Meet our team

Staff

Zane Schwartz

CEO & Editor-In-Chief

Zane is an award-winning investigative journalist and the founder of the IJF. He is the National Chair of the Canadian Association of Journalists and an alumnus of the National Post and Maclean’s.

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Cecil Rosner

Managing Editor

Cecil is a veteran investigative journalist, writer and trainer. He spent more than 30 years at the CBC as a producer and manager, winning numerous awards for his work. He is currently an adjunct professor at the University of Winnipeg.

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Meghan Snider

Director of Development

Meghan leads the IJF’s fundraising and donor relations efforts. She holds an MA in political science from the University of Toronto.

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Max Hartshorn

Technology Manager

Max is an experienced technologist and manager. Previously he worked for 10 years at Global News as a development team lead.

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Sydney Dawson

Development Coordinator

Sydney is a Vancouver-based fundraiser, writer, and Anthropologist with nearly a decade of non-profit experience. She holds an MA from the University of British Columbia, and is passionate about the role of technology in freedom of expression.

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Zak Vescera

Reporter

Zak is a Vancouver-based reporter focusing on white-collar crime in British Columbia. He previously reported for The Tyee and The Saskatoon StarPhoenix.

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Bethany Lindsay

Reporter

Bethany Lindsay is an award-winning investigative journalist who covers white-collar crime. She is based in Vancouver and previously reported for CBC News, the Vancouver Sun, and the Cambodia Daily.

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Carly Penrose

Reporter

Carly is a Toronto-based journalist. She holds a master of journalism from Toronto Metropolitan University. Her work has appeared in the National Post, This Magazine and The Canadian Press.

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Patti Sonntag

Reporter

Patti Sonntag is a Parliament Hill investigative journalist specializing in data-driven and collaborative reporting. Investigations she has led or conducted independently have received more than 30 honours.

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Brett McKay

Reporter

Brett McKay is an Edmonton-based reporter specializing in investigative and data-driven stories. His work has appeared in The Tyee, APTN, The Breach, CTV News and Great West Media.

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Ninah Hermiston

Reporter

Ninah is an early-career reporter based in Toronto, currently focused on the Residential Schools database. She has previously worked as an associate producer at CBC Kids News and served as a social media manager for various organizations.

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Martin Allen

Software Engineer

Martin is a graduate of Columbia University’s Lede Program for Data Journalism and the former editor-in-chief of the Western Gazette.

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Stephanie Li

Software Developer

Stephanie is a Toronto-based web developer and neuroscience graduate with a a passion for user-experience/user-interface design.

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Ana Elisa Lopez-Miranda

Data Scientist

Ana Elisa is a Toronto-based data scientist. Her experience includes working at the University of Toronto in both the statistics and economics departments.

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Alan Wei

Data Scientist

Alan is a graduate of the University of British Columbia and a current master’s student at the University of Toronto in electrical and computer engineering. He is working on the use of LLMs to help users find information in the IJF’s data.

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Imani Soje

Marketing Coordinator

Imani is a driven storyteller with a passion for people. She is well-versed in communications and digital marketing.

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Himanshu Mishra

Research & Development Associate

Himanshu Mishra is a Research & Development Associate at the IJF. His work applies state-of-the-art entity standardization methods to IJF data.

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Dean Beeby

Contributing Writer

Dean Beeby is an independent investigative journalist, based in Ottawa. He is a specialist in freedom-of-information laws, has worked at the Canadian Press and at CBC's Parliamentary bureau, and is the author of several books

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Academic partners

April Lindgren

Toronto Metropolitan University Professor at the School of Journalism

Lindgren is principal investigator for the Local News Research Project and editor-in-chief of the Local News Data Hub, a reporting initiative committed to training student data journalists and shoring up local journalism by supplying newsrooms with data-driven stories.

Matt Malone

University of Ottawa Assistant Professor of Law

Malone’s research focuses on various ways law protects secret information, including in the context of access to information. He is the founder and lead of the Open by Default database project, which shares documents made available through Canada’s Access to Information Act.

Christopher Cochrane

University of Toronto Associate Professor of Political Science

Cochrane is also interim chair, undergraduate of the department of political science at the University of Toronto Scarborough. He helps run the Linked Parliamentary Data Project, which digitized the written record of debate in the House of Commons.

Rohan Alexander

University of Toronto Assistant Professor of Information and Statistical Sciences

Alexander is also the assistant director of CANSSI Ontario, a senior fellow at Massey College, and a co-lead of the Data Sciences Institute Thematic Program in Reproducibility.

Harold Jansen

University of Lethbridge Professor of Political Science

Jansen is also interim University Librarian. In 2018, he became an associate dean in the faculty of arts and science. He has been teaching at UoL since 1998, focusing on Canadian political parties, elections, political finance, and digital political communication.

Lisa Young

University of Calgary Professor of Political Science

Young is the author of Feminists and Party Politics, co-author of Rebuilding Canadian Party Politics and Advocacy Groups, and co-editor of Money, Politics and Democracy. She was president of the Prairie Political Science Association from 2020-2022.

Randy Besco

University of Toronto Assistant Professor of Political Science

Besco’s research focus is on elections and public opinion, especially related to race and immigration. He has worked on projects examining the impact of gender and ethnic differences on political donation trends in Canada.

Holly-Ann Garnett

Royal Military College of Canada Associate Professor of Political Science

Garnett is cross-appointed at the department of political studies and School of Policy Studies at Queen’s University (Kingston), and an Honourary Research Fellow at the University of East Anglia (U.K.). She is co-director of the Electoral Integrity Project and co-investigator with the Consortium on Electoral Democracy.

Jacob Robbins-Kanter

Bishop’s University Assistant Professor of Politics and International Studies

Robbins-Kanter is a Canadian politics specialist whose research focuses on political parties, political communication, and representation. He is currently preparing a book manuscript that examines the relationship between local campaigns and party headquarters during Canadian federal elections.

Board of directors

The Board of Directors includes Zane Schwartz and the following two experienced leaders:

Brent Jolly

Chair

President of the Canadian Association of Journalists. Managing Director at National NewsMedia Council. Judge at National Newspaper Awards.

Sadia Zaman

Director

CEO of the Inspirit Foundation. Past Managing Director of the Royal Ontario Museum, Director at CBC News, and Executive Director of Women in Film and Television-Toronto.