Frances Northeast (she/her) recently graduated from the University of Toronto with an Honours Bachelor of Arts with high distinction, double majoring in Critical Studies in Equity and Solidarity (CSES) and Public Policy, with a minor in Political Science. She is an uninvited, radicalized settler living in Canada due to circumstances beyond her control. During her undergraduate degree she sought out opportunities that allowed her to explore and further her understanding of various types of equity issues, specifically in relation to social identities and the politics and power dynamics surrounding them.  

At UofT, she was on the executive team for the Equity Studies Student Union for three years. She most recently held the role of President for the CSES course union. Here she worked to reestablish the Union’s advocacy after COVID-19. She also held the position of Human Rights Stream Director at University of Toronto Policython. UTP is the first and only event of its kind in Canada and it provides an opportunity to students seeking to gain experience in the policy sector and make connections. She also held research assistant positions at UofT with the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and with the CSES program department. At Temerty, she worked as an Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Indigeneity and Accessibility Research Assistant. She supported the launching and evaluation of a pilot program that developed and tested VR educational modules for healthcare workers to better understand the impact of race/racism in the field. As the Equity Studies Research Assistant, she worked to collect literature related to critical equity issues, summarized the findings and supported the reporting of the findings. 

Outside of the University, she was a member of the Town of Cobourg’s inaugural EDI Advisory Committee. Here she supported the drafting and implementation of a town wide EDI strategy. Frances has also worked as a Policy and Programs Assistant during the summer with the Government of Ontario’s Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks. During this role, she worked on the Air Policy team supporting the evaluation, creation and implementation of air quality-related policy initiatives in Ontario. She worked this summer for the Pearson Centre for Progressive Public Policy supporting the creation of an EDI Hub with resources related to marginalized social identities. 

At the Balsillie School of International Affairs, Frances intends on further expanding her knowledge of social identities, specifically how these social identities tend to expand from the individual to the national and how these national social identities create a power imbalance that impacts the ways in which countries interact with one another in the past, present and future.