Brendan Quinn
Creative Director
Brendan Quinn, BA(Hons)’03, can’t wait until his new recording studio is ready so he can have his picture taken at the console. A creative director at Vapor Music, one of Toronto’s largest post-...
MOIRA DONOVAN
Independent Journalist
When Moira Donovan was a teenager, her sister told her she’d make a great journalist. Her casual reply was always “sure, that might work.” Might work indeed. Today Moira is a highly respe...
Olivia Larkin
Senior Policy and Programme Manager, City of London Corporation
“Being a young person today is hard,” Olivia Larkin says. “The job market is hard. The world is chaotic. It’s hard to know what you want to do. But if you can just try a few things, that helps...
Sarah Fulford
Editor-in-Chief, Maclean's
Sarah Fulford likes to really figure things out. It’s part of why she’s recently been asked to manage Maclean’s, one of Canada’s most widely circulated news magazines. It also explains he...
Matthew Feir
Producer, Lucky VR
Matthew Feir (né Baker), BA’11, didn’t begin his undergraduate degree at King’s targeting a particular career, but he knew what was important to him. He saw himself doing something where he wo...
Harriet Alida Lye
Author
When asked about their writing process, many novelists claim there was an initial spark of inspiration but that the plot was not immediately apparent. They had an idea of how the story should unfold, ...
Eli Burnstein
Humorist
For humorist and writer Eli Burnstein, the value in his King’s experience lies not just in the material he studied, but in the ways he learned to express himself. As Eli prepares for the launch of h...
Sophia Bearden
Project Coordinator
At first glance, the project Sophia Bearden, BA’07, is working on could seem like just one of many construction projects along Toronto’s Lake Ontario waterfront. In fact, the Port Lands Flood Prot...
Patrick Blenkarn
Conceptual Artist
Picture this: you’re in a darkened theatre with about 150 other people. Everyone is hushed until a spotlight shines on a video game controller placed at centre stage. There’s an instant of collect...
Susan Leblanc
Actress, Member of the Legislative Assembly
The first year of university is often portrayed as the time when young people discover all of their passions; that this is their one chance to reinvent themselves and decide on their future plans. Sus...
Scott Simpson
Filmmaker, Playmaker Films
Reflecting on their lives, it's not unusual for someone to credit a specific moment or decision with changing the direction of their life in a way they couldn't have anticipated. While at King's, Scot...
Evany Rosen
Comedy writer, performer, showrunner
Like many King’s alumni, when asked to think back to high school and that big decision of where to go to university, Evany Rosen knew she wanted to go somewhere small. She loved the idea of a univer...
Jennifer Bell
Team Lead at Small Globe, Inc.
The story Jennifer Bell wants to tell is an amazing, globe-shrinking, beautiful account of a family torn apart by conflict then reunited after twenty years. It feels impossible. It feels like it sh...
Alex McLean
Co-Artistic Director, Zuppa Theatre
As a film lover and someone who became involved in school plays as a high school student in Dartmouth, Alex McLean knew from a young age that he wanted to have a career in the arts “in some way.” ...
Eva Holland
Freelance Writer and Author
Eva Holland has always been a writer. But she didn’t always think it could be a full-time job. “I had always been involved with writing and journalism-type work. I had always wanted to be a wri...
Rich Aucoin
Musician
Rich Aucoin sits under his iconic rainbow-coloured parachute; the kind children would congregate under in gym class, it’s now a staple of his live show. Though the pandemic has meant pressing pau...
Cassie Hayward
Junior Policy Analyst, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada
Cassie Hayward experienced food insecurity regularly growing up. In grade 10, she became involved with a 4-H program in Dartmouth. Through 4-H, Cassie had the opportunity to learn about agriculture an...
Sarah Burns
Rhodes Scholar; Economist with Bank of Canada
Sarah Burns just doesn’t give up. As a lean and lanky twelve year old she failed the test to become a competitive figure skater eleven times before she finally nailed it. When she was looking for...
John Scott
Documentary Filmmaker
Each of John D. Scott’s documentary films explores its subject in an unconventional way. In his films, you’ll find the traditional elements of documentary—interviews, narration and archival foot...
Adria Young
Office of Strategy Management, Province of Nova Scotia
Adria Young applied to King’s to study journalism. However, after completing the Foundation Year Program (FYP) and one year in the journalism school, she changed her major to English. Adria had beco...
Rachael Cadman
PhD candidate, Interdisciplinary Studies, Dalhousie University
Working in fisheries governance in Labrador may seem like a world away from studying Contemporary Studies and Classics at King’s – however, for Rachael, it was fairly logical progression. Racha...
