MEET THE TEAM

  • Michal Lavi - Executive Director

    After working as a geologist, Michal joined her Partner Aviv Fried and started Sidewalk Citizen Bakery and Park Restaurant. 

    In January 2016, Michal started Tzavta - a monthly cultural dinner salon for an intimate meal and conversation. To date, Tzavta held 60 salons and collaborated with many art organizations, public and academic institutions locally and nationally. Michal has also curated, Layla Lavan, a series of late nights talks on Ethics and Morality in collaboration with Calgary Institute for the Humanities as well as Chardonnay with A Cube of Ice, a collaboration with WISE Planet, celebrating women in science.

  • Dr. Luanne Freer - Board Member

    Dr. Freer is a recently retired board certified emergency physician who served over 25 years as medical director for Yellowstone National Park, and is the past president of the Wilderness Medical Society. She discovered her path to personal fulfillment by combining her medical practice with her passion for the mountains and her desire to serve those less fortunate. In 2003 she founded Everest ER, the highest hospital in the world (5350m) that celebrates its 21st season on Mt Everest in 2024, using funds collected from ill and injured foreigners to subsidize free health care for Nepali people.

    In 2015, propelled by grief at the loss of her dear friend Wongchhu Sherpa, she began working with a Nepali non profit to construct a hospital in his remote boyhood village. The Wongchhu Sherpa Memorial Hospital hospital opened in 2020 and was expanded in 2022; it serves 600 patients per month, providing primary and urgent care and maternity services as well as health education for the local community. https://www.himalayanyokpufoundation.org/ Retirement affords her the opportunity to join Odems World Foundation.

  • Lourdes Juan- Vice Chair

    Lourdes is an entrepreneur and Urban Planner, and TedX speaker, with a Masters in Environmental Design, who has founded a diverse array of organizations including Hive Developments, Knead Technologies, Leftovers Foundation, Fresh Routes, and Soma Spa.

    An award winning entrepreneur, she has been recognized as Top 40 Under 40 in Avenue Magazine, received the Culbert Family Philanthropy Award from the United Way, awarded the L’Oreal Paris’ Women of Worth Award, is a Distinguished Graduate and a UCalgary Arch Award recipient, and received the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee medal. Her community advocacy is vast and includes serving on numerous local and national boards related to urban planning and design, food security, affordable housing, and impact investment

    Lourdes is a mom to a toddler who inspires her to continue to work towards building a brighter future for Calgary.

  • Christina Frangou - Board Member

    For more than two decades, Christina Frangou has worked as an independent journalist covering health, gender and social issues. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, Maclean’s, Chatelaine, Canadian Geographic and more. 

    She has been recognized with some of Canada’s most prestigious awards for print journalism, including a National Newspaper Award and four National Magazine Awards for feature writing. In 2022, she received the Landsberg Award, which was given jointly by the Canadian Women’s Foundation and the Canadian Journalism Foundation for her work shedding light on women’s equality issues.

    Christina teaches journalism at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology and the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto.

  • Dr. Laleh Behjat - Board Member

    Dr. Laleh Behjat is a professor at the Department of Electrical and Software Engineering at the University of Calgary and the NSERC Prairie Chair for Women in Science and Engineering. She has many research interests including making computers faster and less power hungry, making engineering education more inclusive and innovative, and designing sustainable systems with a social justice lens. Laleh is passionate about increasing the status of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and removing systemic barriers. She is leading a change leadership program WISE planet with the mission to envision and build a just, equitable, diverse and inclusive society. 

  • Neeraj Gupta - Board Member

    Neeraj Gupta is the founder of Lawcubator and FormulateIP as well as an angel investor. Neeraj holds a bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Metallurgical and Material Sciences and a master’s from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden, in Scientific Computing and Mathematics. He is a PGPX in General Management from UCLA Anderson School of Management.

