With a background comprising finance, management consulting, and law, Tanya (who we call "Toni") De Mello has spent much of her career focusing on, and researching, equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) - with a focus on equity, diversity and inclusion and more specifically, unconscious bias. She is a human rights lawyer and a certified coach and mediator. She teaches at Ryerson University and was the Director of Human Rights there for four years. She is currently opening Ryerson's Faculty of Law, Canada's newest law school, as the Assistant Dean of Students. She has worked with over 500 organizations in training, consulting and supporting them in the EDI journey. And she has extensive experience working in Alberta and specifically at the U of A.

In addition to founding two NGOs, Toni has served in the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and the World Food Programme in Geneva (Switzerland), Senegal (West Africa) and Columbia (South America). Toni holds a dual Bachelor of Economics and Political Science from the University of Waterloo; a double Master in Public Policy and Urban and Regional Planning from Princeton University; and a dual law degree from McGill University. She recently completed her doctors at the University of Toronto, where she was looking at bias in hiring in Canada.