Director, Community & Capacity Building
Campus: UBC Vancouver
Pronouns: she/her; they/them
Email: silvia.daddario@ubc.ca
Bio
Dr. Silvia D’Addario is the Director of Community and Capacity Building in the Equity & Inclusion Office. In this role, she leads the area responsible for EDI education, inclusive leadership development, conflict engagement and transformation, community engagement, and organizational capacity building. Her work focuses on fostering systems-level change across the university through initiatives such as accessible EDI learning initiatives, equitable hiring practices, trauma-informed leadership programming, and strategic partnerships with academic and administrative units.
Previously, Silvia served as Director of Global Citizenship and Equity Education at Centennial College in Toronto, Ontario. She brings over a decade of progressive leadership in the post-secondary sector, advancing institutional commitments to equity, global citizenship, and community inclusion. With over fifteen years of cross-sectoral experience, Silvia has led professional learning in diverse organizations on topics including inclusive leadership, equitable organizational practices, human rights in the workplace, coaching and mentoring, anti-racism and anti-oppression, and accessibility.
Her community engagement work includes leading a municipal-wide initiative to make mental health and community services more accessible to historically, persistently and systemically marginalized groups. Through deep collaboration with diverse communities, Silvia has helped reimagine service delivery grounded in anti-oppression, disability justice, anti-racism and Indigenous inclusion. She secured significant funding to evaluate and expand equitable service access and worked closely with senior leadership, peer facilitators, and grassroots networks to implement inclusive models of care.
In addition to her administrative leadership, Silvia has held academic teaching positions at York University and the University of Toronto, where she designed and delivered courses on a range of EDI-related topics, employed accessible and inclusive pedagogical strategies, and facilitated respectful and critical classroom dialogue. She has also coordinated and consulted on numerous community-engaged projects in partnership with diverse communities.
Silvia holds a Doctoral degree in Urban Geography, with a specialization in equity, diversity and inclusion, transnational migration and Canadian immigration, and the geographies of home and work. She is professionally trained in Executive Coaching and holds certifications in health and wellness-related coaching practices.
