Esplen grew up in Cloverdale, B.C., roughly 12 hours from her ancestral territory of Gitsegukla; she is Fireweed Gitxsan on her mother's side. She joined the Varsity Blues women's water polo team after only a year playing the sport. “Luckily, I could swim – and I did,” she says. She graduates with a double major in neuroscience and physiology and a citation in French, headed to medical school at Queen's University.
Tristan Gosselin, a citizen of the Manitoba Métis Federation, double-majored in Indigenous studies and religion, served as an executive of the Indigenous Students Association, and co-founded the Bobbi Lee Journal — named for Lee Maracle's 1975 autobiography Bobbi Lee Indian Rebel. He is headed toward law work on land claims.
Adrianna Lewis, who grew up on Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory near Belleville, Ont., chose the master of information program for its Toronto Academic Libraries Internship, working on Robarts Library's fourth floor and its Indigenous Metadata Working Group, where she helped identify a book holding sacred ceremonial knowledge now being returned to its community. First Nations House's Jenny Blackbird presented her with an Indigenous stole at the Hart House celebration.
Reported from Indigenous graduates set out to reshape medicine, law and librarianship, by Mariam Matti (U of T Alumni News, July 30, 2026).
More from the original reporting: alumni.utoronto.ca/news/indigenous-graduates-reshape-medicine-law-and-librarianship