2025 Networking Week

Rebecca Dirnfeld (she/her)
Career Educator, UBC Career Centre

Rebecca Dirnfeld holds an MA in History and is a Career Educator who works with the UBC Career Centre to support graduate students at UBC. She also has a Career and Work Counselling Diploma from George Brown College. Her past experience includes leading the graduate student career education portfolio for graduate studies and managing the MBA careers team at Toronto Metropolitan University, and providing career advising to business students as a team member of SFU’s Beedie Career Management Centre. Rebecca is also a part-time graduate student in UBC’s EDST MA program. LinkedIn profile.

Nicole Esligar (she/her)
Program Manager, BC Children's and Women's Hospitals

Nicole currently works as Program Manager, Indigenous Patient and Family Experience at BC Children’s and Women’s Hospitals. She is Anishinaabe on her mother’s side, with her family roots in the Sandy Bay Reserve in Lake Manitoba’s Treaty One territory, and is Scottish and German on her father’s side. She moved to Vancouver in 2015 to pursue her Masters of Arts in Political Science, and after working Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside community for several years afterwards in drug policy research, she became passionate about decolonizing healthcare and health research practices for Indigenous communities. She has a background in Phase I and Phase II Clinical Trial Management, along with several years of research experience in the fields of emergency medicine and psychiatry. She now lives in Tsawwassen First Nations territory with her partner and her dog.

Nicole would be happy to discuss what it is like being an Indigenous student in a colonial system and a woman in a male-dominated field, transitioning to a field that is not connected to my academic training, working in Indigenous Health and in DEI spaces and in healthcare and research.

John Estabillo (he/him)
Publisher, Nelson Education

As literacy and social studies publisher for Nelson, I research how to best support K-12 teachers across Canada and create business cases for new publications to provide that support in digital and print media. I then work with subject matter experts, authors, educators, editors, and reviewers to launch approved projects.
My education: PhD - English, University of Toronto (2017)

My LinkedIn profile

Craig Gill (he/him)
UX Researcher

Craig Gill is a UX researcher for Spatial Research & Design in Vancouver. He holds a PhD in History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Craig transitioned out of academia after receiving his doctorate in 2023 but still engages with historical work where possible. His book, Caddying on the Color Line, is forthcoming on Back Nine Press this year. He can share his experiences transitioning out of academia.

Letitia Henville (she/her)
Freelance Editor

Letitia Henville is a book nerd, bad swimmer, and the author of the monthly academic writing advice column "Ask Dr. Editor” for University Affairs. She works full-time as a freelance editor of academic writing. She specializes in editing for faculty members in the health sciences, education, social sciences, and humanities, with a special focus on grant applications and tenure and promotion dossiers. Learn more about Letitia at letitiahenville.com

Letitia can share insight into how to break into providing support for researchers in universities and how to get into working for yourself. She would also be happy to chat with people who have no idea what they want to do after grad school.

Lilian Higashikata (she/her)
Global Engagement Associate Advisor, Go Global, UBC

Lilian is a Global Engagement Associate Advisor at Go Global: International Learning Programs. Her work paves global connections by creating transformative learning opportunities for students at home and abroad. She advises and coordinates many aspects of the student experience and engagement, whether it be program selection, admissions procedures, orientation events, and academic transition support. Seeing students thrive and succeed in their academic journeys brings her great happiness and inspires her to remain dedicated to her work. As an Arts Amplifier alumnus, Lilian is honoured to give back to the program this year! Having been a recent graduate student herself, she has firsthand insight into the joys and challenges of pursuing a career in higher education. Lilian looks forward to sharing her experiences navigating transitions between academia and work in higher education. Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/higashikata/

Henry John (he/they)
Kaatza Station Museum and Archives; Heritage Branch of the British Columbia Government

Henry is an immigrant settler from the British Isles who is of Celtic ancestry. They finished my PhD in History at UBC in 2023. During the second half of my PhD, they undertook two work placements at the Kaatza Station Museum and Archives through the Arts PhD Co-op Program, before working full-time at the museum. He now works as a Heritage Planner for the British Columbia government's Heritage Branch (Ministry of Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sport) and provide independent consulting services for museums and other non-profits.

Henry would be happy to discuss what it is like making the shift from academia into government, working and securing permanent residence as an international student, working in heritage, museums, archives, and the arts/culture sector more broadly, and non academic grant writing (how to fund the work you want to do with the organizations you want to work with).

Heidi Rennert (she/her)
Grants Editor, Arts Amplifier, UBC; PhD Candidate, English

Heidi is the grants editor at Arts Amplifier, supporting graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in the Arts seeking grants support and funding opportunities for self-directed projects and work-integrated learning experiences. She is also a PhD candidate in English and the Science and Technology Studies program at UBC. She has had lots of experience as a Co-op student as well, completing work terms at the Knowledge Exchange and Public Humanities Hub, where she supported public-facing Arts programming, grants applications, and graduate student professional development. Come talk to her about exploring career skills and opportunities during graduate school!

Annika Rosanowski (she/her)
Business Development Advisor, Mitacs

Annika (PhD) has nearly 10 years of experience working in academia, supporting research activities and research partnerships. She is currently a Business Development Advisor for Mitacs, and has actively developed long-standing, and innovative partnerships with researchers and communities, municipalities, and not-for-profits. She is currently co-funded by SFU FASS and also works closely with UBC and Emily Carr. She focuses on emergency management, interactive arts, and Indigenous engagement.

Carolyn Veldstra (she/her)
Manager, Graduate Work-Integrated Learning Programs, Faculty of Arts, UBC

Carolyn graduated with a PhD (2014) in English and Cultural Studies (she wrote her dissertation on cynicism) and completed a post-doc in which she looked at the intersection of affective labour and precarious work. Carolyn now works in a student-facing and programming role in higher education, i.e. she runs the Arts Amplifier and PhD Co-op program for graduate students in the Faculty of Arts. She has past work experience in grant support, and project management. She is happy to talk about job searching with a PhD, career ambiguity, unlearning after a PhD, finding jobs in a new city, career paths in higher education, intellectual fulfillment in non-academic jobs, strategies for figuring out what you might want to do, not knowing what you want to do, the "two body problem" as an dual academic couple, cultivating relationships outside of the university, balancing parenting with career… and whatever else you might be interested in talking about!

Carolyn's education: PhD in English and Cultural Studies from McMaster University.
My LinkedIn Profile

Brianna Wells (she/her)
Research Development Officer, UBC-O

Brianna Wells holds a PhD in English from the University of Alberta (2017), where her doctoral research focused on the mediated circulation of opera in early twentieth century North America. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at UAlberta’s Sound Studies Institute, she joined the research development team at UBC Okanagan in 2018. As a Research Development Officer, her work is balanced among 1) offering one-on-one support for Social Sciences and Humanities faculty at any stage of their project development, 2) development and delivery of grant-specific supports for SSHRC research funding opportunities (including writing workshops, offering reviews, and supporting application logistics), and 3) providing high level strategic support for leadership at the Department, Faculty, and central units of UBC regarding initiatives and priorities for advancing research capacity in the humanities and social sciences. One of her favorite parts of the job is being part of the moments where nascent ideas bloom into research projects of all shapes and sizes.