Dr. Beverley Fehr is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Winnipeg and a social psychologist specializing in interpersonal relationships. Her research has examined close relationships, friendship, love, relationship dissolution, and other aspects of how people form and maintain meaningful relationships, and she is also the author of the Canadian psychology textbook Social Psychology.

Dr. Allison Crawford is the Chief Medical Officer of Canada’s 9-8-8: Suicide Crisis Helpline and a psychiatrist and researcher whose work focuses on suicide prevention, crisis services and mental health. She is a Professor and Clinician Investigator in the University of Toronto’s Department of Psychiatry and has been involved in research examining suicide and crisis-line care, including work related to improving access to mental health support.

Dr. Frances Chen is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia. Her research combines social psychology, health psychology, and neuroendocrinology to examine how social experiences, including loneliness and social contact, influence mental and physical health, as well as how social and hormonal processes shape development and well-being.

Dr. Sandra Allison is a public health and preventive medicine specialist, family physician and GP oncologist based in Nanaimo, British Columbia. Her career has included senior public health positions in Manitoba and British Columbia, including serving as Chief Medical Health Officer at Northern Health and as a Medical Health Officer with Island Health; she now combines primary care and oncology practice with public health work focused on community health and social well-being.

Rachel Ruttan is an Associate Professor of Organizational Behaviour and Human Resource Management at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. Her research examines compassion, prosocial behaviour, values and moral judgment, including the circumstances in which efforts by individuals and organizations to act on their values can have unintended consequences.

Dr. Kwame McKenzie is CEO of Wellesley Institute, a Professor at the University of Toronto, Director of Health Equity at CAMH and a practicing psychiatrist. An international expert on the social causes of illness and equitable health policy, he has advised ministers in Canada and the U.K., authored more than 280 peer-reviewed papers and six books, and consulted for the WHO and World Bank. He serves on Canada’s National Advisory Council on Poverty, Co-Chairs Ontario’s Black Health Plan, Chairs Right to Food, and has written and presented for major media outlets.