We Are LCC

Tegan Webster holds a Master of Social Work (MSW) from New York University. Since 2006, she has dedicated her career to supporting women impacted by domestic violence. Tegan began her journey at Auberge Shalom, initially serving as a counsellor at their emergency shelter for three years, where she provided critical support to women in crisis. She then transitioned to their external counselling office, where she has spent over a decade empowering women through trauma informed therapy and advocacy. Tegan is particularly passionate about advocating for legal justice for her clients, ensuring that they have the support and representation they need to navigate complex legal challenges.With nearly two decades of experience at Auberge Shalom, Tegan remains deeply committed to the fight against intimate partner violence and is passionate about empowering women to reclaim their lives. In addition to her work at Auberge Shalom, Tegan serves as a director on the board of the R.H. Webster Family Foundation. Outside of her professional work, she is a dedicated mother of three children, aged 13, 9, and 7.Resources:Helpful for teens: www.loveisrespect.orgkidshealth.org/en/teens/assertiveIPV Outside Canada: www.thehotline.orgIPV Quebec: www.sosviolenceconjugale.ca/enAuberge Shalom:www.aubergeshalom.org24/7 Support Line 514-731-0833 Counselling Services 514-485-4783 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Derek's journey into the field of performance wellbeing and mindfulness has been a blend of passion, curiosity, necessity, and serendipity—a journey shaped over a lifetime. It began in his early days as a national-level hurdler striving to qualify for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Eight years after missing the Olympics as an athlete, he entered the Sydney 2000 Games as a performance manager, launching a twenty-five-year career that spanned nine Olympic Games in high-performance sport. What started as an experiment in preparing the Tokyo Olympic team through mindfulness unfolded into a deeply personal and professional journey. Curious about its potential, he committed wholeheartedly through a training certification at UCSD, exploring how mindfulness could transform the way his approached his work and his own life.Mindfulness spoke to him personally as much as it did professionally. As an introvert and chronic overthinker, he often felt anxious, overwhelmed, and driven by a relentless urgency to get things done perfectly. In the high-pressure environment of the Games, he struggled with sustainable ways to manage himself and often bottled up his emotions, projecting calm on the outside while feeling entirely tangled inside.His journey has since broadened to include certification in elite athlete performance wellbeing through Loughborough University's collaboration with the Wellbeing Science Institute, allowing him to combine his passion for strategy, performance, and well-being in how he works with athletes, coaches, organizations and teams. Always at the forefront of performance, he remains fully engaged in sport, actively championing excellence in his role as High Performance Director in athletics, embedding mindfulness and performance wellbeing into the very fabric of the pathway from grassroots to high level sport.Also, as the Head of Performance Well-being and Mindfulness at www.innerstride.co, he works with high-performing individuals and teams to help them flourish to reach their full potential through coaching, training programs, and strategy implementation. Their approach integrates different disciplines to maximize not only athletic performance but also overall well-being.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

René Balcer is a Canadian-American television writer, director, producer and showrunner, as well as a photographer and documentary film-maker. Born in Montréal in 1954, he studied photography and visual representation at Concordia University. Inspired by such artists as Edward Hopper and Ed Ruscha and photographers Robert Capa, Leonard Freed, and Liliane De Cock, Balcer began his photography work in 1968. Eschewing studio work and staged images, Balcer searches for natural compositions that suggest a sense of disquietude and an implied or hidden narrative, as well as images that engage his interest in social justice.Balcer is noted for writing and showrunning the television series Law & Order, and for creating and showrunning its spin-off series Law & Order: Criminal Intent. He was hired as staff writer on Law & Order's first season in 1990, becoming showrunner in the show's seventh season in 1996. During his tenure as showrunner, Law & Order won the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series.In writing about legal issues, Balcer has drawn on his own experiences with law enforcement and his first-hand encounter with the brutal application of authoritarian power - at age 16, he was picked up as a suspected FLQ sympathizer during Quebec's October Crisis in 1970 and held overnight in the Montreal Police's infamous Station 10 where he was interrogated and beaten, before being released the next day. That experience, he says, gave him a harsh introduction to the reality lived by many disadvantaged communities.While pursuing an award-winning career in film and television in Los Angeles, he has continued his photography practice, completing such photo essays as “Desaparecidos” and “Beleaguered Trees of Los Angeles.” On June 20, 2024, Balcer's first solo photography show in New York City opened at the Hutchinson Modern & Contemporary Gallery. The show, René Balcer: Forensics, focused on his photography work in Argentina - "In Forensics, Balcer’s photos speak to the complicity of silence during the years of modern-day caudillos in Latin America and to society’s willful blindness in the face of today’s rising authoritarianism in the Americas. In making these images, Balcer was moved by his own experiences during Québec’s 1970 October Crisis in his native Montréal. