Campfire Kinship

Campfire Kinship Story-based advisory, training and creative media to celebrate diversity and build inclusive cultures

Being no longer treated as “a surprise in the room” - that is ultimately what belonging in engineering comes down to for...
06/03/2026

Being no longer treated as “a surprise in the room” - that is ultimately what belonging in engineering comes down to for many immigrant women.

Recorded as live panel at the recent Canadian Coalition of Women in Engineering, Science, Trades and Technology ( ) conference, the latest episode is packed with insights as I explore career stories with Claudia Gomez-Villeneuve and Sara Mighan, P.ENG.

We talk about:
- family expectations that shaped their path into engineering
- the unwritten “politics of engineering”
- maternity leave, pay gaps, and career redirection
- mentorship vs. sponsorship
- why immigrant women are central to the future of gender equity in STEM

Whether you’re navigating belonging in the workplace, or trying to make it more welcoming for others, this episode offers honest stories and practical reflections on what needs to shift.

🎧 Listen to the episode, share it with someone who needs it, and if it resonates, please rate and review Hearth 2 Heart to help more listeners find these conversations (link in bio): https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/hearth-2-heart-with-gayathri-shukla/id1579260488

It’s always a treat when you get to meet your team in person, after months of working together virtually. A highlight of...
05/28/2026

It’s always a treat when you get to meet your team in person, after months of working together virtually. A highlight of the 2026 conference was facilitating a focus group for the Canadian Academy of Engineering | L’Académie canadienne du génie project on advancing women engineers in leadership with Prairie Catalyst Consulting’s Dr. Jocelyn Peltier-Huntley, P. Eng., Courtnay Hughes, CPHR and with Erin St. Louis’s support.

Another highlight was moderating and recording a podcast panel with Claudia Gomez-Villeneuve, FEC FGC (Hon.) and Sara Mighan, P.ENG. on immigrant journeys in engineering- and what these stories reveal about the systems we’ve built, and need to rebuild. (To be aired in June Campfire Kinship podcast channel and CJSW airwaves!)

I especially enjoyed ’s keynote and her powerful reframing of authenticity and belonging from “fake it till you make it” to “face it till you make it.”

Serendipitously, I met .yeomans who created a beautiful embroidery for the conference, as we learned we are both PhD students for the same supervisor. And a nice bonus was running into who I am proud to call my coauthor at The Fires We Lit and friend!

Thank you Engineers Canada and Canadian Coalition of Women in Engineering, Science, Trades and Technology (CCWESTT), The Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA), and Office to Advance Women Apprentices Alberta for hosting this much-needed conversation on leadership, belonging, and systems change.

We are grateful to announce as our first event sponsor for The Fires We Lit book launch celebration!Her Next Chapter YY...
05/22/2026

We are grateful to announce as our first event sponsor for The Fires We Lit book launch celebration!

Her Next Chapter YYC is led by Dr. Dania El Chaar, , and supports women navigating career pivots, personal reinvention, leadership growth, workforce re-entry, entrepreneurship, and evolving identities through intentional coaching, expert-led experiences, and meaningful community connection.

Get your early bird tickets (link in bio) here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/campfire-kinship-book-launch-celebration-tickets-1984385011989?aff=oddtdtcreator&keep_tld=true

Interested in becoming an event sponsor? Contact us at [email protected] for more info!

05/20/2026

This weekend, I participated in a transdisciplinary Idea Lab in the Rockies, where our team explored rejection culture in universities.

The topic itself was important. But what stayed with me just as much was the process.

As our team moved from broad conversation to a final pitch, familiar tensions surfaced:

Who gets to frame the problem?
Whose expertise becomes most visible?
How do groups balance inclusion with efficiency?
What happens when collaboration is placed inside a competitive structure?

These questions matter beyond universities.

In workplaces, innovation spaces, and community partnerships, inclusion and collaboration is often treated as an obvious good. But collaboration is not just about bringing people together. It depends on the conditions that shape whose knowledge is heard, how disagreement is held, and how pressure changes participation.

This connects closely to my doctoral work in transdisciplinary research, where I am examining how lived experience, reflection, and sensemaking can help shift the way people understand and act within complex systems.

The question I am carrying forward:

What does collaboration actually require when the stakes rise?

A huge thank you to for organizing, all my fellow students who I had the pleasure to learn from, and professors Barry Wyland, Dr. Teri Balser, Dr. Tonya Callaghan, Felicia Glatz, and Dr. Jenny Godley. A special shout out to Di Su and Mansi Singhal for the calligraphy workshop, for the watercolour workshop, coffee, making workshop by Jonathan Tanone and adventure hikes led by James Colter and Natalie Sobrian.

