Winona Lafreniere

Natalie's Bio

Natalie Darrah is a project assistant in the Climate Change and Global Health research group in the University of Alberta’s School of Public Health. In this role, she facilitates events, community outreach, and advocacy for climate-health action.

She also works to expand the Climate Change and Health Hub, newly launched at the University of Alberta to advance research to address the health challenges of climate change. With a bachelors degree in environmental studies, she has an interdisciplinary background in ecology, economics, and public policy.

She is concurrently an academic visitor in the School of Urban and Regional Planning’s Climate Adaptation and Resilience Lab, where she supports research on localized climate change adaptation in British Columbia.

Climate Change & Global Health Research Group

Bryan's Bio

Bryan Helfenbaum is the Vice President of Clean Energy at Alberta Innovates, where he oversees programs in Clean Technology and Advanced Hydrocarbons with key initiatives in hydrogen, CCUS, digital energy, bitumen beyond combustion, and others. Before joining Alberta Innovates, he spent 20 years in technical, business, and innovation roles in the private sector.  Bryan has taught courses at the University of Calgary and worked on innovative community residential development projects.  

Bryan has a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Engineering from Waterloo and an MBA from Calgary.

Alberta Innovates

Charlotte's Bio

ConocoPhillips Canada

Nicholas's Bio

Nick Ayre is the Team Lead of Business Development Geosciences at Strathcona Resources Ltd., a rapidly growing Calgary-based company specializing in oil and gas resource development in Western Canada. In his capacity of Team Lead, Nick oversees all Geoscience contributions with acquisition appraisals, regional evaluations, sustainability initiatives such as carbon capture, and Petrophysics.

Before working at Strathcona, Nick has been employed in both large and small Calgary based energy companies establishing multi-year exploration and development drilling programs, mentoring staff, acquisition appraisals, and divestment program.

In addition to his role at Strathcona, Nick has been actively involved with the Canadian Energy Geoscience Association (CEGA) where he served as the Conference Director overseeing all society conferences between 2021-2023, and co-chaired/advised CEGA’s annual Core Conference between 2020-2024. Nick’s roles at CEGA underscore his belief that organizing geoscientific events are critical for the promotion of geosciences to the general public, professional networking, and career development within the energy and geoscience communities.

Strathcona Resources Ltd.