Miriam Grant is a professor Emeritus (Geography) in the Department of Community, Culture and Global Studies, and Graduate Dean Emeritus, UBC Okanagan. A social urban Geographer who obtained her PhD from Queen’s University, she was a faculty member in Geography at the University of Calgary for twenty years. There she also held the positions of Associate Dean, Graduate Studies and Associate Dean, Research (Faculty of Social Sciences, which became the Faculty of Arts). She then moved to UBCO to become Vice Provost and Dean, Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (2011-2018).
Arja Vainio-Mattila began her career as a researcher at the University of Helsinki, completing her PhD in Geography at the University of Turku, Finland. Dr. Vainio-Mattila has held the positions of Director of the Centre for Global Studies at Huron University College, Dean of School of Arts and Social Sciences at Cape Breton University, and Provost, Vice-President Academic and Research at Nipissing University. She is currently the Provost, Vice-President Academic at Brock University.