Meet our winter 2022 mentees

The CBC Doc Mentorship Program is an ongoing professional development initiative that teams veteran documentary makers/editors with emerging producers to bring fresh and innovative stories to life. We regularly review applications from CBC producers, audio storytellers, and radio freelancers hoping to participate in the program. Congratulations to our most recent round of successful applicants — we look forward to hearing your stories come to life!

Regan Burden is a NunatuKavut member working for Labrador Morning on CBC Radio, based in Happy Valley-Goose Bay (Newfoundland and Labrador).

Regan grew up in Labrador and returned, after attending university in St. John's, to work with CBC and since then has put a focus on sharing stories from Labrador's Indigenous communities. This had been a dream of Regan's since first being interviewed for the radio program as a young teenager.

Regan is excited to be working with The Doc Project's Alison Cook, to create a documentary that follows her as she learns about dog sledding from her father.

But for Regan it's more than learning about a traditional practice, it's about deciding whether or not this tradition is something that she can continue and keep alive.

Leisha Grebinski is host of CBC Radio's Saskatoon Morning. Her more than 15-year career with the public broadcaster has included stops all over Western Canada. Leisha thinks the best journalism increases our empathy for one another. She believes that hearing and sharing countless stories over the years has made her a better person.

Leisha is thrilled to work with Doc Project producer Alison Cook on a story that brings listeners to the ocean. The documentary will focus on one woman's life-long experience at sea that takes her all the way to the Central Mediterranean to save the lives of refugees who are escaping violence by boat. 

Sonali Karnick is the host of All in a Weekend on CBC Radio and Our Montreal on CBC Television. She started at CBC Montreal in 2000 as a researcher on current affairs programs.

Before sitting in the hosting chair, she established herself as a sports reporter and continues to do so as part of the CBC Olympic team as well as reporting on other sports-related issues. She lives in Dorval, Quebec with her family. 

Her father died in 2017 with a lot of unanswered questions about what led to him to be in the hospital with a coma. A few weeks after his death, Sonali learned she was expecting her first child. During the high-risk pregnancy, medical specialists urged her to continue to search for what caused her father's death to find out if there was anything preventable for her family's long-term health. 

She's excited to be working with Jeff Goodes to produce a documentary for White Coat, Black Art as she searches for answers to her questions.

Angelina King has been a multimedia journalist for nearly a decade and is currently a reporter with CBC Toronto. She started her career in her home city of Saskatoon as a print and television reporter. Angelina has a love for long-form storytelling, enterprise and investigative journalism, but ultimately, she's drawn to human stories that leave audiences feeling an emotional connection to them.

Angelina is honoured to work with The Doc Project's Alison Cook to bring a story she grew up hearing come to life: her dad's escape from communist Romania to Canada. But, with a "you won't believe this actually happened" twist. It's a heartwarming immigration story about courage, identity, resilience and a chance encounter that shaped two families. Angelina will weave in a bit of her own story: being a mixed-race reporter rediscovering her culture through documenting this part of her father's life.

Richard Raycraft is a roving journalist at CBC. He's worked as a producer at radio shows such as The Current, As It Happens, The House and Cross Country Checkup. He also works as a digital reporter with CBC Politics, where he recently covered the 2021 federal election. He is an alumnus of the Mentorship Program, having made a documentary for The Current in 2017.

Working with Now or Never's Andrew Friesen, Richard is going to become a mascot — a career his father urged him to explore as a teenager — and share this journey on the radio. Along the way he'll find out if he has what it takes to dance in a costume in front of large crowds, and get some answers on why his dad wanted this for him.

Katy Swailes is an audio journalist and documentary filmmaker with a passion for surprising, meaningful stories. Her award-winning films — such as Untying the Knot — have screened at festivals and been broadcast around the world. Her latest film centres on an octogenarian artist and pigeon-keeper.

After catching the radio bug at CBC Toronto's Here & Now, Katy joined the team at Writers & Company where she indulges her love of literature and long-form storytelling. You might also find her in the control room for Canada Reads, or on set for the production of Short Film Face Off.

Katy is excited to work with Andrew Friesen on a non-narrated documentary for Now or Never. It follows one woman's journey to overcome her fear of dogs, in order to live peacefully with her dog-loving partner in Toronto.

Logan Turner was born and raised along the north shore of Lake Superior in Robinson-Superior Treaty territory. He now works as a journalist with CBC in Thunder Bay, Ont., with a passion for telling long-form stories on all platforms.

Logan is excited to work with Jeff Goodes of White Coat, Black Art, to tell the story of Ontario's smallest city and its residents struggling to address the addictions crisis washing over Canada. Without any of the resources that big cities have, people are doing everything they can to help the ones they love.

Cassidy Villebrun-Buracas is an award-winning Dehcho Dene and Cree-Metis podcaster and radio producer based on the beautiful, traditional, and unceded territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ Peoples (Victoria, BC). His ongoing podcast, Dene Talk, has been awarded the Neskie Manuel Award for Aboriginal Programming, was nominated for Best Podcast at the 2021 NCRA's Community Radio Awards, and has been chosen as an Official Selection for 2021 imagineNative Film and Media Festival. Cassidy also sits as the Indigenous Representative on the board of the National Community Campus Radio Association, and is a passionate advocate for evergreen funding for Indigenous Peoples in radio and media. 

Cassidy is thrilled to team up with Duncan McCue. Through the eyes of Jordan Koe, a housing manager employed by Tsawout First Nation, Cassidy will explore the trials, tribulations, and issues that prevent access to much needed funds to repair and build housing, and how the climate crisis pushes already over taxed housing past its limits.