UNBeknownst

Dr. Paul Mazerolle, UNB's 19th president and vice chancellor, grew up in Fredericton and is a proud UNB graduate. He earned his bachelor's degree in sociology in 1989, before completing a master's in criminal justice at Northeastern University and a PhD in criminology at the University of Maryland.  Paul returned home to New Brunswick to lead UNB in 2019 after a distinguished academic career abroa...

Serial entrepreneur Matt Symes (BA'04/BEd'04) is an expert on h elping leaders confront change and develop sound strategies to navigate through uncertain times. As founding partner and CEO of Symplicity Designs , based in Atlantic Canada , he and his team have helped over 500 organizations and institutions both scale and recover from some of their darkest moments.    In addition to Symplicity Desi...

Mike LeBlanc   has been building and growing tech and tech consulting companies in New Brunswick over the last 25 years, including Blue Spurs, which he sold to Deloitte Canada in 2019 to help the company advance its global technology capability and put New Brunswick on the map. His latest startup is BlueKit , a first-of-its-kind hands-on innovation-creation platform thoughtfully designed from the...

Aimée Foreman (MBA'01) is founder and CEO of Silvermark , an advisory firm that specializes in working with aging care leaders in private business, not-for-profits, and all levels of government to define challenges and design solutions that improve the quality of life of the older adults they serve.  She also recently founded the non-profit CaregiversNB , and is an advisory member of Canadian Care...

Andrew MacLean (BA'07) writes the weekly Atlantic Canadian newspaper column Backyard History and hosts the podcast and TV show of the same name. He has also written 3 books about the forgotten stories of Atlantic Canada's past. Andrew received a degree in history at UNB and then a master's at Dalhousie University. But before beginning writing, he had already lived a far ranging and eclectic life:...

Paralympic cyclist Alexandre Hayward (BScEng'23) had a big year in 2024 : he opened the season with gold in the C3 time trial and bronze in the road race at World Cup in Australia and added a time trial bronze at a second stop in Belgium. At the track worlds in Rio, he took silver in the men's C3 scratch race. Then came the big one – the Paralympics in Paris last August, where he won the bronze me...

Randy Hatfield  (BA'78, LLB'88) is the executive director of the Human Development Council, an organization dedicated to identifying and addressing social issues in New Brunswick through research, information, coordination and networking. He's a longtime anti-poverty advocate and pushes for social and economic inclusion. He's been with the Human Development Council since 2002, and is involved with...

Kelsey Hogan (BPhil'16 ) is an ultramarathon trail runner and mental performance consultant who has recently return ed from Europe after comp leting the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc — a 171-kilometre race that crosses Italy, Switzerland and France .   Originally from Newfoundland , Kelsey has called Fredericton home since she was a student at UNB. She graduated in 2016 with a bachelor of philosophy i...

Kjeld Mizpah "KJ" Conyers-Steed e (BA'18) is director of strategy and partnerships for Inspiring Communities, a nonprofit working to build collaborative relationships for social change in Atlantic Canada.   A UNB political science alum, KJ is a seasoned systems thinker with a strong focus on areas such as community-centric strategic planning, human-centered design, organizational culture, and gove...

Josh LeBrun (BBA'17) is Executive Director of 12 Neighbours, the tiny-home affordable housing community in Fredericton which has seen success – and global admiration – over the past couple of years. Now complete at 96 homes, the community-focused organization has turned its attention to social enterprise, providing low-barrier, progressive employment opportunities for the people it serves.    Josh...

Shilo Boucher (BBA'00) , is President and CEO of the YMCA of Southwest New Brunswick, one of the largest employers and community service organizat ions in the province. Shilo attended UNB on the Saint John campus, graduating from business administration in 1999 , then worked at two large public accounting firms while obtaining her CPA before landing at the Saint John YMCA in 2006. She held roles a...

In this special episode as the finale to Season 3, we turn the tables on   UNBeknownst host Katie Davey (BA'17 ). In her day job, Katie is a public policy expert and social innovator, currently serving as the Pond-Deshpande Centre's (PDC) Executive Director at the University of New Brunswick. Previously, she was the Director of Policy & Media at the Public Policy Foru m, and also served as senior...

