Advisory Team

Kevin Friese (he/him) – Co-chair  Kevin Friese is the Assistant Dean of Students, Health and Wellness at the University of Alberta. With over twenty-five years of experience in health & wellness, Kevin has the privilege of leading a multidisciplinary team of health professionals that support a holistic approach to the well-being of students, their families, faculty, and staff at the U of A. His work includes focuses on student mental health, student homelessness and precarity and supporting student wellbeing. He is the recipient of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Medal for Excellence on post-secondary student affairs, sits as a member of the Healthy Campus Alberta (HCA) Post-Secondary Mental Health Community of Practice and is the co-founder and Co-chair of the Alberta Post-Secondary Health Association (APSHA). 

Kyrsti Macdonald (she/her) – Co-chair Kyrsti holds a Secondary Education degree from Campus Saint-Jean at the University of Alberta and has previously worked as a School Counsellor, Mental Health and Wellness Coach, and French Immersion Teacher before joining Healthy Campus Alberta as Coordinator. With a background in education, she believes in the power of upholding mental health and well-being for everyone on campus and building a strong sense of community and belonging as essential foundations for meaningful learning. She is a lifelong learner who is passionate about sharing knowledge and experiences. Having been actively involved in various community organizations, Kyrsti values inclusion, relationship-building and honouring diverse voices. 

Debbie Bruckner (she/her), M.S.W, R.S.W.  – Debbie served as Senior Director of Student Wellness, Access & Support at the University of Calgary from 2006 until her retirement in 2022. She was active in developing the Campus Mental Health Strategy and its implementation as well as the Suicide Awareness and Prevention Advisory Committee, implementing a framework that aligns with the Zero Suicide model. Debbie was a founding member of Healthy Campus Alberta and has continued to serve as a volunteer. Her interests include leadership, mental health, suicide awareness and prevention, and safer substance use.   

Anika Zepp (she/her) – Anika is a U of A alumni and worked in the nonprofit sector and at MacEwan University before becoming the Executive Director of the Alberta Students’ Executive Council (ASEC) in 2023. In her current role, Anika empowers student leaders to be excellent advocates for students to the provincial government and within other communities that impact student success. She is delighted to contribute to the work of the Advisory Team, to bring forward insight form ASEC’s 15 members, students’ associations from across the province, and bring back information and ideas to student leaders who represent and serve over 90,000 Alberta students. As a systems thinker and community builder, Anika hopes she can contribute to the advisory team in a way that shapes an interconnected, holistically healthy mental health ecosystem across Alberta campuses. Anika is an avid runner, amateur tennis player, lover of cheesy rom coms, and has two kiddos; her and her family reside on treaty 6 territory – Edmonton. 

Carmen Lawrence (she/her) – Carmen Lawrence is a Health Promotion Facilitator with Recovery Alberta. In this role, Carmen supports Alberta communities, including post-secondary institutions, in their substance use prevention and mental health promotion initiatives. Carmen’s values around human and non-human flourishing guide her practice professionally and in her personal life. Carmen’s passions include health promotion, community development, care of the land, neighbourhood health, family, friends, art, and mountain biking.

Danielle Smith (she/her) – Danielle Stewart-Smith was the HCA Coordinator from 2015-2018.  She has a deep appreciation for the work of HCA and enjoys being a part of meaningful, systemic conversations relating to mental health.  Danielle works as a chiropractor in private practice, and loves spending time with her family, fur babies and wakesurfing when summer finally shows up. 

Lori Harasem(she/her) – Lori Harasem started working at Lethbridge Polytechnic as the Health Promotion Coordinator in 2022 in the Wellness Services department.  Prior to that she spent almost two decades in municipal government working to address barriers to accessing community resources, in program development, and overseeing nonprofit grant funding in the social services and recreation, sport, arts and culture.  She loves to focus on unique partnerships to create innovative and flexible programming that centers on inclusion, accessibility, and belonging.  She is currently working on her M.Ed with a focus on post-secondary students and mental health.   

Chelsie Graham (she/her) – Chelsie Graham, a registered social worker and University of Calgary Bachelor of Social Work graduate, is the Manager of Recovery On Campus (ROC) Alberta and the UCalgary Recovery Community. She is committed to creating inclusive, recovery-friendly spaces on campuses across Alberta, supporting all recovery pathways, including substance use and behavioral addictions. Inspired by personal experiences and shaped by her social work education, Chelsie advocates for reducing stigma and expanding recovery support. She works to educate, mentor, and co-create campus recovery programming by equipping campus members with tools to navigate substance use, recovery, and to help support peers. Her work has been instrumental in fostering recovery-friendly environments across Alberta’s post-secondary institutions. 

Chantel Walker (she/her), M.Ed – Chantel Walker is a Registered Psychologist who works on the Lloydminster campus at Lakeland College. She has been working as a psychologist in school systems for 25 + years. She is a published journal article author and has presented her work locally and internationally. In 2015 she was awarded the Murray Jampolsky award for outstanding practicing school counsellor in the province of Alberta. 

Debbie Jansen (she/her), RSW – Debbie Jansen is a Registered Social Worker (RSW) and one of two Mental Health Navigators at Portage College, where she helps students connect with campus and community supports to support their well-being. She has a background in community social work and mental health, and is passionate about creating safe spaces, reducing stigma, and making mental health resources more accessible—especially in rural communities. She’s also a student in the process of completing her Bachelor of Social Work, and is always looking for new ways to promote strengths-based, trauma-informed, and anti-oppressive approaches in mental health advocacy.

Andrew Szeto (he/him) Dr. Andrew Szeto is the Executive Director of the University of Calgary’s Office of Institutional Commitments, which unites efforts to advance Community Mental Health and Well-being (CMHW); Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility (EDIA); and Sustainability under one integrated framework. He is also a Full Professor in the Department of Psychology in the Faculty of Arts. Over the past 14 years, Dr. Szeto has focused on the development and evaluation of mental illness stigma reduction and mental health promotion programs, such as The Working Mind, The Inquiring Mind Post-Secondary, and The Inquiring Mind Youth.  He is also a member of the Technical Committee that developed the Canadian Standards Association and Mental Health Commission of Canada’s National Standard for Post-Secondary Student Mental Health and Wellbeing.