Our Team

The work of our multidisciplinary team and partners has led to a major transformation in community-based and collaborative homelessness research in Canada.

Ahmad Bonakdar
Senior Director of Research, MtS DEMS

Ahmad Bonakdar, Ph.D., is the Senior Director of Research with the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness (COH). In this role, Ahmad oversees all aspects of the Making the Shift Youth Homelessness Demonstration Projects (MtS DEMs), including methodological approaches and the implementation of long-term research strategies. He also guides site-specific research plans and leads the academic and public-facing outputs of research studies from MtS DEMs.

Prior to this role, Ahmad was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the COH. He holds a Ph.D. in Urban Planning and Public Policy with advanced training in qualitative and quantitative research analyses. His research interests focus broadly on social equity and environmental justice, particularly at the intersection of homelessness and housing, community-engaged studies, and the urban imaginary of the marginalized and underserved, including youth experiencing homelessness. His recent research has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the International Journal on Homelessness, Youth, Children and Youth Services Review, International Journal of Cultural Policy, Cities, Public Works Management & Policy, and Journal of Planning Literature.
Allyson Marsolais
Executive Vice President

Allyson is the Executive Vice President with the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness (previously the Canadian Homelessness Research Network) and VP and Co-Founder of Hub Solutions. Allyson has a Master’s degree in Critical Disability Studies from York University and over 15 years experience working in the social justice field. Currently, Allyson is excited about further developing Hub Solutions (www.hubsolutions.ca), the COH’s social enterprise, which provides research, evaluation and knowledge mobilization support to the homelessness sector. She is also working towards a professional designation as a Project Management Professional (PMP). When she’s not working to make research matter and end homelessness, Allyson can be found answering “Why?” for the gazillionth time for her precocious daughter, Quinn!
C. L. Michel
French Content Coordinator

C.L. Michel studied French and English literature at McMaster University and spent eight years as a language teacher, working with learners of all ages. She decided to focus on translation in 2018 and returned to school at Glendon College for skill building and certification, and it was during this time that she started working at the COH in a part-time student position. She started full-time at the COH in 2022 and her role is focused on the language side of things: editing, translating, and doing the terminological work required to deliver high quality resources in both French and English.

When she’s not working, C.L. Michel pitches in a 2SLGTBTQ softball league, hosts a French-language pop and hip-hop show on her local community radio station, and does support and advocacy work for people held in Ontario’s prisons. She lives in Hamilton.
Chris Durand
Digital Project Specialist

Chris is a Digital Project Specialist for the COH. He holds a BA in Foreign Languages and International Marketing from the University of Aix-Marseille and the University of Bordeaux. He also holds a MBA in Digital Strategy Management from Ecole Supérieure de Commerce et d’Economie Numérique in Bordeaux, France. After graduation, he started a Web and Graphic Design company that mainly works with nonprofits in France. Life brought him in Canada, where he found the opportunity to work in a fascinating and meaningful position, here at the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness.
Cohen Pinkoski
Research Assistant on Indigenous Homelessness

Cohen Pinkoski is a Research Assistant on Indigenous Homelessness at the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness. He is mixed ancestry with Dene roots from the Northwest Territories and is a dedicated housing advocate based in Toronto. Currently studying social work, Cohen is committed to supporting the Indigenous community, with past experience as a housing worker, researcher, and traditional food-sovereignty and ceremony programmer. Cohen has a strong foundation in harm reduction and focuses on mental health and housing needs. He is passionate about creating supportive and inclusive environments and continually strive to drive positive change within the community.
Erika Morton
Systems Planning Coordinator

Erika Morton attended McMaster University where she completed her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and her Bachelor of Social Work which sparked her interest in community development and prevention-based approaches to social issues. Her work in child and youth programming inspired her to follow a career pathway that would result in building the capacity of young people to achieve their optimal wellbeing. She worked at the Social Planning and Research Council of Hamilton where she provided collaboration support with community partners and youth with lived experience of homelessness who are working together to end youth homelessness. In her role as a Systems Planning Coordinator, she is keen to transfer the skills and knowledge that she has developed towards ending homelessness in Canada. In her downtime, Erika is likely to be found being amused by her cats.
Jacqueline Sohn
Senior Researcher

Jacqueline Sohn is a Senior Researcher at the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness (COH) and adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Health and Social Development at the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on the social determinants of education and scaling social innovation for marginalized youth through cross-sector collaboration and community engagement. She holds a Ph.D in educational policy from the University of Toronto/OISE. She is Principal Researcher on Upstream Canada, an early intervention initiative that works to prevent youth homelessness and educational disengagement through school-community partnerships.
John Ecker
Director of Research and Evaluation

John Ecker, PhD is the Director of Research and Evaluation at the COH. In this role, he has been fortunate to collaborate with with a number of community partners on their research and evaluation activities. He attained his Ph.D. in Community Psychology from the University of Ottawa where he received advanced training in qualitative and quantitative analyses, as well as program evaluation theory and practice. His research interests are varied and include homelessness, housing, Housing First, community integration, and LGBTQ2S studies. In his spare time, John is an avid tennis player/fan and has a love of pop culture.