Jennifer MacLeod
King’s Alumni executive
Jennifer MacLeod had every intention of becoming a nurse. Both her parents were health professionals, so why not? She applied for the nursing program at Dalhousie. “I was accepted by Dalhousie bu...
Elizabeth McNeil
Manager, Rewards Strategy & Management at Scotiabank
It’s fair to say that Elizabeth McNeil made the most of her time at King’s. Captivated by the Foundation Year Program (FYP), she majored in Political Science while taking every opportunity to expa...
Lee Nelson
Academic
Successfully defending his PhD thesis amidst a global pandemic is not something Lee Nelson could have ever imagined would be part of his “educational odyssey”. This summer, he did exactly that....
Georgia Carley
Instructional Designer, TuesdayAfternoon Media Inc.
“It’s something I wish I had known existed when I was in university,” says Georgia Carley with a laugh. “I didn’t find out about it until after my PhD graduation!” But that didn’t sto...
Shawn Martin
Policy Coordinator/Analyst, Health PEI
Shawn Martin was thinking about what he might say to new or prospective King’s students. He had two thoughts. “It doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from,” Shawn says, ”if you...
Harry Critchley
Law Student, Schulich School of Law
“Once you start to have meaningful connections with people in jail, it is really hard to turn away from them. These are people who have been systematically failed by society.” Harry made those ...
Stephen Maher
Contributing Editor, Maclean’s Magazine
Throughout his 30-year journalism career, Stephen Maher has relocated several times and worked as a general reporter, restaurant critic, political reporter and magazine correspondant. While his career...
Katherine Connolly
Software Engineer at Neo Financial
Katherine Connolly admits that going from a liberal arts education at King’s to writing code for a brand-new digital bank is, well, an unusual path. “And it’s even weirder when you see what h...
Joanna Carroll
Chief Operating Officer at Think Research
Joanna Carroll has some advice for graduating King’s students. “Just go for it,” she says. “Take the risks. It’ll open up to things you’d never know.” It’s a philosophy that has tak...
Rose Lipton
Executive Director, Indigo Love of Reading Foundation
“It is all about the individual child,” says Rose Lipton. She’s talking about her approach—in the classroom as a teacher, then her years as Director of Canada Programs at Right To Play Inte...
Scott Andrew Christensen
Advanced ITC Teacher at Saudi Aramco College Preparatory Program, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia
Scott Christensen did a little time travelling in 2019. He had enrolled in a program to teach creative writing offered at the University of Cambridge in England. “I walked around King’s College...
Nevin French
Vice President Public Policy, Information Technology Association of Canada
There probably isn’t a collective noun for a group of civil service positions, but for Nevin French, if there were, it might be an “excitement” of jobs. “I have always just wanted to do wor...
Temma Frecker
Middle School Teacher and Curriculum Coordinator: The Booker School in Port Williams, NS
Temma Frecker is pretty clear about her teaching philosophy. She says, “Empowerment is foundational for me—giving the students the tools and the confidence to help them delve into whatever is i...
Daniel Shearer
Executive Vice-President, General Manager at Cossette
You may not have heard of Daniel Shearer but when you get a hankering for a burger, feel the need to pick up a Google Home or are looking for a new bank, well, Daniel may have had something to do with...
Gwendolyn Moncrieff-Gould
Government Relations Officer, Universities Canada
With politics as the entrée of many dinner time discussions when she was growing up, Gwendolyn Moncrieff-Gould naturally moved into the political sphere. “I started getting involved with politic...
Alexander (Sander) Duncanson
Partner at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP
Sitting in his Calgary law office, where he is a partner with the law firm Osler, Hoskin, Harcourt LLP, Alexander (Sander) Duncanson lets out a soft chuckle. “It was a bit of a complicated path I...
Robert Cribb
Investigative Reporter, Toronto Star
For Robert Cribb, there was never any question. “The only kind of journalism I ever wanted to do was investigative,” he says. True to his word that is exactly what Rob is doing with the Toronto...
Lisa Crystal
Management Consultant, McKinsey & Company, New York City
Lisa Crystal makes no bones about who her favourite physicist is. “Albert Einstein,” she says without hesitation, adding that she wrote her thesis in her final year in the Contemporary Studies ...
Laurel Collins
Lecturer, University of Victoria; City Councillor, Victoria
It was mid April in 2011. Laurel Collins was walking through the market in the Northern Uganda city of Gulu. She was working with the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees—her field placem...
Phoebe Johnston
Program Director, Halifax Association Community Living
Phoebe Johnston had graduated from King’s and, typical of many new grads, was looking for what to do next. A group of friends suggested she go with them to live in Berlin. Not a bad idea, Phoebe tho...
