’s in Public Health, Specialization in Health Promotion at the University of Alberta. She is passionate about health equity, mental health, and school health. She enjoys working collaboratively, advocating for health promotion in all settings.

Robb Johannes

Robb Johannes

Secretary

Robb Johannes works in program and policy development with Fred Victor in Toronto; co-chairs the St. James Town Service Providers‘ Network (SJTSPN); sits on the Boards of Directors for the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness (CAEH) and Working for Change, Executive Committee of Health Promotions Ontario (HPO), advisory councils for the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention (CASP), and Toronto Police’s Race-Based Data Strategy; and is an Adjunct Professor at York University’s School of Social Work and the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto. He was Executive Director of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU), who spearheaded the opening of North America’s first supervised injection facility and worked on successful Supreme Court challenges affirming harm reduction practices, the safety of marginalized women in sex work, and the right of individuals without fixed addresses to vote in federal, provincial, and municipal elections. He coordinated Justice Studies at the Native Education Centre (NEC), Canada’s longest-running Indigenous post-secondary institution, and taught in the School of Criminology and Department of Women’s Studies at Simon Fraser University, where he earned his Master’s Degree. For eight years, he coordinated the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP), a restorative justice initiative in federal prisons. Sometimes referred to as "Toronto Bono" (as he for over ten years has been lead vocalist of the acclaimed rock band Paint and has a new musical project, “a question of when,” in development), Robb works with Bono’s ONE campaign on women’s rights and ending extreme poverty internationally.

Sarah Pedder

Sarah Pedder

Treasurer