  • Naomi Potter - Treasurer

    Naomi Potter- Treasurer

     Since 2012, Naomi Potter has been the Director/Curator of Esker Foundation in Calgary. In 2003, Potter was awarded a yearlong Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst (DAAD) artist residency in Istanbul, and from 2003 to 2007 was co-director of the international artist residency program at CESTA in the Czech Republic. In 2015 was a guest of both the Australian Arts Council and British Council International Curatorial Visit programs, and has been a jury member for numerous Canadian art awards and jury’s including: The Hnatyshyn Foundation (2022); a member of the Curatorial Selection Committee for Venice 2019; Gershon Iskowitz Prize (2019); BMO 1st Art! Selection Committee (2017/18); SSNAP (2017); Sobey Art Award (2016); and the RBC Canadian Painting Competition (2014). She currently sits on the Board of the Calgary Institute of the Humanities, University of Calgary, and the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Outstanding Artist Program Committee for the Banff Centre. Potter holds a BFA from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, and an MFA in sculpture from Concordia University, Montreal. 

  • Maggie Rabinovitz - Secretary

    Maggie is a commercial and real estate lawyer currently practicing in the healthcare sector. She is passionate about advocating to help those whose voices need to be amplified. Maggie serves as the Vice-Chair of the HomeSpace Society, an organization dedicated to providing affordable housing to combat homelessness. She brings a wealth of knowledge to Odem’s World Foundation with her strong background in corporate governance, risk assessment and compliance. She is an ardent supporter of the Tzavta Salons and is committed to bringing this compelling concept of education, inspiration, and community to a larger stage. Maggie calls Calgary her home after living and travelling abroad and feels privileged to raise her young family here. 

Barry Sanders holds two Diplomas, a PhD and a DSc from Imperial College London and holds fellowships with Optica, the American Physical Society, the UK Institute of Physics and the Royal Society of Canada, and he received the 2022 City of Calgary International Achievement Award. His research is on quantum science and technology and on strategic guidance for emerging dual-use technologies. Sanders is Scientific Director of the Calgary’s “Quantum City”. In Waterloo he is a Senior Fellow with the Canadian Centre for International Governance and Innovation and a Scholar with the Balsillie School of International Affairs. Prior to returning to the University of Calgary in 2003, he was professor & Head of Physics at Macquarie University and held distinguished international visiting positions in several countries. Sanders is an expert mentor for the Creative Destruction Labs in Toronto and Calgary and advisor for CERN’s Open Quantum Institute and for the Google-GESDA quantum computing XPrize. He is co-lead of the Canada-France CNRS International Research Network, a member of quantum and nano standards bodies, a deep-tech evaluator for funding agencies and for venture funds, a member of three editorial boards, and has trained a hundred graduate students and postdocs.

Advisory Board

Dr. Donna Strickland is a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo and is one of the recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics 2018 for developing chirped pulse amplification with Gérard Mourou, her PhD supervisor at the time. They published this Nobel-winning research in 1985 when Strickland was a PhD student at the University of Rochester in New York state. Together they paved the way toward the most intense laser pulses ever created. Strickland was a research associate at the National Research Council Canada, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and a member of technical staff at Princeton University. In 1997, she joined the University of Waterloo, where her ultrafast laser group develops high-intensity laser systems for nonlinear optics investigations. Strickland was named a Companion of the Order of Canada. She is a recipient of a Sloan Research Fellowship, a Premier’s Research Excellence Award and a Cottrell Scholar Award. Strickland served as the president of the Optical Society (OSA) in 2013. She is a fellow of OSA and SPIE, the Royal Society of Canada and the Royal Society. She is an honorary fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering as well as the Institute of Physics. She is an international member of the US National Academy of Science. Strickland earned a PhD in optics from the University of Rochester and a B.Eng. from McMaster University.

Heather Edwards Born and raised in Calgary. Heather earned a master’s degree in Political Science and worked for 12 years in Ottawa as a Director of Communications (Revenue, Fisheries and Oceans, Energy) under the government of The Right Honourable Jean Chrétien. She is a co-author and editor and has produced several award-winning arts documentaries. She is a partner at Adara Venture Capital whose focus is investing in western Canadian life-science startups. Heather works closely with not-for-profit organizations of all kinds and currently runs a major private foundation that, in part, fosters excellence and innovation in music and the arts through collaborative events. She also focuses her efforts on animal welfare, youth education opportunities and children’s health. 

Heather has served on several boards, including the Honens International Piano Competition, the CNIB, and the Calgary Humane Society, and currently sits on the National Arts Centre Board of Trustees (Ottawa) as well as the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.  

Heather lives in Calgary and is a proud single mom to a 19-year-old son, Adam, and a dog, Dash. The three spend many of their days rock climbing and enjoying the outdoors.