Casey Fellow Speaker Series | Student Wellbeing at Upper Canada College

Dr. Brendan K. Hartman

2025 Casey Fellow

Dr. Brendan K. Hartman presented on how boys are navigating an unprecedented mix of opportunity, pressure, and confusion fueled by shifting gender norms, widening gender divides, academic stress, and the relentless pull of digital technology and social media. These forces are having profound consequences on boys’ wellbeing, relationships, and futures.

This presentation offered parents and caregivers a research-based, yet practical look at what boys are navigating both above and beneath the surface, with special attention to two critical turning points in their social-emotional development: around ages 5 and 14, when the risk of disconnection is greatest. 

Parents gained insight into how to help boys stay emotionally and relationally connected rather than shutting down or acting out, and left with concrete tools and a deeper understanding of boys’ unique developmental needs and how to raise resilient, emotionally intelligent young men in a world that doesn’t always make it easy.

Dr. Brendan K. Hartman is a sociologist and consultant specializing in the social-emotional development and wellbeing of boys and men, and how this connects to the wellbeing of all genders. As a consultant and speaker, he partners with schools, organizations, and families across North America to equip educators, parents, and leaders to better support boys and young men navigate gender-related challenges with confidence and care. Dr. Hartman holds a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Edinburgh and is a sessional instructor at the University of the Fraser Valley.

Dr. Niobe Way

2024 Casey Fellow

Dr. Niobe Way, gave a compelling talk grounded in discoveries from her book Deep Secrets: Boys’ Friendships and the Crisis of Connection (Harvard University Press). Dr. Way is a professor of developmental psychology at NYU and acclaimed author whose expertise is in social and emotional development. 

Drawing from hundreds of interviews with adolescents, Deep Secrets reveals the ways in which we have been telling ourselves a false story about boys, friendships, and human nature. Boys in fact do share their deepest secrets and feelings with their closest male friends — but as they become older, they can become distrustful, lose these friendships, and feel isolated and alone. 

Dr. Niobe Way is a Professor of Developmental Psychology at NYU, the founder of the Project for the Advancement of Our Common Humanity (PACH), co-founder of agapi.teens, and the PI on the Listening Project. Dr. Way was the President of the Society for Research on Adolescence, received her B.A. from U.C. Berkeley, her doctoral degree from Harvard, and was an NIMH postdoctoral fellow at Yale in the psychology department.

Dr. Nick Holton

2023 Casey Fellow

The 2023 Casey Fellow Dr. Nick Holton spoke to our community about mental health and wellbeing and presented what the latest wellbeing science teaches us about nurturing mentally healthy and resilient children and adolescents, both in school and at home.

Dr. Holton’s presentation, Antifragility: Fostering Mental Health and Wellbeing in Children and Adolescents, considered questions such as: What do mental health and wellbeing mean? How do we measure them in children and adolescents? Most importantly, how do we create the most enabling conditions to promote mental health and wellbeing for children and adolescents? 

Dr. Holton provided concrete examples of how educators and parents can proactively promote mental health and wellbeing and prevent psychological ill-being in our UCC students. Dr. Holton also shared some of the best ways to measure the development of life skills that can contribute to overall youth wellbeing, as well as measuring youth wellbeing directly. His talk included actionable steps that adults can take to foster and measure their own integral wellbeing, which has been shown to be a precursor to youth wellbeing. In short, as adults, we need to learn and live wellbeing skills before we can teach them explicitly to youth or embed them into what we teach in a more implicit manner.

Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky

2023 Casey Fellow

The 2023 Casey Fellow, Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky, talked about how happiness and wellbeing not only feel good; they are good. Thriving teachers and flourishing students are more productive, creative and resilient, and they show superior physical health and less burnout. She expanded on the premise that feeling socially connected is the key to happiness and wellbeing and discussed how one can intentionally increase happiness, wellbeing and connectedness.

“Happiness is not just about pleasure. People who are happy are more creative, more productive and more helpful to each other. Happy people also make better leaders.” — Casey Fellow Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky

Dr. Shimi Kang

2022 Casey Fellow

The 2022 Casey Fellow speaker, Dr. Shimi Kang, spoke on Our Brains, Bodies, Behaviours, and Tech: How to Maximize the Benefits and Minimize the Risks. At this virtual talk, Dr. Kang provided practical strategies to harness the power of technology, while avoiding potential long-term damage. 

