Our People

Having been licensed in Ontario as a building science engineer before building science was cool, Betsy has drawn on her technical background advocating for building decarbonization and adaptation over the last 10+ years. Born and raised in Ontario, she moved her family to North Vancouver nearly 15 years ago and now calls both provinces home. Betsy is grateful for the privilege of living, working and playing on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples.

Kelsey Brasil is Director of Project Management Lead at Efficiency Canada. Originally from Ontario, she fell in love with Halifax studying Sustainability and Planning at Dalhousie University, and has made a second home on the east coast. Prior to this role, Kelsey spearheaded the development of Efficiency Canada’s Career Hub — a one stop shop for people to find training, networking events, mentors, and ultimately their dream job!

Kelsey’s career in energy efficiency kicked off managing Efficiency Nova Scotia’s community outreach program, Green Schools NS — connecting students to Energy efficiency behaviours they can adopt to protect our Earth. Energy efficiency quickly became a career focus once she saw the ways it empowers youth to take action, helps Canadians save money and afford their bills, and the solutions it brings to the climate crisis.

In her free time, you can find Kelsey in the woods camping, rock climbing, or having a dance party with her sisters.

Natasha Daniel has devoted the past 15 years to contributing to Ontario’s arts and culture sector, excelling in marketing and public relations. She has been honoured by the United Nations for her impactful work supporting equity-seeking communities in Medellin, Colombia and South India, as well as Toronto’s Malvern and Jane-Finch neighbourhoods. Her non-fiction writing and photo essays have been featured in VICE, ELLE magazine, and Canadian Living. Currently, she is driving efforts to promote decarbonization in workforce development at Efficiency Canada.

Aidan Djabarov is a Communications Specialist at Efficiency Canada. Her undergraduate studies were in Political Science, History, and American Studies and she completed a post-graduate certification in Public Relations/Corporate Communications at Seneca College.

Since beginning her professional career, Aidan has worked in entertainment, non-profit, and education – with these diverse experiences allowing her to develop an expansive array of skills across communications, social media, and marketing. She’s excited to apply her skillset to advocating for energy efficiency and making a real impact on Canadian communities and the world at large.

Outside of work, Aidan enjoys frequent trips to the local library to stock up on new books and studying multiple languages in her pursuit to become a polyglot.

For the past 10 years, James has conducted research on energy and environmental politics and public opinion in Canada through a variety of capacities, including two postdoctoral fellowships, research associate positions at York University, Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Waterloo, and as an independent consultant. He has also been a member of two cross-Canadian energy-related research networks, prepared several successful research grant applications, and served as organizational and technical consultant at multiple academic associations.

James received is PhD in Political Science from Carleton University in 2014, where he specialized in comparative politics and international relations. His doctoral dissertation focused on the politics of visualizing the future for sustainable energy, looking specifically at controversy surrounding oil supply forecasts by the International Energy Agency in the early 2000s. Some of the topics James has written and published on since include carbon capture and storage, biofuel policy, energy efficiency, and energy storage.

Emilie (she/her) is the Engagement Manager at Efficiency Canada.

Emilie holds a Masters of Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership, as well as a B.A. in International Law and International Relations. She has spent the past five years advocating for sustainable land use planning, active transportation, and renewable energy. Above all else, Emilie hopes to help build community in the nonprofit sector.

Outside of work, Emilie spends a lot of time figuring out how to be less cold during her backcountry skiing and ice climbing adventures.

Imran has spent over a decade managing the finances of organizations, in both the non-profit and for-profit sectors. As Finance Manager and worker-owner, he helped La Siembra Workers’ Cooperative eliminate a substantial deficit to achieve positive equity for the first time in over a dozen years.

His passion for finance and governance comes from a desire to find a better way to do things. Imran has used his skills to chair the Real Food, Real Jobs Coalition; a coalition that helped Aramark food service workers win a $15 minimum wage. He is also past Vice-Chair of Fairtrade Canada, co-founder and chair of the Sustainable Purchasing Coalition, and co-founder of Reclaim the Beautiful Game. Currently, Imran is a CPA Ontario student working to get his CPA designation.

Abhi has a decade of experience helping communities across US and Canada use clean and efficient energy to achieve local priorities including improving housing, increasing ‘good jobs’ and reducing poverty.

His community-based approach to clean energy, civic engagement and capacity building has earned him wide recognition including being named a ‘40 Under 40 Energy Leader’ by the Midwest Energy News and a Canada Storyteller Award by SSHRC-CRSH. In an earlier life, he optimized power system operations (B.E, Electrical Engineering), tracked transient objects in the night sky (MS Physics), developed AI algorithms for smart microgrids (MS Computer Science), and led a network of social impact organizations in Houghton (MI) into the finals of a national community energy-efficiency competition. Currently he is completing his PhD in Geography at the University of Guelph researching the governance of building #EnergyRetrofits in Canada.

