Dr. Betsy J. Donald ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. She has degrees in history, environmental studies, planning and geography from McGill, York and Toronto respectively. She teaches and does research on the urban creative economy, with recent publications in Economic Geography, Environment and Planning A, and Space and Polity. She is also a Registered Professional Planner and has consulted on a wide-range of public policy issues for all levels of government. Her report, Competing for Talent: implications for social and cultural policy in Canadian city-regions was commissioned by Heritage Canada. Dr. Donald currently has two SSHRC-funded research projects: one on creative class politics in Toronto and Boston, and the other on the urban creative food economy. She has received numerous awards for her research including the Governor General's Gold Medal for Academic Excellence. As a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University's Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston in the Kennedy School of Government, Dr. Donald has been examining the politics of the new economy in Boston.  

Heather Hall holds a Master’s degree in planning and her experiences growing up in Northern Ontario prompted her to research issues pertinent to economic development and planning in slow-growth and declining cities and regions.

Clare Wasteneys is also a doctoral candidate in Geography at Queen’s, with a Master’s degree in rural planning and development and currently on leave from her rural economic development position with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.  Her research interests are creative economies, alternative agriculture and sustainable development in urban and rural communities.