Meet the podcast team

Debra Sheets is a nursing professor and researcher with the Institute on Aging and Lifelong Health at the University of Victoria. Debra leads research projects with a focus on dementia, caregiving, and the humanities and arts in aging. She co-founded the Voices in Motion choir, a professionally led dementia choir, and Memory Café Victoria, an arts and creativity program. Both community-based programs are focused on learning, joyful engagement, and social connections. These programs are shown to decrease loneliness, depression, caregiver distress, and the rate of cognitive decline.

Jenni Schine is a Vancouver-based sound artist and community-engaged researcher and is a 2021/22 Action Canada Fellow. She teaches in both rural and urban environments, including UVic, where she uses art and teaching as a conduit to connect artists with scientists. Jenni currently serves as the SoundWorks associate editor of the BC Studies Quarterly Journal, and as a director of the Western Front artist-run-centre. She holds a Master’s in Communication from Simon Fraser University and a BA (anthropology) from the University of Victoria.

David Parfit is a Victoria-based film composer and sound designer with a Master’s in Music Technology from New York University. David owns Seaside Sound, co-runs Monkey C Interactive and has created film and video scores for release in theatres and TV (CBC, BBC, ABC, PBS, ESPN and National Geographic). Notable scores include The Hollow Child, Two 4 One, Saving Luna (re-edited with narration by Ryan Reynolds and released in US theatres as The Whale – co-composed with Tobin Stokes), The Breach, Call of the Baby Beluga, Esluna: The First Monolith (with fellow composer Marc Junker). He has won more than 50 industry and festival awards worldwide.

Suzanne Ahearne is a member of the media relations and public affairs team at the University of Victoria where she is also piloting research-focused podcasts. She was executive producer of the award-winning podcast series Scales of Change: A Field Guide to the Dragons of Climate Inaction produced by Future Ecologies (2020) in partnership with UVic. Suzanne holds a BA (English) from UVic and a Master of Journalism from UBC.

Advocate living with Alzheimer's & recipient of UBC honorary Doctor of Laws degree

Research and project coordinator, Institute on Aging and Lifelong Health, UVic.

Qualitative researcher and lab instructor (sociology), UVic.

Master’s student (psychology) and recipient of the Pacific Blue Cross Health Benefits Society Scholarship in Digital Health, UVic.

Doctoral student (sociology), UVic

Undergrad student (psychology) and founder of Wise and Well Vic, a virtual intergenerational community, UVic.