Outside of work, Abhi enjoys making maps to help people in his (many) hometown(s) deepen their sense of belonging with the places they call home.

With over twenty-five years of progressive executive experience in project, finance, network and event management, in university, not-for-profit and hospitality settings, Shirley tried to retire. When that attempt wasn’t successful, she joined the Efficiency Canada team in a part time capacity as Financial Support in the Operations department.

Outside of work, she is a long-time volunteer with Toastmasters International, a nonprofit educational organization supporting communication and leadership development. Most recently she has taken on the roles of the District 61 Public Relations Manager and President of the Management Development for Women Toastmasters Club.

In her free time, Shirley enjoys golf, travelling, writing, spending time at the lake with friends, and learning new languages.

With over 25 years of leadership in sustainability, nonprofit management, and community building, Lindsay brings experience driving transformative environmental initiatives across Canada. A seasoned manager and strategic planner, Lindsay centers community building with concrete local solutions to drive progress on climate policy, freshwater health, and net-zero community transitions.

Most recently, within the Capacity Development team at FCM’s Green Municipal Fund, Lindsay has played a pivotal role in scaling organizational capacity, developing innovative partnership and training models, and guiding the design of impactful municipal climate action programs. Her prior work includes founding the Canadian Freshwater Alliance, as Prairie Director for the Sierra Club Canada and as a social enterprise coach with Georgian College’s Social Enterprise Network of Central Ontario.

Lindsay holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Studies from York University and is a certified Practitioner in Dialogue Education. She is an accomplished facilitator and trainer, contributing to national collaborations such as the Municipal Net-Zero Action Research Partnership (N-ZAP) and the Our Living Waters Network.

When not building strategic alliances to foster a just, resilient and sustainable future, Lindsay can be found, alongside her family, at their off-grid cabin in Northern Ontario recharging with the power and beauty of nature and waters.

Gillian has more than a decade of experience using strategic communications to drive real-world change. She has worked with coalition groups, partners, and stakeholders, and led dynamic, highly collaborative teams to develop local, provincial and national communications products and campaigns that have secured a range of environmental protections, from more and stronger MPAs to more ambitious GHG emissions reductions targets.

During her tenure as strategic communications manager at the Ecology Action Centre, she contributed to Canada’s largest survey of environmental supporters in collaboration with 12 of the country’s most prominent environmental groups.

Gillian is passionate about helping train the next generation of science communicators. She has provided mentorship and professional development opportunities to students from universities and professional programs at various stages of their learning journey.

Gillian volunteers her time advocating for permanent, accessible, dignified and safe housing for persons experiencing homelessness. She is an avid long-distance runner and enjoys traveling with her family and experiencing different food, culture, and languages. Elle etudie le français et voudrais des opportunités pour l’améliorer.

Lorne has more than 20 years of experience in forging collaborative solutions to sustainability challenges in Canada. He has established a reputation as someone who brings enthusiasm, humour and a solid dose of pragmatism while getting things done.

Early in his career, Lorne played a leadership role in establishing the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) in Canada including facilitating stakeholder negotiations for several regional standards processes, serving as a board member and chair, and acting as the Executive Director while overseeing the redesign of the organization’s business strategy and revenue model.

During his ten-year term with World Wildlife Fund Canada (1998 and 2007), Lorne established and led partnerships with several forest products companies. In his final years with WWF, he led the organization’s federal government relations efforts as their Ottawa Bureau Director focusing on climate change and oceans conservation.

Lorne has served in a variety of governance roles and was a founding director of the Clean Economy Fund (a focused collaborative of philanthropic foundations), the co-chair of the Cornerstone Standards Council and a member of the Governing Council of Efficiency Canada. He has headed up a number of organizations over the years including FSC Canada, Cornerstone Standards Council and the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement Secretariat.

In addition to his work with the Ivey Foundation, Lorne is an advisor to the conservation granting program of the Schad Foundation. He lives in Ottawa with his wife, Nathalie Chalifour, and two children. He is an avid painter, angler, hunter and paddler. He has aspirations of spending less time on conference calls and more time outdoors.