In her latest book, The Tech Solution: Creating Healthy Habits for Kids Growing Up in A Digital World, Dr. Shimi Kang describes technology as the “fire of our time”, recognizing that harnessing the power of fire was a major step in human evolution. We are at the same pivotal point in human history with the power of technology. At the same time, technology, gaming and social media use are increasingly being linked to anxiety and depression, and Internet Addiction Disorder has now become an official medical diagnosis.

Dr. Shimi Kang outlined how to optimize our health, connection, and innovation while steering clear of the serious dangers of persuasive design, addiction, and toxic tech. By simplifying sophisticated neuroscience into the five ingredients of a “tech diet”, Kang provided a solution to one of the most vexing issues of our time.

Dr. Greg Wells

2021 Casey Fellow

The 2021 Casey Fellow, Dr. Greg Wells, spoke on his bestselling book, The Ripple Effect, and offered dozens of insights about what it takes to sleep soundly, eat smarter, move more and think clearly. Dr. Wells translated complex science into actionable insights and tactics to supercharge our lives and help us reach our full potential.

Dr. Wells also shared how embracing small daily decisions plays a huge role in how we feel about ourselves, manage stress, recover emotionally from setbacks, strengthen mental health and live better overall. Beginning with the power of micro-improvements, Dr. Wells taught audiences how to build world-class habits and routines to optimize health, learning and wellbeing.

Key learnings from this session with Dr. Wells included the following:

• Making 1% gains in health habits to earn exponential performance results.
• Sleeping soundly is the principal foundation of health and high performance.
• Physical activity improves memory and problem solving, making you happier.
• Better eating boosts the immune system, improves learning and increases focus.
• Eating smarter, moving more and sleeping soundly create a ripple effect. The ripple effect enhances your mental health and ability to think clearly.

Dr. Wells is a scientist and physiologist and has dedicated his career to making the science of human limits understandable and actionable. For more than 25 years, Dr. Wells has shared his knowledge and research with Olympic and world champion athletes, international organizations, school boards and independent schools. He is a veteran endurance athlete, a travel and expedition adventurer and author of four bestselling books. Dr. Wells has a PhD in Physiology and is a Senior Scientist in Translational Medicine at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto as well as the CEO and founder of Wells Performance, a global consulting firm committed to helping teams, schools and businesses become places where people get healthy, perform optimally and reach their potential.

Dr. Michael Ungar

2020 Casey Fellow

The 2020 Casey Fellow Series Speaker, Dr. Michael Ungar, spoke on building resilience, grit and perseverance. At this talk, Dr. Ungar provided practical and meaningful strategies on how to overcome adversity, positively change your approach to dealing with stress and setbacks, and cultivate a culture of resilience and wellbeing.

Dr. Michael Ungar is a Family Therapist, a Canada Research Chair, and a Professor of Social Work at Dalhousie University. Since 2002, Dr. Ungar has directed the Resilience Research Centre, and has focused his research on the resilience of children and families involved with child welfare and mental health services, refugee and immigrant youth populations and community resilience. Dr. Ungar has published more than 180 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on the subject of resilience and is the author of 15 books for mental health professionals, researchers and lay audiences. His blog, Nurturing Resilience, can be read on Psychology Today’s website.

Dr. Lea Waters

2019 Casey Fellow

The inaugural Casey Fellow speaker, Dr. Lea Waters, spoke to the community on developing happiness in children, by focusing on their strengths rather than correcting their weaknesses. Members in attendance left with powerful, research-based takeaways to develop the best in our children with a mental switch that short-circuits our negatively focused tendencies and “flicks” our attention from weakness to strength. 

Internationally renowned psychologist Dr. Lea Waters is one of the world’s leading experts on Positive Education, Positive Organizations and StrengthBased Parenting and Teaching. She is the president of the International Positive Psychology Association, and founding director of the Centre for Positive Psychology at the University of Melbourne. Lea turns science into strength-based strategies to help people thrive.