About the Panelists
Shireen Ahmed
Shireen Ahmed is an award-winning, multi-platform Senior Contributor with CBC Sports, a TEDx speaker, a valued mentor, and an internationally recognized sports activist who focuses on the intersections of racism and misogyny in sports. Her work has been featured globally, and her academic research and contributions continue to be widely published. She is a global expert on Muslim women in sport, and is the National Ambassador of Sakeenah Canada and the Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors for Hijabi Ballers.
Shireen is a co-creator and co-host of the “Burn It All Down” feminist sports podcast, and teaches Journalism and Sports Media at Toronto Metropolitan University, in Toronto, Canada. She is happily married, has four amazing kids and a phenomenal cat. She drinks coffee as a tool of resistance.
Rachel Brady
Based in Toronto, Rachel Brady covers sports for The Globe and Mail, focused especially on features. She began as a multimedia producer at MLive.com in Michigan, covering college football, basketball and Detroit’s pro teams. She returned to Canada in 2008 and became a producer with CTV’s Olympic consortium.
She began writing for The Globe in 2011 and has covered events from the Olympics to Grey Cups and the NBA Finals, and has reported on issues including gender equity and athlete abuse. Rachel has profiled many of Canada’s biggest athletes.
She won the 2021 National Newspaper Award for sports coverage and received a Michener Award nomination, partnering with Grant Robertson on an investigation that revealed a troubling number of elite amateur Canadian athletes binge, purge and starve themselves, often under pressure from coaches and national sports organizations.
Meaghen Johnson
Meaghen Johnson is a writer and producer for TSN.ca and SPORTSCENTRE who predominantly covers women’s soccer, particularly the Canadian women’s national team, as well as women’s hockey.
Sara Zeigler
Sara Ziegler is the sports content editor at The New York Times, with prior stints at FiveThirtyEight, Law360 and the Omaha World-Herald. She is a native of South Dakota, an alumna of Iowa State University and a proud fan of the world champion New York Liberty.
About the Moderator
One of Canada’s most recognizable faces in news, Farah Nasser is a thought leader, global speaker, award-winning journalist and news anchor.
Most recently she served as anchor of Global National, one of three of Canada’s national newscasts.
For nearly 25 years, Farah has provided Canadian viewers with much needed clarity and has been on the ground during major events such as the Toronto van attack, the London, Ontario terror attack and was in Washington for the election of Joe Biden. She was the first journalist to be granted a one-on-one with PM Justin Trudeau after the country reopened in 2021.
Nasser has moderated key political debates, including the main 2018 Ontario provincial election debate, and the only broadcast 2019 Toronto mayoral debate.
She has received numerous journalism awards and has been praised as a pioneer for her groundbreaking reporting on racial divides and the experiences of marginalized peoples. She has similarly received plaudits for her TEDx talk titled “The Power of Intellectual Humility” and her new History Channel series #CanadaUncovered, exploring the history not taught in Canadian textbooks.
Nasser spends a large portion of her time volunteering in the community. Passionate about championing the rights of women and girls, she is the celebrated ambassador for Plan Canada and a member of the International Women’s Forum. Nasser also sits on the board of directors of the Canadian Journalism Foundation, serves as a mentor for the Canadian Association of Journalists and for CivicAction, a non-profit that brings together senior and emerging leaders from diverse backgrounds.