05/13/2026

I’m not against AI. In fact, ethical AI innovation is a thread emerging both in my research and practice at Campfire Kinship.

But I raise this core tension in my TEDx talk because I don’t think the question is just about what can AI do faster, but faster toward what?

If we innovate without asking what happens to trust, dignity, and , what is the price we pay?

And what must we be willing to not compromise?

Would love to hear thoughts. Full video link in comments.

05/08/2026

This week’s reflection: creative expression doesn’t dilute serious conversations. Sometimes that’s what makes them possible in the first place.

We had the honor of facilitating another story-to-comic workshop on anti-racism with Ladies in the Family Foundation and welcomed Sudanese Black youth this week. We shared expertise for all levels on how to pick a storytelling genre, play with characters, dialogue, and story prompts to then create visual comic panels.

As our participant Daniella’s thoughtful comic panel shows, expression of serious topics needs room for laughter, imagination, and choice. That is where and begin.

04/30/2026

To belong, you have to allow yourself to be seen.

Yes, that feels vulnerable. Possibly even terrifying.

Because when you show up as yourself, you quickly find out not everyone will like it. There will be rejection. Moments that make you question it all.

But you may also find your people - and perhaps that is the point.

This TEDx talk is one of those vulnerable moments. I share a deeply personal experience that shaped my journey toward authenticity.

But this talk is not just about my story.

It is about the price we pay when we we tuck away parts of ourselves to perform, fit in, and keep up. And it is about reclaiming those parts, piece by piece, to feel seen and to see each other more fully - especially in the age of AI where the chase for efficiency and productivity is eroding the very human quality of our relationships.

So this talk is me walking the talk (pun intended), and I am still learning.

Full video here: https://youtu.be/8XP-7v2ytpg?si=ZkUHu1PVnt3fTJ7N

I hope you enjoy the talk - if it resonates, please leave a comment on YouTube to spark a broader dialog, and share it with someone who may need the reminder too.

A huge thanks to the team for the opportunity. I’ve done a lot of public speaking, but this one was next level - I am ever grateful for my family and friends for cheering me on. ❤️

After months of dedication, love, and labor, I am pleased to announce the launch of The Fires We Lit, Illustrated Storie...
04/29/2026

After months of dedication, love, and labor, I am pleased to announce the launch of The Fires We Lit, Illustrated Stories of Women Reimagining the Rules.

👉 Join us for the Launch Celebration in Calgary Sep 12, 2026: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/campfire-kinship-book-launch-celebration-tickets-1984385011989?aff=oddtdtcreator&keep_tld=true

👉 Sign up for our newsletter to be notified when the book goes live on Amazon: https://campfirekinship.com/storytelling-impact/book-2/

A special thanks to Laleh Behjat for planting the idea of imagination as super-power, leading us to harness creative writing and auto-fiction as our storytelling genre in this book!

✨Congratulations to all 25 co-authors:

Amy Abe, Anshu Stephen, Charlotte Anyango Ong'ang'a, Ph.D., Dania El Chaar, Ph.D., CCIP, Elena Esina, Bukola Ojemakinde, Géraldine Lo Siou, Carrie McManus, Humaira Waqar, Jane Desrochers, Jasmine Kang, Kelly Kaur (Bedi), Laleh Behjat, Kinia Romanowska, Lina Bahlawan, Maryann Deutscher, Monica Hernandez, Morgan Garnett, Najah Al-Atassi, Navshina Savory, Puja Suri, Zoong N., Stephanie vanVliet-Wells, Miriam Fabijan

With credits to cover and interior illustration artist, Cynthia Cabrera; editorial lead Lindy Pfeil; community engagement lead Anshu Stephen, Foreword author Josee Tremblay P.Eng. ICD.D; and gratitude to Calgary Arts Development for generously funding this project.

04/15/2026

As a facilitator, I believe in modeling the kind of space I’m asking others to step into - one grounded in safety, honesty, and vulnerability. But just as important is making space for the work to be dynamic - to read the room, and to respond to what’s emerging.

Erin .co and I had been planning this workshop for months - agenda, workbook, slides, all of it. And in a workshop about food justice, I knew just the story I wanted to share - albeit raw - about my mother-in-law and carrot soup (a story that is now finding its way into my next book).

And then something shifted in the room.

To share it here - and to see it held, heard, and quietly memorialized - unlocked something special.

What we were really exploring wasn’t just . It was how care shows up through food - and how often that care - and our lived experiences that shape it - also remain invisible.

We need to make the invisible visible if we are to design solutions for systemic challenges.

Our stories and food are interconnected.
And so are food, soil, and the earth beneath it all.

Grateful to John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights for the opportunity to hold this work, and to everyone who trusted the space with their stories. We’re looking forward to the upcoming celebration.🙏🏽

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