Our Team
The following members with diverse backgrounds form the JIA Team and are working to establish JIA Foundation as one of the leading cultural and community development organizations in Montreal’s Chinatown.
Murielle Chan-Chu
陳妙影
Program Development Consultant
she/they/elle
Murielle Chan-Chu, 陳妙影, is a professor of literature at Montmorency College where she’s been teaching since 2009. With a master’s degree in translation studies, she reflects on ways of forging links between communities and is particularly interested in identity, feminist, anti-racist, anti-colonial, anti-capitalist and antispecist issues. In parallel to teaching, she is working on completing a collection of auto-fictional fragments recounting sporadic childhood memories that address the question of gender, uprooting and re-rooting and many other anecdotal stories, such as her adventures in Montreal Chinatown. She was an active member of Chinatown Working Group.
Jessica Chen
陳婉瑜
Executive Director & Board Liaison
she/her/elle
Jessica Chen is a Canadian city planning professional currently based in Montreal, Quebec. Her career focus has been social inclusion and urban strategies that encourage a pluralistic understanding of cities. As an immigrant from Taiwan, Jessica started her professional career in the public sector, first in Philadelphia, then in Vancouver, tackling issues of gentrification, heritage conservation, affordable housing, social inclusivity and equitable development. She relocated to Montreal in 2013 and founded her consulting practice Wabi Sabi Planning Lab that often works with public agencies and non-profit organizations to examine how cultural and community-owned assets, including housing, help shape a more resilient urban landscape and city economy. Jessica has been active in Montreal Chinatown since 2019 to advocate for its cultural heritage protection and co-founded JIA Foundation in 2022.
Karen Cho
曹嘉伦
Program Development Consultant
she/her/elle
Karen Cho 曹嘉伦 is a fifth-generation Chinese-Canadian with family roots in Montreal and Vancouver’s Chinatowns. She’s also a documentary filmmaker whose work has touched on subjects like the Chinese Head Tax & Exclusion Act, the Japanese internment, refugees, artist-activists & women’s rights.
Karen’s latest film, Big Fight in Little Chinatown, is the story of community resistance and resilience in Chinatowns across North America. As part of the film’s Impact campaign, Karen worked with community organizers in 16 North-American Chinatowns to fundraise and mount screenings of the film.
Karen is passionate about the power of community storytelling for the placekeeping of Chinatown.
Elizabeth Dresdner
Researcher (Planning and Design)
she/her/elle
Elizabeth Dresdner (she/her) is an undergraduate student at Concordia University, specializing in Urban Planning. Since Fall 2022, she has been involved in Chinatown through a partnership with JIA Foundation and Concordia’s NGCI through work that seeks to promote resilient and equitable development. With combined experience in community mobilization, advocacy, research, and design, Elizabeth is interested in delineating and deconstructing inequalities ingrained within urban landscapes and systems to move communities and cities forward.
Chris Lau
劉均龍
Project Manager
he/him/il
Chris is a social worker and has 25 years of experience in the non-profit sector in health and social services, community development, program management, governance, funding development, justice/ equity/ diversity/ inclusion, community-based research, administration, public relations, event coordination and human resources management. He has held senior leadership positions for 12 years and is currently a freelance consultant providing organizational development support to non-profits. He is also a professional photographer and videographer, specializing in documentary portraiture, visual storytelling, creative portraiture and event photography. He is also the coordinator of the Made in Chinatown project.
Melissa Lengies
胡美珍
Researcher (Heritage)
she/her/elle
Melissa Lengies 胡美珍 is a recent graduate of the Master of Architecture program at Carleton University currently working as an Intern Heritage Architect in Montreal. In her graduate studies, Melissa’s thesis research explored the role of historic building reuse in equitable development for Montreal’s Chinatown, through which her work alongside JIA Foundation began. Melissa has been active in various heritage conservation and sustainable design-oriented spheres throughout her career and has experience working in both the public and private sectors providing heritage conservation and design services. Her continued work with JIA is inspired by her curiosity as a third-generation mixed Chinese-Canadian and continued interest in strategies for urban revitalization at the intersections of built heritage, social and climate action, and cultural identity.
Monique Ling
林萬莉
Volunteer Coordinator
she/her/elle
Monique Ling 林萬莉 is currently a member of the Midnight Kitchen collective, a food security organization that operates out of McGill University. She has a bachelor’s degree in Global Development Studies and Indigenous Studies and is particularly interested in the link between larger issues of social justice and inequity to local grassroots struggles, a link that is well established in the Chinatown community. She initially got involved in Montreal’s Chinatown as a way to connect more deeply with her heritage, but has since become inspired by the possibility of Chinatown as a model for equitable community development.
