Winterfest 2023

After many years working with children in cooperative day care and nursery school settings, Rosemary C. Reilly went back to Concordia University in 1987 to obtain a certificate in Family Life Education. This certificate proved to be a turning point in her career, from working with young children to working with families and organizations. Dr. Reilly has been associated with Concordia University ever since both as a part-time faculty member, and since 2003, as tenure-track faculty. Her particular research interest is exploring the impact of using learning as a lever for change at an individual, organizational, or community level. As well, Dr. Reilly has presented and published in the areas of social creativity, the development of learning communities, trauma, and qualitative changes in thinking patterns as a result of collaboration in groups. She has presented at both national and international conferences and functions as a peer reviewer for several international journals, and a prestigious national conference. Dr. Reilly employs an experiential approach to learning, while emphasizing the whole person in this process-- the intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual parts of the participant. She spends a portion of her time working with culturally diverse groups in schools, social service agencies, and community organizations.

Camila is psychotherapist at Concordia's Counselling and Psychological Services and CU Wellness. Her role involves individual therapy, designing and teaching psychoeducational programs, and training peer supporters. In her individual and group-based work, Camila primarily aims to empower students to cultivate a self-compassionate relationship with themselves, befriend their nervous systems, enhance resilience through a trauma-informed lens, co-construct healthier relationships, and advocate for socially just communities and systems. Her research focuses on how students experience wellness programs, including mindfulness, self-compassion, and wellness curriculum initiatives. She tends to adopt qualitative approaches that forefront the participant’s voice with the aim of discovering meaningful and helpful practices to cultivate student well-being.

Erin Barker is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and member of the Centre for Research in Human Development at Concordia University, where she directs the Lifespan Well-Being Laboratory.  She is a developmental scientist whose program of research examines patterns of emotional experience across developmental transitions. She is particularly interested in how stress and coping affect mental health and wellbeing during the transition to adulthood. Dr. Barker completed her training at the Universities of Victoria (M.A.) and Alberta (Ph.D.) and as a postdoctoral fellow at the Child and Family Research Section of the NICHD and the Waisman Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Lynn is a third year acting student and a Peer Wellness Ambassador at Concordia University. Her practice is anchored in mindfulness, vulnerability and openness to the collective creation process. In the future she hopes to adapt and apply the tools forged in her theatre and mindfulness training to a therapeutic setting; helping people to open up to their own self-expression and share in the expression of others. 

Gabriela Petrov lives in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal and works as a part-time faculty member in the Department of Theatre at Concordia University. She completed her M.F.A. in Contemporary Performance at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado where she studied under several mentors from the Shambhala lineage of Western Buddhism including Erika Berland, Robert Spellman and Barbara Dilley. Gabi integrates contemplative practices with her artistic work, pedagogy, and everyday life.

Megan Fitzgibbons (she/her) is an Associate Librarian at Concordia and is the Concordia Library’s Instructional Services Coordinator. She previously worked at the University of Western Australia as a Law Librarian and later as the Innovation Librarian for the Centre for Education Futures, and as a subject librarian in Humanities & Social Sciences at McGill University. Her professional interests include information literacy, education futures, and inclusive educational practices.

Sara Terreault’s research and teaching focus on historical and contemporary spirituality and spiritual practices. She is particularly interested in contemplative practices, spiritual performed (for instance in the practices of pilgrimage), and spirituality and art. With the Department of Theological Studies, she contributed to the formation programme for the Spiritual & Community Animators of the English school boards in Montreal, and throughout the province of Quebec, after the secularisation of the public school system in the province. She has been guest speaker on contemplative spirituality in academic and non-academic settings and has facilitated a variety of contemplative retreats. She also designed and for several years lead a spirituality workshop series at a women’s correctional facility in the Montreal area. She is a part-time faculty member at Concordia, teaching courses in the Departments of Theological Studies and Religions & Cultures. In the past, she also taught the course “Teaching Ethics and Religious Culture” in the Department of Education.

Eric B. Loucks, PhD, is a professor, researcher, and pioneer in the study of mindfulness and health. As director of the Mindfulness Center at Brown University, Loucks teaches mindfulness-based programs and leads high-quality, methodologically rigorous research to investigate the science behind mindfulness and its impact on health and well-being. An expert in aging-related research, he optimizes mindfulness programs to specific age groups. He is the lead developer of Mindfulness-Based College (MBC) and Mindfulness-Based Blood Pressure Reduction (MB-BP), and has received numerous research grants from the National Institutes of Health to evaluate the effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions, including MBC, MB-BP, and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). Dr. Loucks’ book entitled The Mindful College Student (New Harbinger Publications) was released in 2022. Over the course of his career, he has held teaching positions at Harvard, McGill, and Brown Universities. Loucks has practiced mindfulness for about 25 years.  Dr. Loucks’s work has been widely distributed through media organizations such as the New York Times, TIME Magazine, and the BBC, along with numerous presentations to national and state governmental bodies.