Marlene (she/her) currently works as the Executive Director at the Ontario Association of Interval & Transition Houses. Marlene has worked in a variety of social justice and social service organizations and has co-authored publications on queer issues. Making It Better Today (Ham & Byrch, 2012) explored the needs and barriers LGBT youth were experiencing through a community-based research model.  Building upon this model an additional publication was co-authored (Yorke, Byrch, Ham, Craggs & Shute, 2016) that examined how social work students and academics worked to legitimize queerness across community, policy development and social service organizations (Queering Social Work Education, 2016). More recently Marlene co-authored Discussing Tensions of 2SLGBTIA+Structural Inclusion Within the Gender-Based Violence Sector (Ham, Owusu-Akyeeah & Byward-Peek, 2022), an editorial examining 2SLGBTQ inclusion within gender-based violence services.