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Olivia obtained her BSc in Nutritional Science from McGill University in 2018, then went on to complete her MSc (‘20) and recently, her PhD (‘24) from McGill in Animal Science. Her graduate research involved use of national dietary data from the 2015 Canadian Community Health Survey - Nutrition to assess the role of animal and plant protein foods in Canadian sustainable diets. Her latest project published in Nature Food modeled the nutrition, health, and climate impacts of partially substituting animal with plant protein foods in Canadian self-selected diets. She recently started a post-doc at the University of Oxford involving modeling the health implications of food and agricultural policies in the UK and Europe.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dr. Robert Ravinsky '02 is a dual-fellowship trained orthopaedic spine surgeon with clinical interests in adult deformity and adult degenerative conditions, including complex revisions of the cervical and thoracolumbar spine. He is additionally interested in the use of novel technologies and the implementation of minimally invasive surgical techniques.A native of Montreal, Quebec, Dr. Ravinsky attended McGill University for his bachelor of science degree, followed by his medical doctorate. He subsequently completed his residency in orthopaedic surgery at the University of Toronto, followed by fellowships in spinal surgery at Toronto Western Hospital and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He also completed a Master of Public Health at Harvard University. Prior to joining the Department of Orthopaedics and Physical Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina, Dr. Ravinsky was in practice for three years in Phoenix, Arizona.Outside of his clinical practice, Dr. Ravinsky is interested in international medicine, and has ongoing collaborations with the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Foundation of Orthopedics and Complex Spine (FOCOS) in Accra, Ghana where he has volunteered and recently completed a medical mission in February and March of 2022. Dr. Ravinsky is actively involved in research on spinal disorders. He has authored numerous peer-reviewed scientific articles and book chapters, and he has presented scientific research at both national and international conferences.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jackson Labell '18, Pre-U '19 has delved into the worlds of entrepreneurship, finance, and tech. After his time at LCC, he founded a non-profit organization, became the youngest hire at his Morgan Stanley Wealth Management branch, and successfully managed a tutoring service while studying computer science at New York University. As a tutor, he noticed that students often wait weeks for grades and need more feedback on their work. In response, Jackson founded Teztus, an ed-tech startup using AI to assist educators in grading. The platform saves teachers time and provides students with more personalized feedback.Maya Wou '19 LCC is the creative director at Teztus. She is pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Concordia University, while skillfully handling the graphic design of the platform and playing a vital role in the company's marketing and branding strategies. A lifelong artist, her creative prowess significantly contributes to Teztus' distinct and standout presence.In the past few months, they have successfully bootstrapped their launch and secured paid pilot contracts with educational institutions in the US and Canada. The Teztus team also includes LCC alumni Matthew Barg '18 and Helen Zhang '18, Pre-U '19.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Emmanuel Mavridakis ‘18 is currently majoring in political science with a minor in law at Concordia University with plans to attend law school. He has been interning at DLA Piper Law firm since 2016.After surviving a serious accident in 2013 and sustaining a life-threatening spinal cord injury and brain trauma, Emmanuel became a motivational speaker. He has worked with many organizations such as St. Justine Hospital and Melio Foundation in order to raise money for research and equipment for children and adults with spinal cord injury and brain trauma.In addition, he has also started his own business buying and selling shoes and clothing. All of his work has enabled him to develop an ease with communication, develop his work ethic and enhance his business mentality.Listen to his TEDx Youth Talk:https://youtu.be/zF7f-9i4zQA?si=uNRofXYA_i-fUPg0See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Constance McGuire is in her seventh year as Director of Academics at LCC and has been an educator long enough to remember when technology in the classroom consisted of a whiteboard, and if you were lucky, your very own overhead projector. She has been part of many schools' journeys from computer labs to one-on-one device programmes and online teaching tools. She is excited to see how AI will impact teaching and learning for both teachers and students.Fiona Nanson has been the Educational Technology Integration Coordinator for seven years at LCC. Her PhD is in neuroscience, specializing in cognitive processing in autism and her training is in special education, specializing in integration. She started working with ed tech as a tool for supporting students with learning accommodations. She came to Quebec from Saskatchewan (via Alberta and Oklahoma) to work on a project for six months and that was 20 years ago. Her goal is to help teachers and students use technology to be creative and supportive of the learning process.Additional information & Resources:https://teztus.com/https://www.instagram.com/teztus/ Jackson Labell-Nevard ‘18, Pre-U ‘19 is the founder of Teztus.Maya Wou ‘19 is the creative director, overseeing all promotional content, designs and user interface.Matthew Barg ‘18 is a lead programmer.Helen Zhang ‘18, Pre-U ‘19 has recently joined as another key developer with expertise in full-stack development and machine learning.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.