
Who we are
About Our Team
PARO is supported by a diverse team with a variety of backgrounds and expertise, including academic research, journalism, and museum curation. There is a technical team and an editorial team, who will be responsible for overseeing the website’s functionality and content. The editorial team will be responsible for screening content, ensuring that ethical guidelines are followed, as well as commissioning submissions that are topical. Below are some of the people who are currently working with the PARO. This is a growing list of people and networks.

Belinda Leach
Steering Committee Member
Belinda Leach is Professor in Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Guelph. She held a University Research Chair in Rural Gender Studies and led a SSHRC funded Community-University Research Alliance, Rural Women Making Change (2004-2010). She uses ethnographic methods to study rural livelihoods, migration, and economic restructuring and has published books on labour in the rural economy, gender and class in rural spaces, and rural women’s health. Belinda values PARO for the unique opportunity it provides for rural people to tell the stories they want to tell, and by doing that to capture change and continuity, innovation and preservation, in rural communities.

Karli Longthorne
Coordinator
Karli (she/her) is a mixed-methods researcher, who is passionate about learning from, and telling stories about diverse lived experiences. As a current graduate student at the Ontario Veterinary College, she is working alongside Dr. Andria Jones to investigate, develop, and evaluate institutional-level interventions to support the mental health and well-being of faculty, staff, residents/interns and students at the OVC. Karli decided to join PARO to gain further perspective on the lived experiences of minority peoples’ living in rural Ontario.
“I take great pleasure in having the opportunity to connect with some familiar rural faces, while learning from those who have such interesting stories to tell in connection with rural Ontario. Working at PARO has sparked creativity, joy, and connection, and has in many ways, re-connected me to my rural roots.”

Sharada Srinivasan
Steering Committee Member
Sharada Srinivasan is Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Gender, Justice and Development at the University of Guelph. She has spent over 25 years undertaking research on gender discrimination and gender-based violence in rural India. She is currently completing a research project on young people's pathways into farming in Canada, China, India, and Indonesia which introduced her to rural Ontario among other regions. Sharada’s affinity to research in a rural context inspires her engagement with PARO. She hopes PARO will be a repository of stories that rural people in Ontario from all walks of life would like to share, a repository of everyday stories which will transform the ways the rural is engaged with in learning, research and policy.
Meet Our Story Curation & Social Media Team

Barry Marshall
Graduate Student Story Curator. Specialty: Rural Ontario history, Agriculture
Laila Zahra Harris
Graduate Student Story Curator. Specialty: Caribbean ancestral history, Cultural identity, Postcolonial perspectives

Dilshan Fernando
Graduate Student Story Curator. Specialty: Disabilities, Inclusion, Equity & Social Justice, South Asian Communities
Varun Joshi
Graduate Student Story Curator. Specialty: Veganism, South Asian Voices, Community & Religion
Madison Hendricks
Volunteer Story Curator. Specialty: Rural History & Archives
Sawyer Thompson-Brown
Undergraduate Student Story Curator. Specialty: Black History, Black Rural Voices
Rachel Sinclair
Volunteer Social Media Manager
Other Steering Committee Members

Brandon Mendonca
PhD Candidate,
University of Guelph

Elizabeth Finnis
Associate Professor,
University of Guelph

Shauna Rae
Journalist,
Clearing a New Path Podcast
Advisory Committee Members

The Honourable
Rob Black
Chair

Wayne Caldwell
Professor
School of Environmental Design and Rural Development, UoG

Vice President of Folk Music Ontario, Co-Founder of Smiths Falls Music and The Arts Hub

Karen Wagner
Archivist,
Wellington County

Catharine Anne Wilson
Professor​
Francis and Ruth Redelmeier Rural History, University of Guelph
Past Team Members
Our work would not be possible without the dedicated work of our past story curators and social media team members.
Past Coordinators
Lauren Chang
David Borish
Josie Wittmer
Past Story Curators
Aadyashree Pant
Abhinav Kapoor
Sara Caverly
Karli Longthorne
Sophie Samek
Lori Scott
Judy Daniel
Margaret Devin
Nancy Rouble
Shipra Chaudhury
Vanessa Cunningham
Lauren Chang
Jessica Lukaweicki
Cayla Albrecht
Philip Rich
Tasha Falconer
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Past Social Media Team
Brandon Asprovski
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Our Partners


Our Funding Sources
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Engage Grant
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Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs
Francis and Ruth Redelmeier Professorship in Rural History
Canada Research Chair in Gender, Justice and Development