Galen MacLusky

Galen is a manager at Prosper Canada, a national charity dedicated to expanding economic opportunity for Canadians living in poverty through program and policy innovation and Canada's leading national champion of financial empowerment. Galen's work is focused on understanding the experiences and barriers that people living on low incomes in Canada face in accessing government benefits, and developing digital technology solutions to help overcome these barriers. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Galen’s team was responsible for developing and maintaining the Financial Relief Navigator, a tool that helped over 95,000 people in Canada find government benefits to replace lost income due to COVID-19. Galen's team currently operates and maintains the Benefits Wayfinder – a simple, easy-to-use, plain-language tool that helps people living on low and modest incomes find and track benefits they could get.

Galen has over 10 years of service design experience in the public, private and voluntary sectors. He holds an MSc in Engineering Design and Innovation from Northwestern University and a BASc in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Waterloo.