DCDSB families are invited to attend Empowering Our Community Through Mathematics, an interactive networking event, panel discussion, and featuring keynote speakers Alexander Coleman and Carl E. James. Families will learn how to empower their children and youth to embrace quantitative skills that are essential for career paths that will be both relevant and lucrative in the future. Panelists and keynote speakers will focus on the importance of empowering Black students to DO math and SEE math in their everyday lives, a shift in mindset that will help to lead our youth toward STEM related fields in the future.
Event details:
Please note: Our supervised children's activities are now at full capacity. Parents, guardians, and caregivers are welcome to attend the event however we are unable to add any more children to the activities. When registering, please indicate on the form if you would like to be notified if space becomes available for the children's activities.
Register Here Download the flyer
Dr. Carl James is Professor in the Faculty of Education at York University, cross-appointed in the graduate programs in Sociology and Social Work. Over the years, he has conducted research which has resulted in publications that focus on the experiences of marginalized youth, particularly African Canadians. His history of innovative professional development with educators and social service workers draws on his theoretical work with issues of identity, diversity, racialization and masculinity, and involves practitioner level dissemination of research results. His attention to the educational performance and outcomes of students in higher education is evident in his mentorship, as well as his involvement in program and curriculum change.
Dr. James’s background in sociology of education and youth studies help to frame his exploration of issues of: identity/identification in relation to race, ethnicity, class, gender and immigrant status; educational and occupational access and equity for marginalized youth; and the complementary and contradictory nature of sports in the schooling and educational attainments of racialized students. His extensive background in youth work and community development informs his recent work on educational programs that are responsive to the particular needs, experiences, interests and aspirations of African Canadian youth living in urban contexts. He has extensive experience with critical ethnography, phenomenology, action research and government and institutional policy analysis.
Alex Coleman is a Chief Information Officer & Assistant Deputy Minister at the Government of Ontario, based in Sudbury, Ontario. At the helm of the Ontario Public Service's IT endeavors, his strategic leadership has been instrumental in fostering a culture of innovation and continuous improvement. He and his team have successfully co-created and maintained solutions that significantly impact social services, benefiting both the organization and the people of Ontario.
With a robust portfolio of leadership skills, strategy execution, and value-based culture alignment, he excels in steering large teams toward the achievement of organizational goals. In recognition of his contributions, he is a proud recipient of the 2024 Global CIO 100 and BPTN Technology Executive of the Year awards, underscoring his commitment to excellence in technology and leadership.
Dr. Lucy Campbell is a Canadian mathematician of Barbadian and Ghanaian descent. She obtained her PhD in Applied Mathematics from McGill University and is an Associate Professor of Applied Mathematics at Carleton University in Ottawa. Her research interests are in differential equations and numerical analysis with applications in geophysical fluid dynamics. She uses mathematical models to study the interactions of the different types of waves that occur in the atmosphere and their effects on weather and climate.
Dr. Campbell is active in the atmospheric science and applied mathematics communities in Canada; she served on the Board of Directors and was the Treasurer of the Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society and received the CAIMS 2019 Arthur Beaumont Distinguished Service Award. At present she is on the Editorial Board of the Canadian Journal of Mathematics and the Canadian Mathematical Bulletin. Dr. Campbell is from a mathematical family; her father Merville O’Neale Campbell was a Barbadian mathematician who did research in group theory and taught at the University of the West Indies for many years. Her mother, a teacher, recognized and encouraged her interest in mathematics from a very early age.
Dr. Beatrice Ombuki-Berman is a Professor and the Chair of the Department of Computer Science at Brock University. Dr. Ombuki-Berman completed a BSc in Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (Kenya), a ME in Information Engineering and a PhD in Intelligent Systems Engineering at the University of the Ryukyus (Japan).
Dr. Ombuki-Berman was the Interim and founding Chair of Brock’s new Department of Engineering (2021/22) and serves as the equity officer for the Brock University Faculty Association (BUFA). She was the Deputy Chief Negotiator of the current BUFA Collective Agreement. She is an active member of the Black Community Forum at Brock (BCfab). Dr. Ombuki-Berman is an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation; Swarm and Evolutionary Computation (Elsevier), Evolutionary Intelligence (Springer) and an Editorial Board Member, Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence (Elsevier). She is a past Associate Editor of EEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computational Intelligence. She is actively involved in the organization (as Publicity Co-Chair and Session organizer) of a number of international conferences in her field including, IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence (IEEE WCCI 2024, Japan), IEEE Symposium Series on Computation Intelligence (Norway, 2025) and IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics (IEEE SMC 2024, Malaysia), among others.