Eyo Ewara
Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Loyola University Chicago
For Eyo Ewara, philosophy is much more than a profession. “Philosophy asks a lot of the questions people have been asking themselves for centuries. Philosophy should help us work together to make...
Dorian Stuber
Isabelle Peregrin Odyssey Associate Professor of English, Hendrix College, Arkansas
Dorian Stuber has a corner office with two, count them, two windows looking out onto the campus of Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas. There are books everywhere, but he says, “it’s controlled ch...
Shannon Brownlee
Associate Director (Cinema & Media Studies); Assistant Professor - Cinema and Media Studies; Gender and Women's Studies
Shannon Brownlee discovered a kind of academic freedom when she went to King’s. “I never felt like I was, what’s the word? Grade grubbing? It was never about the grade,” Shannon says. “It...
Lezlie Lowe
Freelance Journalist and Journalism Instructor
Life has been a series of epiphanies for Lezlie Lowe. There was the one she had while studying in the Contemporary Studies Program (CSP). “I found that I could study philosophy, but I didn’t...
Mordecai Walfish
Deputy Director at Leading Edge HQ, New York
Mordecai Walfish sees himself, sometimes, as a translator. “One thing I am good at is toggling between different languages,” he says. Then he lists off the ones in which he is fluent. “I‘m ...
Griffin McInnes
Director, Playwright, Producer
Griffin McInnes is an award-winning playwright and theatre director. Not bad for a guy who hadn’t considered that as a career path before going to university. “I was never a drama kid,” Griff...
Marco Chown Oved
Investigative Reporter for Toronto Star
“I’m a little like Forrest Gump,” Marco Chown Oved says with a laugh. He has a point. Marco found himself, again and again, witness to major events. But not just a witness. He has made a care...
Chloé Hung
Writer. Director. Actor.
“I was walking across the King’s quad when I got the call,” Chloé Hung explains. “I had got the part of Juliet! I was jumping up and down!” To get a lead role in a King’s Theatrical So...
Johanna Skibsrud
Assistant Professor of English at the University of Arizona
When Johanna Skibsrud was just 18, she felt restless. Part of it was being a teen wanting to get on with life and to become a writer. But there was something else. She had finished the Foundation Year...
Stefan Leslie
CEO at Research Nova Scotia
Stefan Leslie wasn’t going to wait for the big one to hit, shaking Canada’s west coast. It would be too late then. “It is likely that there will be a seismic event creating a tsunami; we just...
Michael Da Silva
Banting Postdoctoral Fellow, Faculty of Law/Institute for Health and Social Policy, McGill University
Ask Michael Da Silva what he does, and he will say, “I’m a teacher and a writer.” Ask him about what and you get a snapshot of a man who has embraced academia. “I am a lawyer by training...
Laura Armstrong
Sports Reporter at the Toronto Star
Laura Armstrong knew it would be tough finding a job in journalism after graduating. “I gave myself five years to find a career in this industry,” she says, knowing that the writing and communi...
Gwenith Cross
Secretariat Manager, Academic Council on the United Nations System
“I may not be the best example of getting a quick PhD,” says Gwenith Cross with a laugh. She’s right about that. Gwenith began her program at Wilfrid Laurier University in Kitchener-Waterloo in ...
Alexander Mifflin
Host / Writer / Co-Director / Research Director, The Water Brothers
Just imagine this—whale sharks and tiger sharks lurking around you. And up above, moving silently through the ocean off Costa Rica, three hundred hammerhead sharks glide by. It’s just another d...
Coren Pulleyblank
PhD Candidate School of Chemical Sciences, Dublin City University
It was the summer of 2015. In a mountain pass high up in the Alps between France and Italy, Coren Pulleyblank was using a small shovel to dig into the muck and mire, collecting samples. Forty centimet...
Calum Agnew
Doctor of Law (JD), University of Toronto
“The truth is out there,” Calum Agnew says with a laugh quoting the line from the title sequence of the TV show The X Files. The truth is out there and he knows how to find it. Calum is current...
Duncan McCue
Host of CBC’s Cross Country Checkup
Every Sunday afternoon Duncan McCue walks into a metaphorical corral. It’s actually a CBC Radio studio in Toronto. But Duncan knows he’s in for a ride hosting Cross Country Checkup, a national cal...
Owen Averill
Physician at Whitehorse Medical Services Ltd.
Owen Averill can look out on his lawn and see deer browsing, maybe a fox slinking by. Out back there are biking trails, but word of a sow grizzly bear and her two cubs hanging around is keeping him of...
