Dr. Jill Andrew, PhD (she/her) is an award-winning educator, community engager, journalist, and keynote speaker. Her career spans work as a child and youth worker, student equity and human rights advisor, and longtime health and body justice advocate where she has openly shared her journey navigating chronic health, invisible disability, access, and patient advocacy.

In June 2018, Dr. Andrew made history as the first queer Black person elected to any provincial legislature in Canada, serving for 7 years as a Member of Provincial Parliament (MPPs) in Ontario’s Legislative Assembly.  She was also one of the few opposition MPPs to successfully pass legislation. As an Official Opposition Shadow Minister, she advocated for women’s social and economic opportunities, arts, culture, and heritage.  She is also the co-founder of Body Confidence Canada, home to Body Confidence Canada Awards, and Body Confidence Awareness Week,  recognized by two of Canada’s largest school boards.

Dr. Andrew has co-edited the anthologies Body Stories: In and Out and With and Through Fat and Black Sisterhoods: Paradigms and Praxis. She also penned the foreword for Fat Studies in Canada: (Re)Mapping the Field and the afterword for Fat Girls in Black Bodies: Creating Communities of Our Own. Her advocacy and scholarship were also featured in the Hot Docs Citizen Minutes documentary Body Politics, among other noted works.

She has received numerous accolades, including the Michele Landsberg Media Activism Award, INSPIRE Awards Person of the Year, The Nancy Ruth Gender Equity & Leadership Award, Canada’s 100 Black Women to Watch (CIBWE), the Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and Toronto Metropolitan University’s Viola Desmond Alumna Award Honouree among others. Most recently, she was featured as one of Museum Toronto’s 52 Women Who Changed Toronto.

Jill lives in Toronto, ON with her partner Aisha, their cats Dorothy Dandridge, Josephine Baker, and her mother who Jill supports as her primary caregiver. Follow @JillsLastWord.

Sessions:

Keynote Address October 9, 11:00 AM - 11:45 AM Presenter: Dr. Jill Andrew Location: Aki Studio This powerful keynote celebrates the intersection of art, disability, and activism, calling for systemic change, equitable funding, and respect for disabled artists while blending personal storytelling with political insight to remind us that advocacy, embodiment, and creativity are deeply intertwined.