Stephen Dooley became the second executive director of the SFU Surrey campus on November 1st, 2013. Prior to joining the SFU team, he worked at Kwantlen Polytechnic University for more than 20 years, where he was the founder of The Centre For Interdisciplinary Research: Community Learning and Engagement. Steve has a strong commitment to the development of community-campus partnerships. As SFU Surrey campus director, Steve sits at a number of community partnership tables, including the City of Surrey’s Social Policy Advisory Committee, the Surrey Poverty Reduction Coalition (co-chair), the Local Immigration Partnership, and the Surrey Healthier Community Partnership. Steve is also a director of the Surrey Board of Trade (SBOT). 

Michelle Nilson, Associate Professor in educational leadership, SFU's Faculty of Education, is a process-oriented connector of ideas, people, and organizations, who began teaching in Detroit in K-12 schools in the late 1990s. She now makes these connections explicit in the university classroom at SFU, where she is a community partnership based researcher.

Reconciliation is at the heart of this opening roundtable conversation. What does it mean to be a post-secondary institution of reconciliation in terms of research, instruction and program design? How do Traditional Knowledge, Indigenous languages and culture, decolonization and land become the starting place for reconciliation and building bridges between campus and community, through the integration of Indigenous knowledge?

Christopher Lewis or Chris (Syeta’xtn) Lewis is currently an Elected Councillor for the Squamish Nation and is one of the two official spokespersons on behalf of the Nation with the following portfolios: Intergovernmental Affairs, Health, Governance, and Fisheries. Chris is also a Board member of the First Nations Employment Society and Coho Society of the North Shore. Previously, Chris worked for many years at the national and provincial level for the BC Assembly of First Nations focusing on First Nations advocacy and policy. 

Khelsilem hails from the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh-speaking communities of Xwmel̓ts’stn and Eslhá7an and the Kwak̕wala-speaking tribes of the Na̱mg̱is' and Ḵwiḵwa̱sut̓inux̱w. He is a shy artist in the Coast Salish-style and formline tradition of his cultural traditions. He is an active member of his community where he is a member of the Squamish Nation. Khelsilem has worked with Indigenous communities in Canada to address the decline of their languages, including his people's own language called Sḵwx̱wú7mesh. Most recently he has partnered with Simon Fraser University to offer the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Language Immersion Program, a first of its kind. In 2010 he participated in a Master-Apprentice Program with a fluent Sḵwx̱wú7mesh speaker from his community to gain a higher level of proficiency in his language.

Ryan McMahon is an Anishinaabe comedian, writer, media maker & community activator based in Treaty #1 territory (Winnipeg, MB). One of the most decorated Indigenous comedians/writers/media makers working today, Ryan’s voice has become vital to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities – his comedic storytelling style is fast-paced, loose and irreverent, as he explores the good, the bad and the ugly between Indigenous Country and the mainstream. Since 2010, Ryan has recorded three national comedy specials (Welcome To Turtle Island Too, UnReserved and Red Man Laughing) & two taped Gala sets at the prestigious Winnipeg Comedy Festival. In 2012, Ryan became the 1st Native comedian to ever record a full mainstream comedy special with CBC TV (Ryan McMahon - UnReserved). Later that year he made his debut at the prestigious Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal, QC where he was named to the NEW FACES list at the festival.