Nancy J. Coombs is Deputy Rector’s Warden at St. Jude’s Anglican Church, as well as serving on its Parish Council and in its music ministry. A graduate of Harvard and Northwestern, she also studied and worked in France where she continues to spend time. Her international career has ranged from sports to trade diplomacy and the arts to philanthropic work in Indigenous rights, arts advocacy and education. Nancy founded the Indigenous Issues Series for her local Harvard alumni network which has, over the last several years, resulted in a global community of Indigenous leaders, and allies standing in support with them, while focusing on Indigenous-led approaches to housing, healthcare, food security, language revitalization, conservation, child welfare, and other critical topics in Canada and beyond. In addition to local projects, she has pursued coursework in Indigenous studies on an ongoing basis for a number of years, having also been in residence at the School for Advanced Research (SAR) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, summer of 2023 while, in 2022, she was in Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming, in dialogue with community leaders as part of a Harvard delegation focusing on Indigenous voices; she also spent time in Vietnam, increasing her awareness of issues facing its Indigenous populations/ethnic minorities. Among other roles, she was Executive Director of the
French-American Chamber of Commerce of New England and Assistant French Trade Commissioner in Toronto. An avid runner and former competitive athlete, Nancy worked on the IAAF World Indoor Track and Field Championships and the Pan-American Games X. Nancy is a writer and performs as a flutist. Her book, The Audition: Poems of Longing, Limbo, and Restoration, was published by Wipf and Stock in 2023. She and her husband, Clive, are long-time Oakville residents where, as a family, they have been integrally involved in the community from its schools to sports and the arts.