Current Partner Profiles

Ben Levin

Dr. Levin is a Professor and Canada Research Chair in Education Leadership and Policy at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. His career is about half as an academic and half as a senior civil servant. He has just completed a second short period as Deputy Minister (chief civil servant) for Education for the Province of Ontario after also serving in that role from 2004 to 2007. From 1999 through 2002, he was deputy Minister of Advanced Education and Deputy Minister of Education, Training and Youth for the Province of Manitoba. He is a native of the City of Winnipeg who holds a B.A. (Honours) from the University of Manitoba, an Ed. M. from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from OISE. Dr. Levin has worked with private research organizations, school districts, provincial governments, and national and international agencies, as well as building an academic and research career. He has published five books, most recently, "How to Change 5000 Schools", and more than 200 other articles on education. His current interests are in large-scale change, poverty and inequity, and finding better ways to connect research to policy and practice in education.

Barbara Wiktorowicz

Barbara has been the Executive Director of Community Organizational Health Inc (COHI), that provides accreditation for community health centres, since early 2007. Before that, for 13 years, she was Executive Director of Women’s Health Clinic, a community health centre in Winnipeg that offers a range of primary health care services and is a key policy influencer at various levels of government. Other positions at community-based organizations included Executive Director with the Alzheimer Society of Manitoba, Service Coordinator with Elizabeth Fry Society MB and Community Development Worker at York Community Services in Toronto. Barbara has also been an instructor with the Faculty of Social Work, University of Manitoba and a consultant, including a project providing advice to the Ontario Minister of Health on the establishment of a new provincial Women’s Health Institute.

Barbara continues to be very interested in women's health and community-based health services; she loves long distance biking, dancing and yoga; enjoys sewing, reading, theatre and music.