Meet the Advisory Board
Nicole Picot
Chair
A fluently bilingual native New Brunswicker, Nicole is a retired public servant and long-time resident of Fredericton. Nicole worked at the senior management level in a number of provincial government departments including Post-Secondary Education Training and Labour, the Office of the Premier, Health, Executive Council, Social Development and Finance. She was the senior advisor to the Task Force on Aboriginal Issues under the chairmanship of Judge Graydon Nicholas and the Honourable Justice Gérard La Forest. In 2011, she took a leave of absence to serve as Vice President Communications for the Canadian Tire Corporation in Toronto. She returned to New Brunswick in 2012 to resume her service as Assistant Deputy Minister in several portfolios. In 2016, she was appointed Deputy Minister of Finance. In February 2019, Nicole joined NB Liquor as Vice-President Communications and Stakeholder Relations. She ran for MLA for the riding if Fredericton South in the fall of 2020 and went on to serve as Chief of Staff in the Office of the Official Opposition until her retirement in August 2020.
Prior to joining the New Brunswick public service in 1991, Nicole spent ten years in Toronto where she in communications in the government, corporate and arts sectors with the Ontario Arts Council, Bregman + Hamann Architects and the National Ballet of Canada respectively.
Nicole has also served on numerous boards including the Atlantic Lottery Corporation, Service New Brunswick, the New Brunswick Highway Corporation, the New Brunswick Municipal Finance Corporation, the New Brunswick Lottery and Gaming Corporation, and Theatre New Brunswick. She currently serves as Vice-Chair of the board of the Theatre New Brunswick Foundation.
Tim Porter
Tim Porter is one of the founding partners of the Fredericton-based Porter O’Brien agency that offers marketing, communications, research and management consulting services. Porter O’Brien’s consultants are based primarily in Fredericton and Moncton, while others are located in Montreal and Ottawa. Before founding Porter O’Brien, Tim Porter served for five years in Halifax as deputy minister to the Council of Atlantic Premiers, and served on two occasions as deputy minister responsible for communications and marketing for the Government of New Brunswick. He is a former general manager of Communications New Brunswick, and a former daily newspaper reporter who served as president of the legislative press gallery.
Maurice Robichaud
Maurice Robichaud played a central role in the founding and creation of the McKenna Centre in 2012. Fluently bilingual, Maurice has spent a career developing and implementing strategic communication initiatives in the public and private sectors, at both the regional and national levels. He has over 35 years of experience in virtually every aspect of public affairs. This includes providing senior-level strategic counsel in the areas of public, government and media relations; marketing and promotion; quantitative and qualitative public opinion research; and, communication and marketing, for both internal and external audiences.
Roxanne Reeves
Dr. Reeves is an instructor at UNB’s Renaissance College. She has worked in China, Colombia, Italy, and Japan and has been contracted with the New Brunswick Government on matters of immigration, entrepreneurship, and mentorship. She has appeared before House of Commons hearings and is the author of Provincial Solutions to National Issues: How to Further Support Newly Arrived Entrepreneur Stream Immigrants as Economic Multipliers. As an academic practitioner, Dr. Reeves’ current research is focused on an evidence-based, work-integrated learning process.
Logan Perley
Logan Perley is a communications officer for the Wolastoqey Nation, an award winning Wolastoqi journalist from Tobique First Nation and a former reporter at CBC New Brunswick.
Hadeel Ibrahim
Hadeel Ibrahim is an award winning reporter with CBC New Brunswick based in Saint John and a graduate of STU. She reports in English and Arabic.
Kim Fenwick
Dr. Fenwick, the Vice-President (Academic and Research) at STU, holds a BSc (Acadia), MA (UWO) and PhD (UWO). She was the winner of the University’s Excellence in Teaching Award in 2006. She is the author of numerous scholarly publications including her contribution to Witnesses and the Law. She has taught at the University of Western Ontario, in London, Ontario, and she joined the Department of Psychology at St. Thomas University in 1995. She later served as the chair of that department, and on many university committees. In 2012, she became Dean of Social Sciences, and was appointed Vice-President (Academic and Research) in 2016.
Jodi Misheal
Jodi Misheal is the Vice-President Advancement and Alumni Relations at STU. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Mount Allison University and a Bachelor of Education from St. Francis Xavier University. Over her career, she has been a director and manager of capital campaigns, annual funds, and major gift programs, and has directed alumni relations programming. Most recently, she was partner/owner of Red Letter Philanthropy Counsel, a full-service company that provides guidance and operational support to non-profit organizations. Prior to her consultancy work in the private sector, she was Director of Development at St. Mary’s University, Assistant Campaign Director at Acadia University, and Senior Development Officer and Alumni Fund Director at Mount Allison University. She was also Director of Alumni Affairs at Mount Allison where she was responsible for chapter events, reunions, annual fund, and class projects.
Jamie Gillies
Dr. Gillies, the Chair of Journalism and Communications, has a B.A. from the University of Victoria and completed both his M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of British Columbia, graduating in 2011. In 2007, he was a Canada-United States Fulbright Scholar in Washington, D.C. and a Guest Scholar in the Brookings Institution Governance Studies Program and at the Georgetown University Public Policy Institute. From 2009-2012, Dr. Gillies was Visiting Faculty at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. He has also taught at the University of Glasgow, the University of Victoria, and at the University of New Brunswick. A political scientist by training, his academic work is focused on political communications and public policy, in particular American presidents and Anglo-American executive leadership, U.S. White House advisers, and the personalization of political leadership. He is the editor of the recent book Political Marketing in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election (Palgrave Pivot, 2017).
Laura Levick
Dr. Levick is an Associate Professor of Political Science at STU. Her interdisciplinary research examines democratic institutions from a range of perspectives, with a particular focus on their measurement, reform, and effects on decision-making.