Nicole LeBlanc (BBA'00) is a partner with Woven Capital in Tokyo, focusing on investments in mobility, energy, and sustainability that support and accelerate Toyota's mission to build the safest mobility in the world. Prior to that she was a partner in Denmark with 2150, an urban tech & sustainability fund focused on supporting the growth of sustainable cities. She's held previous positions as d i...

Dr. Jennifer Woodland (MA'09, PhD'15) is an a ssistant professor in the Department of Psychology at UNB's Saint John campus and an Integrated Health Initiative researcher who teaches within the Bachelor of Health program at UNB. She has a PhD in experimental psychology from UNB, with a focus in multisensory perception . Jen has over 10 years of experience in health researc h – as a research method...

Mi'gmaq entrepreneur Victoria La B illois (BA'91, MBA'04) is the owner of Wejipeg Excavation Inc. and co-owner of Wejuseg Construction Inc, and oversaw the completion of a major wind park in Gaspesie , Quebec, where the compan ies trained and engaged over 100 Mi'gmaq tradespeople.    Victoria has served both the First Nation and federal public service, working at the Band, regional, and national l...

S ocial and technology entrepreneur Tosin Ajibola (MEng'20) moved from Nigeria to Canada to earn a Master of Engineering degree in Technology Management and Entrepreneurship from UNB. Out of that hands-on program, he and other newcomer classmates co-developed Welkom-U, an innovative online platform that puts newcomers, immigrants, and international students in touch with the things they need to su...

H. Wade MacLauchlan (LLB'81) is a well-known Canadian legal expert, academic, university administrator, politician and community leader. As premier of Prince Edward Island from 2015-19, he led an expansion and diversification of PEI's economy and the growth and rejuvenation of the province's population, while contributing to historic, regional initiatives in immigration, infrastructure and economi...

Mohamed Bagha (BAMHT'05, MIDST'13) is the managing director of the Saint John Newcomers Centre and chair of the Saint John Region Chamber of Commerce. O riginally from Kenya, he arrived in Saint John in the early 2000s to complete his post-secondary education at UNB and has been part of the newcomer support scene in the Port City for over a decade.    Mohamed is interested in helping grow and stre...

Barbara Wasson (BScCS'82) is the director for SLATE - The Science of Learning and Technology, the Norwegian national centre for learning analytics. She is one of the founders of Kaleidoscope, a European Network of Excellence on Technology Enhanced Learning and has been the principal researcher on numerous Norwegian and international projects. She is also member of the Norwegian Ministry of Educati...

Sara Taaffe   is a senior project manager with the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership in London, England. After graduating with a leadership degree from UNB's Renaissance College, Sara began applying her passion for social innovation in Atlantic Canada's technology sector, but after four years began to feel disillusioned with the push for economic growth without putting value on sus...

Mike Corey (BSc'08) is a biology graduate turned travel host who never turns down an adventure. His curiosity has sent him searching out cultures, creatures, and locations that most people avoid – with the aim of facing – and even chasing – fear. This intense passion has led him to grow his YouTube Channel "Fearless & Far" to over 2M subscribers, receive 2 Emmy nominations for his Adventure Travel...

Dr. Teresa Fowler (MEd'11) is a researcher who is diving into the sexism, misogyny and hypermasculinity of hockey in Canada and who is now working directly with Hockey Canada to try to correct the enduring problems.  She is an assistant professor at Concordia University of Edmonton in the faculty of education. Her research focuses on critical white masculinities and the implications of masculinity...

Lea Nicholas- MacKenzie (BA'91) is a trailblazer for Indigenous rights : she's the former Special Advisor for Indigenous Issues to the UN , former Chief of Staff to then Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, the Honourable Jody Wilson-Raybould , and past Chief of Staff to the National Chief at the Assembly of First Nations. She also served as Director of Aboriginal Participation and...

Mark Leger (MA'11) was editor of Huddle , the popular Maritime online business news publication, from 2017 to early 2023, and was also director of news content for parent company Acadia Broadcasting, which owns and operates 15 radio stations in Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. A journalist for more than 25 years, Mark began his career as a reporter and editor with the Telegraph-Journal and...

Balarama Holness (MEd'16) is a former CFL athlete turned social entrepreneur, community organizer and anti-racism activist. A native of Montreal, he played professional football for the Montreal Alouettes, with whom he won the Grey Cup in 2010. He's also well educated, having earned a Master's in Education from the University of New Brunswick and a Bachelor of Civil Law and Juris Doctor from McGil...