Miranda Spence
Partner, Aird & Berlis LLP
Miranda Spence didn’t take any business classes when she was at King’s. Nor did she focus on business law classes at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law. But here she is, a partner in the...
Matthew Sherrard
Partner, Gowling WLG
Matt Sherrard’s career path can be understood as “A Tale of Two Meals” (with apologies to Dickens). The first was a vegan meal of chapati and spicy curry. Not just spicy, “fiery,” Matt sa...
Benjamin Kates
Discipline Counsel, Law Society of Ontario
Ben Kates is never shy about accepting advice, nor giving it. “Don’t wait for that perfect job to be served to you on a platter,” he says. “Just leap and do something and be awesome at it, ...
Lia Milito
Fellowship Program Manager, Code for Canada
“It was terrifying for a while,” says Lia Milito. Lia had just joined a small team to create the start-up non-profit Code for Canada. The idea was good; the potential for helping Canadians was ...
Safia Haq
Co-owner, Tart & Soul Cafe
It was early in 2017 and Safia Haq was scrolling through Facebook. She saw an ad. It asked for a business proposal for a space that had been a café. Interesting, she thought, and sent it to a friend....
Charlotte Bell
Photographer, Filmmaker
Charlotte Bell is not likely to ever take the road well travelled. And part of the credit for that, she says, goes to King’s. “Within the King’s community I learned, for the first time, that ...
Shani Hamilton Greenlaw
Senior Project Manager, BaAM Productions
Shani Hamilton Greenlaw has been managing large-scale events for almost eight years now, from NHL outdoor hockey games such as the Winter Classic to the 2020 NFL Super Bowl LIV Opening Night in Miami....
Paul Thomson
Investor Relations Specialist, Numus Financial Inc.
Paul Thomson made a mid-point career change and it was his liberal arts background that gave him the confidence to make the move. After graduation, Thomson “just kind of fell into” a career in ...
Sophie Brauer
Architect at Gottlieb Paludan Architects, Copenhagen
Every once in a while Sophie Brauer would walk past the Dalhousie School of Architecture in Halifax and see the fascinating shapes and designs students were working on spread out on the lawn. She file...
David Huebert
Writer of Fiction & Poems
David Huebert grew up in Halifax. After years away, he has returned as an author, educator, and critic. “It feels like a bit of an odyssey,” he laughs. After graduating from King’s, David wen...
Hannah Rittner
Playwright, Screenwriter, and Producer
“I’m still so early on in my career. My best work is still ahead of me,” says Hannah Rittner. Maybe in her eyes, however she is certainly being noticed by others, including the organizations ...
Natalie Meisner
Associate Professor at Mount Royal University
Natalie Meisner is both thoughtful and eloquent when she talks about her craft as playwright. “I do think of the play as a kind of exquisite blueprint. It is still a work of art but it isn’t re...
John S. Weeren
Founding Director of Princeton Writes
John Weeren finished Foundation Year Program (FYP) in 1982, yet still spends his days on a campus that reminds people of Hogwarts. But it’s not King’s. It’s Princeton. As an undergraduate stu...
Alanna Robinson
Legal Counsel
For the past two years, Alanna Robinson has been taking a break from a fifteen-year career in corporate law to be a stay-at-home parent with her two kids, Charlie (3) and Sophie (6), and also to ponde...
Ariel Nasr
Filmmaker
It’s hard to imagine how a bout of tendonitis could lead to an Oscar nomination, a place in the FIN Atlantic International Film Festival Gala, and a great gig with the National Film Board (phew!), b...
Robert Muggah
Co-Founder, Igarapé Institute
In late 2019, Robert Muggah, BA(Hons)’97, and his family moved to New York from their home in Rio de Janeiro. Back in 2010 Robert co-founded the Igarapé Institute in Brazil, a 'think-and-do tank' w...
Kristi Bryson
Opera and Choral Singer
Kristi Bryson thinks parents who are not professional singers probably sing more to their children than she does. But she will sing a Mozart aria or two to her young son and certainly some Christmas c...
Davis Carr
Communications Advisor, Federation for Canadian Municipalities
When Davis Carr wants to do something new, chances are it will get done. “That’s how it was at King’s,” she recalls. “You just go for it.” Since she graduated in 2012, Davis has been...
Amy Shira Teitel
Author, Blogger, Historian
When Amy Shira Teitel looks up at the night sky she sees not just the twinkling lights, she sees stories. “I can’t look at the moon,” Amy says, “and not think about the stories of the peopl...