Follow John on Twitter
Karen Bosworth
Instructional Design Specialist

Karen Bosworth is the Instructional Designer & Content Developer for the Homelessness Learning Hub where she develops training and curates collections of learning resources for the housing and homelessness sector. Karen is driven to produce engaging and effective learning experiences that people will actually enjoy. She specializes in developing online training that is learner-centred and practical. Her key strengths include engaging scholars and practitioners in collaborative design, creating engaging and interactive lessons with stories and scenarios and working with trainers to transform in-person events to online learning.
Lindsay McRae
Marketing and Communications Strategist

Lindsay leads the development of marketing and communications initiatives designed to grow the COH’s audience and increase stakeholder engagement across its suite of brands, including the Homeless Hub, the Homelessness Learning Hub, and Hub Solutions.

She is responsible for developing integrated marketing campaigns that translate the COH’s research into practical, accessible, and actionable digital content for service providers, policymakers, governments, educators, and community leaders across web, social media, email and digital newsletters, and educational events.

Lindsay holds a bachelor’s degree in social work (BSW), completed a postgraduate program in Marketing Management, and specialized programs in digital marketing strategy. Her professional experience spans the nonprofit sector, where she has worked with organizations in the fields of education and research.
Sarah Anne Charlebois
Graphic Designer

Sarah Anne holds a BA from the York/Sheridan Program in Design (BDes honours). Working in both traditional and digital media, Sarah Anne is passionate about knowledge mobilization through the breakdown of data and research to easily digestible content in order to build connections and foster comprehension. Sarah Anne’s personal philosophy that education is the key to empathy integrates neatly into her everyday role as a graphic designer for the COH. She would like you to know that the Greenland shark is her favorite shark.
Steph Vasko
Senior Director of Communications

Steph Vasko (she/her) is the Senior Director of Communications at the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness (COH). She leads the team responsible for designing the COH’s publications and communications materials, which range from reports and books to infographics and videos, that help advance our mandate to enhance the impact of research on policy and practice. Since 2009, Steph has been working with the COH’s Homeless Hub website, a key vehicle of knowledge mobilization and the world’s largest library of homelessness research. She also manages communications and design-driven projects for clients of COH’s social enterprise, Hub Solutions.

With a background in communications, web and graphic design, Steph designed several of COH’s seminal reports and led the redesign of the current Homeless Hub website. She’s skilled in both the aesthetic (interface design, user-experience design) and technical (programming, content management systems) aspects of website development.

Steph graduated from McMaster University’s multimedia and communications program in 2007. In this time, she has been involved in website development and communications management at a variety of organizations in Canada and Switzerland, from non-profits to non-governmental organizations in consultation with the United Nations.

When not thinking about all things design, Steph can be found exploring Toronto with her kids.

Follow Steph on Twitter
Stephen Gaetz
President & CEO

Dr. Stephen Gaetz is a Professor in the Faculty of Education at York University, in Toronto Canada. In 2021, Dr. Gaetz was named York Research Chair in Homelessness and Research Impact.

As a scholar Dr. Stephen Gaetz has had a long-standing interest in understanding homelessness – its causes, how it is experienced, and potential solutions. His program of research has been defined by his desire to ‘make research matter’ through conducting and mobilizing rigorous scholarly research that contributes not only to our knowledge base on homelessness but also to solutions to homelessness that impact on policy, practice and public opinion. Dr. Gaetz has led efforts to help communities and all orders of government to embrace the prevention of homelessness – and youth homelessness in particular – as a priority.

Dr. Gaetz is the President of the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness and the Homeless Hub at York University as well as the Scientific Director of Making the Shift – Youth Homelessness Social Innovation Lab. In 2017 Dr. Gaetz was awarded the Member of the Order of Canada. In 2021, in partnership with A Way Home Canada, the body of work on youth homelessness prevention was designated by the United Nations as the UN Geneva Charter Centre of Excellence on Youth Homelessness Prevention (Toronto).

Faculty of Education Profile and Web Page
Susan Atkinson
Administrative Assistant
Yasmine Abu-Ayyash
Manager of Research and Evaluation

Yasmine (Yes-meen) is a research analyst and knowledge mobilization specialist. She has worked on equity-focused research in the non-profit sector. She brings four years of experience in integrating Gender Based Analysis Plus (GBA+) into research design and policy evaluation. She has provided training to researchers and government partners on gender analytics to assess how gender impacts organizational practices and policies. She previously worked in the settlement sector where she produced knowledge products on issues relating to homelessness and mental health. Her guiding principle is to make research data and findings accessible in plain language writing. She received her master’s in Gender Studies from SOAS, University of London and her Research Analyst postgraduate certificate from Humber.