Minelle Mahtani

Minelle Mahtani is a Muslim, South-Asian and Iranian scholar, writer, broadcaster and teacher. She is currently head of Canadian Studies at UBC where she also teaches in Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice. Last year she won a coveted Killam Teaching Prize.

She has published the book Mixed Race Amnesia: Resisting the Romanticization of Multiraciality with UBC Press and she is a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee medal winner. She is former Senior Advisor to the Provost on Racialized Faculty where she supported the recruitment and retention of racialized faculty. Previously she taught at University of Toronto in the Department of Geography and Planning as well as the Program in Journalism and also sat on the board of the Canadian Ethnic Media Association. She was also a Senior Fellow right here at Massey College. Minelle was also faculty at the New School in NYC and before that, she was a CBC national television news producer.

Minelle hosted her own radio show at Roundhouse Radio, 98.3 Vancouver from 2015-2018. Her show, entitled Sense of Place won four awards, including a Canadian Ethnic Media Association award and a British Columbia Association of Broadcasters award for best community service reporting.

Minelle’s writing has appeared in Maisonneuve, Rigorous, Geist, VICE, THIS magazine and she has a piece forthcoming in Southeast Review.  She has been nominated for two National Magazine Awards. Her piece in The Walrus won the Gold Medal for best personal essay in the Digital Publishing Awards competition.