Our Team

A disabled white woman with blonde shulder length hair. She has shortended with 2 fingers hold a pen..

Image Description: White woman with shortened arms with two fingers holds a pen. She has shoulder length blonde hair, large pearl earrings wears black short sleeve shirt and dons a tattoo on her arm. Photo by Mackenzie Raedeke

Elisabeth Walker-Young, CM, LLD, PLY (she/her)

Co-Founder & Inclusion Lead

Elisabeth is the Co-Founder and Inclusion Lead at Inclusive Experiences.
She is a disabled settler, mom, adoptee, and retired Paralympian.

She is a skilled facilitator, bringing dynamic storytelling to a unique combination of lived and learned expertise. Elisabeth is driven by the common experiences of underrepresented, marginalized, and equity-seeking groups. She is guided by a handful of steadfast beliefs: representation matters, unlearning is as important as learning, keeping it simple but significant, and doing a little bit every day goes a long way.

Elisabeth is a member of the Order of Canada and received an Honorary Doctorate from Brock University in 2022. She has been actively engaged in the Paralympic movement for over 30 years, was a 4-time multi-medalist, world record-holding swimmer, Assistant Chef de Mission in London 2012 and Chef de Mission for Canada’s Parapan Am Team. A student of occupational therapy and accessibility advisory committee member, she formerly worked with the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Organizing Committee as Manager of Classification, viaSport British Columbia as Manager of Inclusion as well as The Rick Hansen Foundation and Canucks Autism Network.

A white non-disabled woman with wavy mid length hair sits in front of a computer

Image Description: A white woman with mid-length wavy hair sits at a laptop. She’s wearing a polks dot button down shirt, bold hoop earrings and is in front of a number of large indoor plants. Photo by Mackenzie Raedeke

Shawna Lawson,
MA Kin (she/her)

Co-Founder & Innovation Lead

Shawna is the Co-Founder and Innovation Lead at Inclusive Experiences.
She is a non-disabled settler, mom, researcher, and innovator.

She is a change-maker at heart and skilled at applying human-centered and evidence-based approaches to inclusion and equity work. Shawna has a knack for knowledge translation, meaningful engagement, and systems change. Her relationship to disability justice became more personal in 2019, when her eldest son, Charlie was born blind.

Shawna holds a Master of Arts degree in Kinesiology from the University of British Columbia (under Dr. Brian Wilson), and a Certificate in Social Innovation from Simon Fraser University. She formerly worked as Director, Research & Social Innovation for viaSport British Columbia, and was a Co-Investigator on a SSHRC-funded research project with Dr. Andrea Bundon (UBC), and Dr. Pentifallo-Gadd (Level the Field: Disability Inclusion in Sport).