Meet the Drifters
Atong Ater
Born in Kenya and raised in Canada, Atong has always been curious. Using her background in neuroscience, she has helped develop a series that attempts to make science accessible and entertaining to a wider audience. Atong has interned with TVOntario’s The Agenda with Steve Paikin, where she helped produce an episode entitled “Aiming at Addiction” for their Mental Health Matters series, as well as a segment on autism. Atong has a passion for storytelling, science, and sports and between March and June can be found watching March Madness and NBA playoffs.
Bronwyn Beairsto
Bronwyn was born and raised in the Yukon. The social and cultural dynamics of the territory inspired her to pursue Anthropology at Memorial University in Newfoundland, and subsequently Journalism at Carleton. Bronwyn loves the north and hopes to put her Anthropology and Journalism experience toward improving community wellbeing for northerners. Areas of academic interest include Aboriginal politics, media representations of Aboriginal peoples, and northern issues of food security, economic development and health care. When not at school or travelling, Bronwyn enjoys hiking, reading, writing, and spending time in Whitehorse.
Floriane Bonneville
Floriane has completed an undergraduate specialization in English at Concordia University. While living in Montreal she undertook various media-related projects, such as the creation of her own radio programme at a student-run station and an exploration of Mongolia through an internship at a local television broadcasting station in Ulaanbaatar. Her travel writings were featured on Canal Évasion’s blog, a famous online platform for the travel savvy in Québec. Floriane’s focus in Mongolia was to inquire about and to promote gender equality. Over there she interviewed Mrs. Erdenechimeg, one of the few female parliamentarians in the country and Mrs. Kitahara, a United Nations Population Funds representative. Her hope as a journalist is to promote equality and justice for communities through the diffusion of open conversations about key issues.
Amber-Dawn Davison
Amber-Dawn received her BA Hons in Political Studies from Queen’s University in 2013, and has since delighted in using her degree to prove pedantic points on the Internet. This past year, Amber-Dawn had the opportunity to work with Elections Canada at National Headquarters during the 2015 Federal Election, and spent six months with the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada as a research analyst. She worked closely with a public affairs team on affairs to do with both domestic and international open government policy, freedom of speech practices, and access to information laws. This summer, Amber-Dawn worked at the PetSmart PetsHotel and played with puppies all day, every day.
Arvin Joaquin
Arvin completed his Honours Bachelor’s degree from Simon Fraser University where he majored in Communication and minored in Sociology. While completing his undergraduate education, he explored the intersectionalities of race, sexuality, culture, religion, and the media in defining the experiences of marginalized individuals in society. After graduation, Arvin ventured to several creative pursuits, from being a Social Media Manager for a futurist magazine to a full-time Instagram curator. However, these endeavors only led him back to journalism and re-ignited his life-long dream of sharing individuals’ experiences, through words, videos, and effective storytelling with the ultimate goal of shedding light on issues that are otherwise ignored in daily discourse. Hence, he is thrilled to join Carleton University’s School of Journalism for he believes that the school will equip him with skills that will enable him to share these individuals’ experiences and ultimately, challenge and change stereotypes, one story at a time.
Shalu Mehta
Shalu Born in Dubai to an Indian family and raised in Chicago, IL as well as Windsor, ON, Shalu Mehta invests a great deal of her time in learning about different people and cultures in the world. Having just received an Honors BA in English Language and Literature and Comparative Literature and Culture as well as a Certificate in Theatre Arts, Shalu hopes to bring her background knowledge in these subjects to the field of journalism. Shalu’s interest in journalism sparked in high school where she was an editor of her school paper. She pursued this interest in university as she contributed to blogs and her school’s student-run paper. Shalu spent this past summer working at a local not-for-profit organization in a journalistic role, endeavouring to use her work as a means to give persons with disabilities a voice. An avid traveler, Shalu hopes to use images and the written word to educate others and bring people around the world together.
Matthew Olson
Matthew earned a Bachelor of Music (Honours) from the University of Saskatchewan with a focus on vocal performance. In 2014, he presented a research paper at the 16th Biennial International Conference on Baroque Music in Salzburg, Austria, where he was one of the youngest delegates in attendance. Outside of university, Matthew has been deeply involved in community theatre with the Saskatoon Summer Players as both a cast member and vocal director. He has also volunteered with Saskatoon’s community radio station CFCR 90.5 FM, where he has filled in as a host for a classical music radio show on multiple occasions. Matthew has always been interested in arts, sports, and entertainment journalism, and hopes to one day contribute in that field.
Lauren Sproule
Never one to shy away from the spotlight, Lauren developed a compulsion early on in life to entertain those around her through all manner of storytelling. From reading Andersen’s fairy tales to her stuffed animals, to producing an entire piano concerto in her living room (including programs, sets, costumes, and lighting), Lauren loved to make others smile. This desire led Lauren to two decades of theatre and dance camp, narrated slideshows after dinner, Dr. Seuss interactive readings, and a few fairly sarcastic photography blogs. It eventually brought her to York University’s Theatre Program outside of Toronto where four jam-packed years disappeared in the blink of an eye and left her with a piece of paper, a shoebox of hilarious photos, and an unfettered need to seek out the world’s untold stories. Now she finds herself at Carleton University’s reputable MJ program where Lauren is positively elated to be furthering her education in the nation’s capital alongside the brightest stars in the journalism galaxy!
Jordan Steinhauer
Jordan has always had a passion for journalism, which heavily influenced her decision to double major in Communication Studies and English, with a diploma in Performance and Communications Media, from Memorial University of Newfoundland. During her time at Memorial Jordan studied abroad twice, attending field schools in Italy and England, which heightened her love of travelling and experiencing new cultures and furthered her interest in pursuing a career in journalism. Jordan worked at her university’s radio station, CHMR, as a news writer and reporter and contributed to Memorial’s newspaper, The Muse, by writing articles ranging from film reviews to interviews with young entrepreneurs and artists. Jordan interned with CBC Newfoundland and Labrador where she worked closely with the St. John’s Morning Show and wrote a number of online articles featured on CBC’s website. Jordan is excited to be studying at Carleton and cannot wait to see what the next two years have in store.