STEPS Steering Committee
Bethany Elliott (environmental equity researcher and public health graduate student)
Linney Lau (resource and partnership developer)
Sheetal Lodhia (communications and research specialist)
Morgan Skowronski (urban planner and circus artist)
Carolin Taron (collage artist, community gardener and community researcher)
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Bethany Elliott is completing her Masters in Public Health at the University of Toronto, with a special interest in arts-based approaches to community development and environmental health equity. She is also actively involved with her capoeira academy, learning and teaching capoeira and other traditional Brazilian dances. Through her own experience with
arts-enabled programming, she has gained an appreciation for the power of arts to build community and facilitate important dialogue. The combination of arts-based approaches and environmental activism was a major attraction for her in working with STEPS.
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Linney Lau is currently employed at United Way Toronto where she coordinates and supports organizational capacity building programs for their 150 member agencies. Her educational background includes an Ontario Graduate Certificate from Humber College for Fundraising and Volunteer Management, and a Bachelors of Life Sciences Degree from McMaster University. She is excited to be involved with the STEPS Initiative and looks forward to exploring how art in shared community spaces impacts and interconnects a neighbourhood.
Sheetal Lodhia is a recent doctoral graduate in English Literature from Queen’s University. She has researched and taught in various areas of interest, including Renaissance poetry, prose and drama, history of medicine, colonialism and cultural studies. She is very much interested in fostering relationships between academic institutions and the world-at-large, making research accessible to a wider public through writing, radio, film, theatre, and other creative means. When she is not working on her split step, she can be seen writing creatively, and devouring blogs, tv, and magazines. Sheetal has been supporting the STEPS Initiative in various capacities since June 2010, and has just started a production company called Black Leg Productions (blacklegproductions.com).
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Morgan Skowronski is always searching out new ways to engage with urban spaces she encounters. As a contemporary circus artist, exploring hula hoops, aerial arts, acro yoga, and fire dance she seeks out new ways to play in the city. From flaming explorations on snowy streets to dangling on silks in Dufferin Grove Park to blind hoop meditations on the Toronto Island, Morgan is constantly expanding her concepts of play, art and flow. By demonstrating play in a multitude of forms she hopes to encourage more people to smile, to try silly things with friends, and to reach out to strangers who interest them on the streets and in the parks.
She received a Masters in Planning from the Department of Geography at the University of Toronto; examining how different stakeholders interact in, care for, and protect urban green spaces in Toronto's Don Valley. As an all-weather, all-season cyclist, she is often supporting cycling and transportation advocacy initiatives across Toronto. She currently works for Metrolinx on capital planning of regional and municipal transportation projects and economic policy research. She is thrilled to be supporting public ARTivism through her work with the STEPS Initiative |
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Carolin Taron is a community garden activist, coordinator of West End Flower Fairies (WEFF), health care practitioner and collage & mixed-media artist. She believes in growing and sharing BEAUTY, and good food with play and passion in our urban community. |
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