UNESCO Chair on Health, Race and Human Rights

About

Executive Team

The UNESCO Chair is strengthened by a multidisciplinary leadership team that provides strategic direction and advances its global mission through research, education, partnerships, and policy engagement.

Leadership

Executive Team & Directorate

Chair Holder

Irehobhude O. Iyioha

iyioha@allard.ubc.ca

Dr. Iyioha is the inaugural Hon. Selwyn Romilly UBC Professor of Race and Access to Justice at the Peter A. Allard School of Law and the inaugural UNESCO Chair on Health, Race, and Human Rights at the University of British Columbia. She holds an LLB (Highest Honours) from the University of Benin, an LLM from the University of Toronto, and a PhD from UBC. She is also a Full Professor of Health Ethics (adjunct) at the Dossetor Centre, University of Alberta, and a Visiting Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School.

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Advisor on Anti-Black Racism

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Program Manager

Jasmeen Bassi

jasmeen.bassi@torontomu.ca

Jasmeen Bassi is a Juris Doctor candidate at the Lincoln Alexander School of Law and holds a Master's degree in Political Science from McMaster University. She has held research and policy positions with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and METRAC, and has presented her scholarship at Stanford University. Her forthcoming scholarship examines artificial intelligence, vulnerability, and global health governance.

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Advisor on Indigenous Engagement and Community Relations

Jessica Buffalo

buffalo@allard.ubc.ca

Jessica Buffalo is an Assistant Professor and Academic Director of the Indigenous Community Legal Clinic at the Peter A. Allard School of Law, UBC. From Samson Cree Nation/Nipisikohpahk, her Cree/nehiyawak name is Maskwa Iskwêw, meaning Bear Woman. She holds a BA in political science from Simon Fraser University and earned her Juris Doctor at Allard Law in 2016, before being called to the Alberta Bar in 2017. Her work centres Indigenous legal traditions, community engagement, and access to justice.

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Advisor on Government Relations and Strategic Engagement

Josh Regnier

jregnier@mltaikins.com

Josh Regnier is an associate at MLT Aikins LLP in Vancouver, where his practice supports the revitalization of Indigenous legal orders, the implementation of UNDRIP, and Indigenous rights and title, and advises on governance and government-to-government relationships. Raised in Treaty 8 territory, he holds a JD/JID from the University of Victoria and recently clerked at the Court of Appeal for British Columbia. Before law school, Josh worked with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and Cando on First Nation–municipal partnerships, and is an Action Canada Fellow.

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Director of Education, Training and Curriculum Development

LaWanda Ward

lzw297@psu.edu

Dr. LaWanda Ward is Associate Professor of Higher Education, African Studies, and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Pennsylvania State University, where she also directs the Center for the Study of Higher Education and serves as Director of Undergraduate and Graduate Studies in Education Policy Studies. Her scholarship engages higher education law and policy, racial equity, and critical legal studies. She leads curriculum and training initiatives for the Chair, drawing on her work advancing equity and access in postsecondary institutions.

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Director of Partnerships

Benjamin Davis

benjamin.davis@tamu.edu

Benjamin P. Davis is an Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and Hispanic Studies at Texas A&M University and, from 2026–27, a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University's Institute for the Study of Human Rights. Working at the intersection of the philosophy of race and the philosophy of law, he is the author or co-editor of several books, including Simone Weil's Political Philosophy and Choose Your Bearing: Édouard Glissant, Human Rights, and Decolonial Ethics. He is also a Fellow at the Center on Modernity in Transition.

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Director of Scholarly Engagement and Programming

Kayla Webber

k1webber@torontomu.ca

Kayla Webber is an Assistant Professor in the School of Child and Youth Care at Toronto Metropolitan University, based at the Sally Horsfall Eaton Centre for Studies in Community Health. Her research centres community-based and youth participatory action research, anti-Black racism, and the futurities of Black, Afro-Indigenous, Indigenous, and racialized youth. She also examines housing justice and displacement in racialized and Indigenous communities, advancing equity-driven research practice and youth wellbeing through grassroots and community partnerships.

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Director of Global Networks

Uchechukwu Ngwaba

uche.ngwaba@torontomu.ca

Uchechukwu (Uche) Ngwaba is an Associate Professor at the Lincoln Alexander School of Law, Toronto Metropolitan University, where his work focuses on global health, health systems, and health governance frameworks. A scholar of public health and international human rights law, constitutional theory, and transitional justice, Uche previously taught at Macquarie, Western Sydney, and Deakin universities in Australia before joining the Lincoln Alexander School of Law to lead its global and comparative health law and human rights program.

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Director of Institutional Affairs & Development

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