Join us at Westbury Theatre for a live podcast recording spotlighting an inspiring panel of University of Alberta Indigenous alumnae. These accomplished leaders, who are each making a meaningful impact in their fields, will share their personal career journeys and the work they are doing to advance reconciliation, decolonization, and community wellbeing.
Through lived experience and leadership, the panelists are contributing to the priorities outlined by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and helping shape more equitable futures for Indigenous Peoples and communities. This engaging conversation celebrates Indigenous excellence, women in leadership, and the power of alumni driving change.
Schedule
5:30 pm A beverage and canapes featuring Métis owned Culina Catering
6:30 pm Live panel podcast recording hosted by Matt Rea, ’13 PhD
7:15 pm Questions from the audience
7:30 pm Reception with Desserts from Culina
8:30 pm Event ends
About the speakers:
Reagan Bartel ’04 BSC, ’19 MSc
Reagan Bartel had been a critical care nurse for 15 years when she returned to school to study public health. The decision proved prescient when, six months after graduation, the new director of health for the Métis Nation of Alberta found herself leading its more than 56,000 members through COVID-19. Drawing on her experience and education, Bartel launched initiatives like Canada’s first Métis-led vaccination clinic and online social programming to foster mental well-being. Her skill in creating partnerships helped co-create a community dental clinic — staffed by U of A students — and an award-winning program that provides online opioid and naloxone training. Bartel’s ability to listen to community voices makes her an effective advocate with governments and organizations.
Tonya Simpson ’16 BSc. ’19 MA, Current Doctoral Student, is a forensic anthropologist who contributes to cases across Alberta. Simpson works as a researcher, educator and curator at the University of Alberta. An independent consultant and former research analyst with the RCMP, she assists with unidentified remains and missing persons investigations. The Augustana alumna engages her policing network to create opportunities for students while inspiring them to explore the intersections of anthropology, ethics and social responsibility. Simpson is also an acclaimed children’s author whose books celebrate Indigenous worldviews and the land. In 2025, her second children’s book This Land is a Lullaby won an Alberta Literary Award and the Governor General’s Literary Award for Illustrated Texts. From her research to her participation in community reburial initiatives, Simpson champions reconciliation, respect and transformative change.
Jacquelyn Cardinal ’11 BA is a sakāwithiniwak (Woodland Cree) entrepreneur and Indigenous technologist from the Sucker Creek Cree First Nation in northern Alberta. As Founder & CEO of Naheyawin—a storytelling and education social enterprise based in amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton)—Jacquelyn builds bridges between Indigenous knowledge systems and contemporary innovation. Her work spans technology, business, and the arts: she’s received an Esquao Award for Achievement in Business, a SHEInnovates Award from the UN Women’s Global Innovation Coalition for Change, and the 2019 Elizabeth Sterling Haynes Award for Outstanding New Play for Lake of the Strangers, co-written with her brother. Through all these mediums, Jacquelyn is guided by a singular vision—to realize the promise of our treaties by creating spaces where diverse ways of knowing can strengthen each other. She believes that Indigenous innovation isn’t about choosing between tradition and technology, but about weaving them together to build the future our ancestors dreamed for us.
Cost$10 per person (tickets include food, beverages and parking)