Dr. Ombuki-Berman is a Professor of Artificial Intelligence whose research area focuses on Computational Intelligence and Intelligent Optimization with applications in Transportation logics/network science and various classes of challenging optimization problems arising in Operational research. Lately, she is also researching Machine learning, Optimization and Metaheuristics for Drug Design. Dr. Ombuki-Berman’s research is supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). She serves as part of the selection and evaluation committee, scholarships and fellowships, computing Sciences at NSERC.
Dr. Nathaniel D. Osgood is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Associate Faculty in the Department of Community Health & Epidemiology at the University of Saskatchewan. His research is focused on providing cross-linked simulation, ubiquitous sensing, and machine learning tools to inform understanding of population health trends and health policy tradeoffs. His applications work has addressed challenges in the communicable, zoonotic, environmental, and chronic disease areas.
Dr. Osgood is further the co-creator of two novel mobile sensor-based epidemiological monitoring systems, most recently the Google Android- and iPhone-based iEpi (now Ethica Health) mobile epidemiological monitoring systems. He has additionally contributed innovations to improve dynamic modeling quality and efficiency, introduced novel techniques hybridizing multiple simulation approaches and simulation models with decision analysis tools, and which leverage such models using data gathered from wireless epidemiological monitoring systems.
Dr. Osgood has led many international courses in simulation modeling and health around the world, and his online videos on the subject attract thousands of views per month. Prior to joining the U of S faculty, he graduated from MIT with a PhD in Computer Science in 1999, served as a Senior Lecturer at MIT and worked for a number of years in a variety of academic, consulting and industry positions.
Dr. Kong is a Canadian Research Chair in Community-Oriented Artificial Intelligence and Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Disease. He is also a professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health Cross-appointed to Mathematics Department and Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto, where he serves as the director of the Artificial Intelligence and Mathematical Modeling lab (AIMM lab)( https://aimmlab.org/). Additionally, he is the Director of the Africa-Canada Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Innovation Consortium (ACADIC) (https://acadic.org/) and the Global South Artificial Intelligence for Pandemic and Epidemic Preparedness and Response Network (AI4PEP) (https://ai4pep.org/). He is also the Regional Node Liaison to the steering committee of the Canadian Black Scientist Network (https://blackscientists.ca/). He obtained his Ph.D. in Mathematics with a certificate in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Alberta, his MSc in Mathematical Engineering/Ingegneria Matematica from the University of L'Aquila, Italy and MSc. In Technomathematik/Industrial Mathematics from the University of Hamburg, Germany. His B.Sc. in Mathematics (major) and Computer Science (minor) was acquired at the University of Buea, Cameroon, and his B.Ed. in Mathematics was earned at University of Yaounde I, Cameroon. He did a 2-years of postdoc at Princeton University.
Dr. Kong is an expert in AI, data science, mathematical modelling, and mathematics education. His principal research program focuses on developing and deploying innovative artificial intelligence, mathematical and data science methodologies and technologies for decisionmakers in communities, public health, government and industry in order to provide important insights into local and global-scale socio-ecological challenges. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Kong led a team of 52+ researchers across nine African countries, using AI to help contain and manage the virus. In 2022, he founded the AI4PEP network, overseeing 160+ researchers from 16 countries. The network focuses on leveraging Southern-led responsible AI solutions to enhance public health systems for better prevention, preparedness, and response to disease outbreaks. Dr. Kong’s many research contributions and exceptional leadership have earned him several prestigious awards and recognitions.
These include the York University (YU) Research Leader Award in 2020; recognition as one of Canada’s Innovation Research Leaders in 2021; recognition as a Black Hero of Operational Research by the Operational Research Society in 2021; recognition as a YU Community Change Maker in 2022; recognition from YU Magazine for enumerating positive change by inspiring Black students to aspire in 2022; nomination for the 2022 Postdoc Supervisor of the Year Award; 2022 Faculty of Science, YU Early Career Researcher Award; YU 2023 Research Leader Award and the 2023 YU President’s Emerging Research Leadership Award. He is an Editor for Data & Policy Journal; Royal Society Science; Scientific Reports, and Big Data and Information Analytics.