Director, Equity and Indigenous Engagement
Wesley Oakes provides strategic leadership to further integrate and advance the Genome Canada’s commitment to inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility (IDEA), as well as truth, reconciliation and Indigenous engagement.
Wesley is an applied sociocultural anthropologist with over a decade of experience in community-based ethnographic research, population health and EDI (equity, diversity and inclusion) policy. Before Joining Genome Canada, he held a senior role at the Ontario HIV Treatment Network, where he managed the development and implementation of strategic EDI and truth and reconciliation roadmaps and initiatives.
He has spent many years designing, delivering and evaluating care interventions for Black, Indigenous and newcomer communities in Canada, with a focus on culturally safe clinical and case management for people living with HIV.
Wesley holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from York University, an MPhil from SOAS University of London and a BA from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. An advocate of ethically and politically engaged research, he serves on Toronto Public Health’s Research Ethic Board.