Mark Fleming
Lawyer, WilmerHale
As he was waiting to be called, Mark Fleming remembered the advice his mentor had given him: “Make sure you take the time to look around. Remember where you are. And say to yourself: This is really ...
Lindsay Cameron Wilson
Writer, Host of The Food Podcast
‘Finding the story in the everyday’ is the guiding and core principle of Lindsay Cameron Wilson’s work. As a food writer, recipe developer and host of The Food Podcast, Lindsay has been leani...
Arwen Kidd
Project Director, Internews (Sierra Leone) & Multimedia Consultant
Arwen Kidd has never been one to take the easy path. While a student at King’s, she spent a summer in Romania, researching her honours thesis on post-Communist media. A three-month journalism intern...
Laurelle LeVert
Associate Vice-President, UNB Saint John
For Laurelle LeVert, Associate Vice-President of the University of New Brunswick, Saint John, it all comes back to service. “My priority,” she says, “is to keep that engine running – to keep s...
Rosanna Nicol
Community Development Consultant
Rosanna Nicol is a quiet force to be reckoned with. Working in the field of Indigenous state relations, she has helped facilitate important work in Canada’s Indigenous communities. However, if asked...
Kate Cayley
Writer
Kate Cayley has published works of fiction, collections of poetry and produced several plays; but she didn’t always know she was a writer. After graduating from King’s, she and some fellow alum...
Wilson Bell
Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, History, and Politics - Thompson Rivers University
Wilson Bell loves being in the classroom. The father of two is an Associate Professor at Thompson Rivers University, but growing up in rural Nova Scotia, he says he “didn’t know what a thesis s...
Joshua Bates
Senior Policy Analyst, Accessibility Directorate, Department of Justice at Government of Nova Scotia
Joshua Bates has learned the ropes at all three levels of government; first with Toronto city council after he completed his master’s degree, then in Ottawa where he worked with MPs and later an adv...
Lauren Brown
Flight Instructor and Bush Pilot
Lauren Brown’s future is up in the air. Interested in the humanities as a high school student, Lauren applied to King’s last minute. Like many university students, she felt anxious at the prosp...
Ryan Hreljac
Founder and Executive Director, Ryan’s Well Foundation
One day in 1998 while he was sitting in his Grade One classroom in Kemptville, ON, Ryan Hreljac’s teacher, Mrs. Prest, told the students that some children were sick, and some were even dying becaus...
Chad Lucas
Diversity and Equity Advisor, Government of Nova Scotia
Journalist, author and communications advisor Chad Lucas uses storytelling to bring people together. For someone with dreams of being a reporter, Chad Lucas’ working life began exactly where a gr...
Liam Hyland
Camera Operator/ENG Technician, CTV National
Liam Hyland hand-delivered his application to former King’s journalism director Kim Kierans, unsure if his high school marks would be good enough. “On paper it may not look great, but if you gi...
Heather Blom
Producer, Rethink
Heather Blom’s contemporary studies at King’s revealed a natural talent for bridging disciplines and communities. “Language and art, scientific language and artistic language - in the end, it b...
Barb Stegemann
Author and Social Business Innovator
When Barb Stegemann won the chance to make her pitch on the CBC-TV program Dragons’ Den, she drew upon her experiences at King’s and ended up becoming the first woman from Atlantic Canada to score...
Andrew Choptiany
Architect
Andrew Choptiany’s antics on campus earned him the RL Nixon Award for Best Contribution to Residence Life that year. While many credit him for making the Foundation Year Program (FYP) the best year ...
Dr. Roberta Barker
Associate Professor, Dalhousie University
In her final year of high school, Roberta Barker saw the reading list for King’s Foundation Year Program (FYP) and knew she had found the right program. As a teenager, Barker had trained in class...
Gillian Clark, Karen Gross & Laura Vingoe-Cram
Artistic Co-Directors, Keep Good (Theatre) Company
“We just kind of hit it off, complementing each other’s personality,” says Laura Vingoe-Cram. She’s talking about her friendship with Karen Gross. Both were theatre buffs, taking advantage ...
Nicholas Day
Teacher
Soon after arriving on campus, Nick jumped into his King’s journey. Nick got heavily involved in student life. He played soccer for and captained the King’s Blue Devils, he ran the Amateur Athleti...
Mitchell Cushman
Artistic Director, Outside the March
Mitchell Cushman is a triplet, which is interesting in its own right as triplets account for just one in ten thousand births, far more rare than twins (one in 250). But what are the odds of a set o...
Jessica J. Lee
Author and Environmental Historian
“It’s strange to me that I circled back and became a writer,” Jessica smiles, “I got there in the end. It was just that I had to take a very different path.” That path has sent Jessica al...