Staff

SFPIRG is an independent, student-funded society. To help carry out the work of the organization, SFPIRG employs four permanent unionized co-Executive Directors, who form the SFPIRG Staff Collective. Each staff member is responsible for a specific area of SFPIRG’s work, and is also responsible for the overall management of the organization. See below to learn more!

Our staff are unionised and a part of CUPE 3338.


Emily Capel-Shyu – Director of Finance, Operations and Prison Justice Advocacy

Emily is a settler living on the stolen lands of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations and is committed to working in solidarity to shift the colonial default.

In addition to providing Financial and Operations leadership for the organization, Emily leads the Prison Justice Advocacy Campaigns at SFPIRG and runs the Letters for the Inside Program.

Emily has a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Birmingham. She specializes in teaching Law and Feminist Criminological Perspectives following the award of her Post Graduate Certificate in Education from Birmingham City University. In addition to her legal and teaching backgrounds, Emily brings over a decade of leadership knowledge to SFPIRG, which includes extensive experience managing finance and operations within the non-profit sector at social justice organizations.

Emily’s lived experiences are what first connected her to the social and disability justice movements. Her lifelong passion for advocacy led her to start volunteering in the Downtown Eastside after moving to Turtle Island, where she serves self-identified women who face barriers to legal and housing services because of intersectional oppression. Emily’s community work has ranged from providing access to mental health and trauma counselling services, to providing front-line access to justice and legal information, to folks enduring poverty as a result of colonial violence. Emily is committed to supporting students on their activism journeys, and acknowledges there is always more learning we can do to further the movement and ourselves.

When she’s not looking adoringly at financial spreadsheets or doing advocacy work, you can find Emily singing and making music, sculpting pottery, and living in gratitude for the beautiful land all around us.


Kalamity Hildebrandt – Co-Director of Research & Education

Kalamity Hildebrandt

**currently working reduced hours**

Kalamity is a powerful force for ideas, compassion and anti-oppression commitment at SFPIRG. Formally at least somewhat trained in psychology (SFU) and law (UBC), their passion and greatest source of learning has always been grassroots organizing and community social justice education. They are responsible for spearheading new topics and approaches around the issues that SFPIRG tackles; acting as a facilitator and offering custom-made workshops for the SFU community; developing educational content; mentoring students as they develop their skills as researchers, facilitators and in implementing anti-oppression ideas; supervising programs and projects; and more. In their spare time, Kalamity can be found playing D&D, reading too many articles on social media, and carving wooden spoons.


Hannah Ghaderi – Co-Director of Research & Education

Hannah works closely with students and really anyone who steps into our office. She thrives on community work and on various ways in which she can support and care for the members of SFPIRG. Having been a teacher for over ten years, Hannah loves to organize events and facilitate workshops for students in order to help them find calm in a chaotic world and resist the systems that actively oppress our bodies. She loves to find new ways to practice self-care and active rest both for herself and for practicing it with the community.

 


Noëll Cousins – Director of Engagement

First and foremost, Noëll is the child of two islands: Epekwitk and Jamaica. Her baccalaureate studies centered on economics and computer science, which, to her, are just fancy ways of saying Marxism and hacking (not to be confused with cracking;)! In her role at the SFPIRG, Noëll is responsible for supporting the development of radical student movements and politically conscious communities. Outside of the PIRG, Noëll’s energies are directed toward an entire constellation of radical futures, though its brightest stars are those of socialism, abolition, and pan-Afrikanism. Off the clock, you might find her duking it out in a heated board game, making a funky film, or beating her face to the gawds. Her door is always open to chat, so don’t be a stranger!


contact the staff team