Co-Directorship
Claudia Mitchell
Claudia Mitchell is a Distinguished James McGill Professor at McGill University, where she serves as the Director of the Institute for Human Development and Well-being and the Founder and Director of the Participatory Cultures Lab. Additionally, she holds the position of Honorary Professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Her research focused on the use of participatory visual methodologies in social justice research particular in the context of gender equity and gender-based violence. Of particular relevance to the TRANSFORM project, Claudia Mitchell led a seven-year SSHRC partnership grant, Networks for Change and Well-being: Girl-led ‘from the ground up’ policy-making to address sexual violence with Indigenous girls and young women in Canada and South Africa. She has also directed projects funded by Women and Gender Equality, including More Than Words, which explores the impact of arts-based methods with Indigenous young people regarding sexual violence, and Pathway2Equity, which focuses on girl-informed arts-based work with Indigenous boys and young men to address sexual violence.She is the co-founder and Editor-in-chief of the award-winning peer-reviewed journal Girlhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal (Berghahn), launched in 2008, and serves as the lead editor of the book series Transnational Girlhoods.
Rebohile Moletsane
Relebohile (Lebo) Moletsane is Professor and the JL Dube Chair in Rural Education in the School of Education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. As part of her Chair in rural education, she has worked in South African rural schools and communities, focusing on teacher development around such issues as poverty alleviation, HIV & AIDS, gender inequality and gender-based violence as barriers to education and development. Moletsane’s work focuses on addressing sexual violence with girls and young women in rural communities. As part of this, she was a co-PI with Claudia Mitchell, of an IPaSS grant: Networks for change and well-being: Girl-led ‘from the ground up’ approaches to addressing sexual violence in Canada and South Africa. She co-edited the book Ethical practice in participatory visual research with girls: Transnational approaches (vol.2). As recognition for her work on addressing poverty in rural communities, Moletsane was the 2012 winner of the Distinguished Women in Science (Humanities) Award presented by the National Department of Science and Technology. In 2014, she was an Echidna Global Scholar at Brookings Institutions’ Centre for Universal Education, where she completed a research report: The Need for Quality Sexual and Reproductive Health Education to Address Barriers to Girls’ Educational Outcomes in South Africa. Washington, DC: Centre for Universal Education, The Brookings Institution.
Lisa Starr
Dr. Lisa Starr is a well-respected and collegial academic leader working primarily in the field of education. Currently, Lisa is the Dean for the Faculty of Education at the University of Lethbridge. From 2021-23, she was the Chair of the Department of Integrated Studies in Education at McGill University. Lisa is also a Past President of the Canadian Association for the Study of Women and Education (CASWE). She completed her doctoral degree in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Victoria. Lisa’s K-12 teaching career led her from Canada to Pakistan, Kuwait, Mongolia and back to Canada during which time she fostered a passion for addressing gender equity and transformation. Her SSHRC funded research engages in two research streams: First, designing and implementing pedagogical strategies, often drawing on participatory visual methodologies like cellphilming, photovoice and drawing, to engage young people as they seek ways to address sexual and gender-based violence. Lisa has also been responsible for training teacher educators in mainstreaming gender, addressing gender-based violence and gender transformative pedagogy. Second is the study of the process of educational reform in schools that have been undertaking a facilitated approach to design thinking in their exploration of how to reimagine pedagogy, relationality and community within their schools. The goal being a dramatically different way to engage in learning. She teaches in the area of pedagogy, cross curricular learning, techniques for classroom assessment as well as educational leadership and change.
Shannon Walsh
Shannon Walsh is a filmmaker and writer whose award-winning films cover topics ranging from labour rights, to grief and climate change. Indiewire called her latest film Adrianne & the Castle (2024), an “exquisite” and “intoxicating story”, while The Gig is Up (2021) was hailed by Variety for being “galvanizing and moving,” and “a devastating reality check” according to The Hollywood Reporter. Her films have been theatrically released and broadcast globally, screening in festivals around the world such as SXSW, IDFA, Hot Docs, CPH:DOX, Doc NYC and many others, as well as playing art spaces, such as the Venice Biennale and the Pompidou Centre in Paris. In 2023, she executive produced the feature documentary about Dr. Gabor Maté, Physician Heal Thyself directed by Alden Penner. Adrianne & the Castle had its world premiere at SXSW.
As a scholar, she has published extensively on participatory filmmaking, social justice, and activist research, primarily focusing on women and young people. Her research often uses participatory video, photo-voice, and creative writing to center voices from the margins. She is co-editor of the books Ties that Bind: Race and the Politics of Friendship in South Africa (Wits University Press, 2016) and In My Life: Stories of Young Activists in South Africa 2002-2022 (Jacana, 2022). Her book The Documentary Filmmaker’s Intuition, was released in 2024. Currently, Dr. Walsh teaches film as an Associate Professor in Theatre and Film, a Faculty Associate in Anthropology, and is a Research Associate at the South African Research Chair in Social Change at the University of Johannesburg. She was a Wall Scholar at the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies, a Guggenheim Fellow and a MacDowell Fellow. In 2023, she was awarded the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts.
