Mandy Benoualid
Co-Founder / Editor
Mandy [she/her] is the co-founder and editor of TalkDeath, and co-host of the #TalkDeath webseries. She is also the founder and President of the online memorial platform, Keeper. Mandy’s work has appeared in national and international publications, she has been a featured presenter at professional funeral and cemetery conferences and was recently featured as an industry innovator by American Funeral Director Magazine. Mandy works part time as a Funeral Director’s Assistant, and plays music in her free time.
Jeremy Cohen
Co-Founder / Editor & Site Designer
Jeremy Cohen [he/him] is the co-founder and co-editor of TalkDeath. He is a full-time PhD candidate in Religious Studies at McMaster University, exploring the intersections of death, health and technology in contemporary North American society. His research focuses on how personal experiences with death shape the worldview of individuals seeking radical-longevity, as well as the historical and cultural framework of changing North American relationships to death and dead bodies over the past two centuries. Jeremy Cohen’s work is informed by the philosophy of technology as it relates to Western relationships to death, nature and technological progress.
Sage Agee
Social Media Manager & Staff Writer
Sage Agee [he/they] is TalkDeath’s Social Media Manager and Staff Writer. He is a certified Death Doula and runs a small-scale trans community farm called Phototaxis Farming Project. His writing focuses on death positivity, gender identity, sexuality, and parenting. He has written for The Washington Post, Insider, Parents Magazine, and more. Most of the time he is covered in dirt and looking for cool bugs.
Francis Lafreniere
Programmer
Francis [he/him] is our developer extraordinaire. Working with Keeper and TalkDeath since day one, he helped build the platform from scratch and has been closely involved with its evolution over the past four years. Francis manages our website backend, implements our (often overzealous) web design and makes sure everything is running smoothly.
