Board of Directors

James Adair

James Adair (he/him) is a socialist organizer who has served in a variety of roles across Ottawa and Canada. His work focuses on building mass working-class institutions and organizations. He is also a writer, focusing on the Canadian left and how to create a movement that can win in Canada. He has been published broadly, including in Jacobin. He is excited to help make Horizon Ottawa the preeminent left-wing organization in Ottawa, one where community is built, and real leverage, power, and effective leadership is developed for working-class people.

Meaghan Burden

Living in Ottawa over the past 20 years, she has been involved in the Hintonburg Community Association, Mechanicsville Community Association, the Vanier Beautification Committee, and is an active member of Ottawa-Carleton ETFO. Meaghan was born and raised in Sudbury, Ontario, and their family was very active in the Steelworkers, and ETFO. As a board member, her interests are in member engagement through strengthening of structure, community education through outreach, and empowerment of community voice within Horizon and Ottawa.

Sofia Chaudhry

Sofia (she/her) is a PhD student at York University studying Gender, Feminist and Women's studies. Her research looks at connections between residential mobility, public transit policy, and securitization in the city of Ottawa from an intersectional perspective. "I try to adopt the perspective of a scholar-activist in my work. To me this means active participation in community actions, co-producing knowledge with those impacted by inequitable policy making, and working with the community to ensure that my research furthers community interests rather than causing harm or extracting knowledge for the sake of my personal development."

David Coaker

David Coaker (he/him) is an organizer, activist, and writer studying at Carleton University. Growing up between Scarborough and Oshawa, he’s lived in Ottawa for the last six years fighting for progressive causes at the federal, provincial and municipal levels.
David is passionate about building a city that works for everyone - with housing as a right, transit that’s affordable & reliable, & public services that ensures no one is left behind.

Bhoomi Dahiya

Bhoomi (she/her) is a first generation immigrant from India who moved from Toronto to Algonquin Anishinabek territory to pursue her undergraduate degree at uOttawa in 2023.

She got involved with advocacy work by serving as VP equity at the uOttawa NDP and volunteering for the non-profit organization community mobilization in crisis (CMIC). After a year of reporting on local affairs like Lansdowne 2.0 at the Fulcrum, and hearing the stories of local leaders during the 2025 federal election, she decided to focus her efforts on municipal affairs, leading her to Horizon.

In the spirit of James Baldwin, who wrote that "the world is held together by the love and the passion of a very few people", she strives to work with and mobilize those around her to bring change at the local level. As a board member she looks forward to highlighting the strengths of our community members and building a defense against the political rhetoric and policies that seek to divide us.

Shady Hafez

Shady Hafez (he/him) is an Algonquin Anishinabe and Syrian member of Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg who grew up in, resides in and calls Ottawa his unceded ancestral home and territory. Shady is currently a PhD Candidate in Sociology at the University of Toronto, a Yellowhead Institute Research Fellow and is the Policy and Research Manager to the National Association of Friendship Centres. With over 15 years’ experience working directly with and for Indigenous communities, Shady has supported communities in the development of programs and services related to health and social well-being as well as supported First Nations in their cultural resurgence, governance, political and economic autonomy.

Shady firmly believes in land restitution, reclamation and the restoration of jurisdiction for the Algonquin Nation. He hopes to bring that perspective to Horizon Ottawa with the hopes that our collective work of making Ottawa a better place to live for all, can include working towards resolving the injustice of land theft at the root of the City of Ottawa's founding and ongoing existence.

Nariman Hajjar

Nariman Hajjar (she/her) spent more than 20 years in Montréal, where she earned a degree in Translation and built a strong foundation in communication, public service, and community engagement. In 2024, she moved to Ottawa to work at IAAC as a Senior Program Delivery Officer. She is also currently pursuing graduate studies in Political Economy at Carleton University.

She is an active member of UHEW and PSAC, serving on multiple committees focused on workers’ rights, occupational health and safety, equity, and accountability. Nariman is passionate about building strong communities, strengthening public institutions, and pushing back against systems that fail to serve people fairly.

“I don’t believe maintaining the status quo is the same as doing the right thing. To me, real civic responsibility means speaking up, staying engaged, and being willing to challenge systems—even when it’s uncomfortable.”

Sam Hersh

Sam lives in Hintonburg and is an activist and political organizer. Originally from Montreal, he has lived in Ottawa since September of 2016 when he moved to the City to pursue his Master's degree at Carleton University. Since then, he has been involved in several electoral and issue-based campaigns, having worked to elect two City Councillors to City Hall. Outside of electoral politics, Sam has also been involved in different movements that support social, environmental and economic justice that fight for systemic change at different levels of government. He's involved in Horizon Ottawa because he thinks that the only way to change Council is to bridge the gap between electoral and movement-based politics.

Susan Hickman (Treasurer)

Susan (she/her) currently works at Impact Hub Ottawa as their Operations Manager. With more than 20 years experience in not-for-profit administration and finance, she has worked with national, international and community-based organizations. Driven by the energy of the teams she works with, Susan strives for just and sustainable efficiencies, ensuring organizations can ‘walk the talk’ both literally and figuratively.
Susan has lived and worked in the downtown core since before the demise of the transitway. Witnessing the failings of our urban infrastructure and community support systems has fueled her passion to support Horizon Ottawa and our city’s community advocacy efforts.

As Horizon’s Treasurer, Susan employs her expertise in grassroots NGO operations assisting the organization to ensure fair employment, ethical operations and financial stability.

Rose Lockyer

Rose has been living on Unceded Unsurrendered Algonquin Territory for 35 years.

As a Haida Grandmother (Naanii) Rose's responsibilities are to protect the waters, land and air for the coming generations. How else do we look our Grandchildren in the eye? It is imperative we all do what we can to ensure the best possible future for Our grandchildren's children.

Rose looks forward to working together for a brighter sustainable future for Our Peoples and this city called Odawa.

Alex Stratas

In her role as Advocacy Commissioner of the University of Ottawa Students' Union (UOSU), Alex represented 39,000 undergraduate students on issues including affordable housing, public transit, divestment from genocide and fossil fuels, and OSAP cuts. In this role, she coordinated community events, report launches, and renters' rights workshops, bringing together nonprofits, City Councillors, MPPs, MPs, students, and university administration.

Previously, Alex worked at Horizon Ottawa as a Campaign Lead Organizer, recruiting and training volunteers to canvass residents on issues like fossil fuel advertising on City property and transit advocacy. That experience gave her a ground-level understanding of Ottawa's policy landscape and the barriers progressive movements must navigate.

"I was born and raised in Ottawa, and this city is my home. This place is new and growing with so much potential. It's already filled with people who work tirelessly to make it better, and I want to play my part. With good work, this city could become a powerful beacon of community, art and advocacy. Ottawa can be more than a place where movements are adopted; it can be where they are created, and I hope to bring that goal to life at Horizon!"

Simon Topp

Simon (he/him) has an extensive background doing organizing work on election campaigns and as a policy analyst in the public sector. He is excited to use these skills to further Horizon's goals and grow our movement!

"I want to stop the city from going in the direction it's currently going - a city owned by, and run for, the oligarchs that only care about exploiting people for profit while people get poorer and the climate burns around us."

Vedant Vaghela

Vedant is a passionate transit advocate who believes that Ottawa's full potential can only be explored by people being aware of the impact they can make by being involved. He hopes to lead by this sentiment and inspire people to make change happen in their communities.

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