Shennel Simpson is a fourth-year undergraduate student at the University of Toronto Scarborough. She is double majoring in Health Studies – Population Health Stream and Human Biology and minoring in Psychology.
As a Youth Advocate with UNICEF Canada, Shennel is all for youth engagement, knowledge translation, and addressing inequities in healthcare, employment, and educational spaces so everyone can survive and thrive. Additionally, she also engages her community online through Instagram to share voluntary, job, grant, scholarship, and program opportunities so her peers can develop necessary skills outside of the classroom.
Shennel currently conducts research as a Student Advisor with the Tri-Campus Social Prescribing Research Study at Dalla Lana School of Public Health, and serves as a member of the Black Youth Advisory Panel at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health; Youth Affinity Group member with Ase Community Foundation for Black Canadians with Disabilities; and Youth Service Delegate with the Canadian Black Scientists Network. Furthermore, she was awarded the Department of Health and Society: Black Essay Award in 2023 for her Spoken Word Commentary titled ‘We Are Human, Too’ where she utilized poetry to highlight the injustices experienced by Black individuals in hospital and healthcare settings.
She is blessed to be a part of the Black Health Equity Lab and hopes to use her advocacy and knowledge translation skills to inform and inspire Black communities in Scarborough and beyond.