James Meadowcroft holds a Canada Research Chair in Governance for Sustainable Development. He is a Professor in both the Department of Political Science and the School of Public Policy and Administration. His research is focused on the ways governments are adjusting their practices and policies to cope with the emergence of problems of the environment and sustainable development. Meadowcroft has written widely on environmental politics and policy, democratic participation and deliberative democracy, national sustainable development strategies, and socio- technical transitions. Recent work focuses on energy and the transition to a low carbon society, and includes publications on carbon capture and storage (CCS), smart grids, the development of Ontario’s electricity system, the politics of socio-technical transitions, and negative carbon emissions. He co-edited the first international comparative study of the politics and policy of CCS (Caching the Carbon, Edward Elgar, 2009). Meadowcroft’s research has been funded by the UK ERSC, SSHRC, NSERC and Carbon Management Canada. He has supervised PhD students working on a variety of environment and energy-related topics including North American air pollution, the politics of biofuels, decarbonization pathways and energy futures.

Meadowcroft is currently co-lead, with Hayley Stevenson (University of Sheffield), on an international research project on Ecosystem services: valuing nature for sustainable development and a green economy, which is being funded by the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, the Wellcome Trust and the VolkswagenStiftung. Another initiative is the ‘Taskforce on conceptual foundations of earth system governance’, an international research network (linked to the Earth System Governance project and Future Earth) which is interrogating key ideas that are being formulated to orient global governance of environmental issues (for example: ‘the Anthropocene’,  ‘sustainability science’ or ‘green democracy’). In collaboration with Peter Feindt (Wageningen) and Andreas Duit (Stockholm) he recently edited a special issue of Environmental Politics focused on the Environmental State. Meadowcroft has served as co-editor of the International Political Science Review (1999-2007) and Associate Editor of the Journal of Political Ideologies (2006-). He holds an honorary doctorate from the University Tampere in Finland.

Yasmin is Co-Founder of Kambo Energy Group and the visionary behind Empower Me, Canada’s only energy and climate focused program designed for, and delivered by, members of underserved communities. Under Yasmin’s leadership, Kambo has become a leader and advocate for the inclusion of lower income families in climate policies, specifically advocating for supports for families experiencing energy poverty. Kambo’s Community Power division is dedicated exclusively to reducing energy poverty and improving housing conditions in Indigenous communities.

Yasmin is a leading expert in equity-based energy and climate programming, working with governments and utilities across Canada to design and deliver inclusive solutions.

Yasmin has assembled an employee roster representative of the communities they serve – 83% identify as visible minority, immigrant and/or multilingual, and 59% of employees are female.

Sandra Crocker was appointed to the newly created position of Associate Vice-President in May 2011. Reporting to the Vice-President (Research & International) she is part of the senior management group responsible for planning, developing and implementing a comprehensive research support strategy for Carleton.

Ms. Crocker has an accomplished career in research administration, most recently holding positions at McGill University as Assistant Vice-Principal (Strategic Planning and Partnerships) in the Office of the Vice-Principal (Research and International Relations). Prior to this she had a long career at Queen’s University culminating as Associate Vice-Principal (Research).

Sandra has served on the Board of Directors of the BioCap Canada Foundation, Insect Biotec Canada Inc., the Kingston Technology Council and the Ontario Centre of Excellence for Communications and Information Technology. She served as the President of the Kingston Technology Exchange Centre, a not-for-profit research incubator, and as Chair of the Eastern Lake Ontario Regional Innovation Network. More recently she has joined the Board of Directors of The Consortia Advancing Standards in Research Administration Information (CASRAI) as well as the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory Institute, The Board of Directors of CARIC, the AIAC Technology and Innovation Committee and served on the Research Advisory Committee of CANARIE and as Chair of the National Research Council’s Construction Research Centre Advisory Board. She also volunteers as a Board member of the Ottawa Olde Forge Community Resource Centre.

Marisse is a third-year Interactive Multimedia and Design student at Carleton University. She has a strong passion for design, and her university experience has provided her with a solid understanding of design principles, motion graphics, audio and video production, and technical proficiency in various coding languages.

Prior to joining Efficiency Canada, Marisse worked as a graphic design intern for the Canadian Film Institute, where she worked closely with the communications team to design merchandise and promotional material such as posters and brochures to advertise screenings and events taking place at the 2024 Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF). She was also responsible for designing the 2024 OIAF program guide and ensuring that designs aligned with the festival’s brand.

Outside of work, you’ll find Marisse reading, playing various instruments, and spending time with her dog Bella.

Emma Cantlon is a Media and Communications Intern at Efficiency Canada. She is a fourth-year student at Carleton University, majoring in Political Science, minoring in Environmental Humanities, and concentrating in International Relations.

Emma has previously interned in communications and policy positions in the government. Her education and work experience have given her valuable insights into the intersections of communication, policy, and sustainability. Now, she’s excited to apply these skills to a role in an organization focused on sustainable energy. Emma’s dedication to studying environmental issues and her eagerness to work in sustainable energy highlights her determination to contribute to a more sustainable future.

Outside of work, you can find Emma outside birdwatching or curled up with a good book.