New Bridgers

Marie-Eve Bélanger joined the New Verticals team as Manager, Design Strategy, in February.

Hi! I’m Marie-Eve, or M-E for short. You might have seen me in the office already—it almost feels like I’ve been part of the Bridgeable extended family for quite some time! That’s one of the things I’m pretty good at: quietly embedding myself in various organisations to understand people and context. I’ve been working in various design disciplines for the past 18 years, collecting a BFA in Design Art and a Master of Information Studies along the way. In my spare time, I co-lead Service Design Canada (along with some familiar faces) and teach interaction design at Ryerson University. If you have a good 90s hip hop playlist to share or want to chat about how Montreal bagels are far superior to any other types of “bagels,” I’m all for it!

Jessica Stronghill joined Bridgeable as Director of Transit in March.

Jessica is a textbook Virgo. She comes to Bridgeable from Metrolinx, where she’s spent the past 5 years in a variety of roles focused on stakeholder engagement, intergovernmental relations, and program development. She has a master’s in environmental management and planning, but her undergraduate degree is in animal behaviour, and she once spent a summer studying sexual selection in guppies. On weekends, you’ll likely find Jessica out on an adventure with her husband and their dog, Kino. She is also a fervent member of the cult of spin, can spend an inordinate amount of time talking about it, and will gladly indoctrinate you (the first class is free!).

Stephen Nolan joined the Bridgeable Team as Manager, People and Culture, in April.

Stephen is half Italian, half Jamaican, and born Canadian. His diverse cultural background inspired him to travel and take an interest in culture and people. This led him to complete a degree in Psychology, and with an interest in business, he later completed a postgraduate certificate in Human Resources. Stephen loves sports and the outdoors! In the summertime you can catch him playing beach volleyball, embarrassing himself on the golf course, hiking, and taking part in pickup sports. In the wintertime, he tries to get out skiing as much as possible and will likely plan a trip somewhere warm to defrost! Finally, he is very excited to become a Bridger, and an active team player!

Welcome to our 2019 Designership Team!

We’re thrilled to have our latest batch of interns join us for our social impact project. The team will be partnering with the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness and A Way Home to tackle preventing youth homelessness. 

From left to right:

Amy Deckert, Design Research Intern
Fahim Shahriar, Service Design Intern
Tara Tsang, Service Design Intern
Mirusha Yogarajah, Project Journalist

Returning Bridgers (speaking of Designership…)

Kaamil Ajmeri will be rejoining Bridgeable as Senior Service Designer on Tuesday, September 3.

This isn’t Kaamil’s first rodeo. He worked at Bridgeable as a service designer and design researcher during a year off from school, doing projects in transit, cannabis, and capabilities training. He is currently finishing his Bachelor of Industrial Design at Carleton University, where he’s also taken courses on indigenous knowledge, disability studies, and linguistics. In his free time, Kaamil likes to boulder, cook, listen to podcasts, read, and be turned into slack emojis. He’s excited to see all the friendly faces (and beautiful chairs) at Bridgeable again!

Rachel Slaven rejoined Bridgeable as Manager, Design Strategy in March.

Rachel is thrilled to be rejoining Bridgeable after a fantastic experience in the summer 2016 Designership. She’s been working as a Sr. Service Design Manager at Telus for the past two years since completing a MBA in Business Design and Change Management at the Rotman School. She enjoys bringing her background as a theatre director to her service design work and is always looking for ways to sneak role-play activities into projects! She lives in Leslieville and loves to sing in a choir, play volleyball, garden on her balcony, and can always be counted on to eat pizza with you.