Directors

Tamara Strijack: director of our virtual campus and our continuing education program

Tamara has a natural flair for organization and administration and creative solutions. No problem seems to daunt her and her multi-tasking is impressive. In addition to her Neufeld Institute responsibilites, she is the home-schooling mother of Dr. Neufeld’s granddaughters, the caretaker of a small alpaca farm, and a parent consultant as well as a marriage & family therapist. As the campus principal, Tamara is responsible for overseeing the training and support programs, for organizing the various campus centres, and for directing campus development and access. As the director of our continuing education program, Tamara oversees the development of new courses as well as the delivery of these courses to individuals and groups and organizations. Her introduction to the theoretical constructs of this approach came after growing up in the Neufeld family. She is now committed to furthering the approach that has been articulated by her father. Tamara lives with her husband Andrew and their two daughters on a picturesque farm near Parksville on Vancouver Island in British Columbia.

Gail Carney: director of our training programs

Gail comes to the Neufeld Institute with a life-time of experience as an administrator in one of Canada’s premium art colleges – Emily Carr Institute. She was introduced to Dr. Neufeld’s teaching in the 1980s and has been applying this material ever since to her work with the college staff and students. Upon her retirement from college administration, Gail decided to devote her time and energy to the Neufeld Institute to help forward the approach. Her responsibility is to use our resources to equip those who are seeking equipping to teach or practice this approach. She brings a wonderful combination of artistic sensitivity, administrative know-how, and scientific acumen to her responsibilities. When Gail is not working in her art studio or backyard ceramic kiln, she can be found reading all the latest scientific literature, updating the campus library, and matching incoming advanced study students to the appropriate faculty advisors. Gail lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Eva de Gosztonyi: director of our school system initiatives

Eva’s specialty is schools and school systems. As the Director of Education for the Neufeld Institute she helps school systems to integrate the Neufeld approach into their day-to-day practice. Eva comes to her role in the Neufeld Institute as a psychologist with a life-time of administrative experience working with school boards in Quebec. Her specialty is creating programs for students who have trouble learning and behaving. She was introduced to Dr. Neufeld’s work when he gave the keynote at Canada’s first national conference on bullying and she has been hooked on the material ever since. Eva is convinced that in order for a school and the system to really be able to implement the change needed, the teachers and supporting professionals must see their students differently. Our answer to this is the courses we have developed in our Continuing Education program. Eva works with Tamara Strijack to help school systems to use these insight-based courses to provide the in-depth paradigm shift required to create and sustain systemic change. Eva is married to Michael and lives in Montreal, Quebec.

Staff

Ria Toffoli

Ria is in charge of our products and our accounting and is absolutely committed to furthering this approach. She brings a wonderful exuberance to the office. Ria attended some of the very first parenting courses given by Dr. Neufeld and her two grown daughters are the beneficiaries. Ria lives in Delta, British Columbia with her husband Mark.

Christie Mackie

Christie is responsible for all event and course registration as well as anchoring the more technical database aspects of our virtual campus, our distance education program and our directed studies program. Christie is a step-mom and is pursuing her graduate studies to further this approach as a professional counselor. We don’t understand her love of databases and affinity for programmers but we’re very pleased with this obsession nevertheless. We benefit greatly from her committed involvement. Christie lives in Vancouver with her partner Reed.

Genevieve Schreier

Genevieve is the event coordinator for Dr. Neufeld, researching the numerous requests and presenting the case for saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Once the decision is made, she is the one that is in charge of all the arrangements with the host organizations. Genevieve also handles some of our translation projects, coordinating all the various players towards a final product. Genevieve comes to this task with a graduate degree in international relations from Brussels university. We benefit greatly from her international savvy and natural diplomatic demeanor. Genevieve lives in Montreal with her very soon-to-be husband Ben.

Roderick Young

Roderick is our programmer and general wizard of Oz, working behind the scenes to create and maintain our technical infrastucture. Not only is he responsible for the technical operation of our virtual campus, our website, our online databases, and our virtual office, he also has to ensure that they all talk intelligently to each other. His background is as a biologist and his day job is teaching in adult education.