Parker Mah
馬世聰
Programming & Operations Director
he/him/il
Parker Mah 馬世聰 is a fourth-generation Chinese Montrealer of Toisanese descent, based in Tio’tia:ke. Multimedia artist, musician, and DJ, his diverse body of work tackles themes and realities of migration, hybridization and identity. He is also active in different cultural and activist spaces as a curator, moderator, trainer and community organizer. He is a founding member of Progressive Chinese Quebecers, and of the Jia Foundation. He co-hosted the feature length documentary Being Chinese in Quebec (2013), with Bethany Or. He also acted as curator and artistic director for two major site-based Chinatown exhibitions produced by the MEM.
Théo Thanh Sang Pagé-Robert
Researcher (Planning and Design)
he/they/il
Théo is an aspiring human geographer whose work aims to unravel the granular experience of spatial (in)justice in the city. Born on the coast of the Biển Đông, they were raised on Kanien’kehá:ka territory which they have learned to call home. They are involved in Chinatown where struggles meet and fights converge, striving for the softer urban landscapes of tomorrow.
Mei-Li Roy
美丽
Communications Coordinator (Social Media)
she/her/elle
Mei-Li Victoria Roy 美丽 (she/her) is a graduating student from Concordia University majoring in Urban Studies with a particular interest in social justice, community mobilization, and advocacy. In the fall of 2023, she was an intern for JIA as a research assistant for the Chinatown Reimagined Forum, and ever since then, Mei-Li has been actively involved in the community, which has also helped her reconnect with her cultural heritage.
Michelle Tatebe-Larocque
余缘
Programming Coordinator
she/they/elle
Michelle has been involved in Chinatown since fall 2023. She is an active member of Kahéhtaien Lumb Garden, Chinatown Youth and JIA Foundation. They have now been working in agriculture for 4 years and are interested in this field as a tool for cultural (re)appropriation. Michelle has a strong interest in the intersection of issues related to identity, race, social justice and food (in)security.
Sandy Yep
葉堅立
Programming Development Consultant
he/him/il
Sandy Geen Lup Yep 葉堅立 is a policy analyst, educator and community organizer. Born and raised in Montreal’s Chinatown, he is 4 generations Chinois-Quebecois. Graduating with a teaching degree from McGill University he has spent years as an educator in the areas of equity, human rights and anti-racism at local, provincial and national levels. Sandy currently works with the Inclusive Education branch of the Ministry of Education of Ontario.
In 2019, when grandfather ‘Loh Yeh Gung’s’ home in Chinatown Montreal was threatened for demolition, he returned to join the Chinatown Working Group. With the successful designation of heritage status, Sandy is committed to work alongside the community and with the JIA Foundation to re-vitalize and re-build Chinatown.
Our Board
Day’s Lee
Board Treasurer
she/her/elle
Day’s Lee is an author and documentary filmmaker. She has worked for the Montreal Chinese Hospital Foundation and the Chinese Lions Club, and was a member of the Federation of Chinese Canadian Professionals (FCCP) and Chinatown Working Group.
Sonia Li Trottier
姬银
Board Chair
she/her/elle
Sonia li Trottier 姬银 is the Director of the Canada Climate Law Initiative, a national organization that provides businesses and regulators climate governance guidance. She leads the strategic planning, programs, partnerships, operations, and budget. She is the Board Chair of JIA Foundation where she brings her governance and expertise in organisational management. She started getting involved in the Montréal’s Chinatown in February 2022. Sonia li also completed the Governance Leadership Program of the Jeunes administrateurs de l’Institut sur la gouvernance (IGOPP) in 2023 and was part of the Young Women Leaders 2022 cohort of Concertation Montréal.
Walter Chi-Yan Tom
譚志仁
Board Member
he/him/il
With over 30 years of experience in immigration, business and human rights law, Me Walter Chi-yan Tom 譚志仁 is the principal partner of a law firm and Manager of the Concordia Student Union Legal Information Clinic. Me Tom has been an executive board member and advisor of more than a dozen community and professional organizations, such as the Chinese Canadian National Council, the Center for Research- Action on Race Relations, the Federation of Chinese Canadian Professionals – Quebec, the Montreal Chinese Community United Centre, Tom Families Association, the Comité aviseur sur les relations interculturelles de Montréal, advising the City of Montreal on economic development, immigration and integration of ethnocultural communities, as well as a Roundtable member for the Montreal Chinatown Development Plan of 1996.