Three TMU professors named Fellows at Massey College

Danielle Lamb, of the Ted Rogers School of Management (TRSM), Asmaa Malik, of the School of Journalism, and Ruth Panofsky, of the Department of English, have been selected as visiting scholars at Massey College for the 2023-2024 academic year.

Massey College (external link)  is a postgraduate residential college affiliated with, but independent of, the University of Toronto. The college brings together scholars, distinguished professionals and full-time graduate students in a stimulating, interdisciplinary intellectual community.

The Massey Fellowship is the result of a partnership between Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) and the college, facilitating the annual appointment of a TMU faculty member to the college for a one-year research leave.

Danielle Lamb is a professor in the Organizational Behaviour and Human Resource Management department at TRSM. Her research interests include earnings and employment disparities, labour market inequalities and work that falls outside of traditional, long-term employment. One of her current research projects looks at how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the Indigenous labour market. 

As part of her fellowship, Lamb will also work on a SSHRC-funded project she is co-authoring. An extension of one of her previous peer-reviewed publications, it looks at temporary work in Canada, specifically examining gig work. This growing area of employment includes temporary or freelance work performed by an independent contractor on an informal or on-demand basis (such as Uber or delivery drivers, and vendors selling handmade items on Etsy). Lamb’s research will focus on whether gig work sends a negative signal to future prospective employers.           

While being Massey Fellow is new to Lamb, she is already familiar with the University of Toronto campus as she completed her PhD at the university in 2012. In addition to having more time to research, Lamb is looking forward to the opportunity to make new connections with other scholars and the college’s graduate students.

“I would be open to the opportunity to mentor or work with graduate students during this fellowship,” says Lamb. “I remember what it was like being at that stage of my academic career, so if I can help and give back in any way, it would be very special.” 

Asmaa Malik is a professor in the School of Journalism at the Creative School. She has held several editorial leadership roles at the Montreal Gazette and Toronto Star, and her work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Walrus and Toronto Star. Her research areas include journalism innovation and equity in media. 

Malik and her research partner, Gavin Adamson, received a $145,000 grant from the Google News Initiative 2020 North American Innovation Challenge Fund. Through this funding, they partnered with Novacene AI (external link) , an Ottawa-based firm, to develop an AI-powered tool that examines source diversity in news stories. The AI tool will look at who gets quoted in news stories to gather information about the people journalists speak to and how stories reflect multiple experiences, and not just an authoritative or institutional perspective. 

Another focus during her research leave is a SSHRC-funded project to create a diversity survey for Canadian newsrooms. In her previous study analyzing the racial composition of columnists (external link)  over the last two decades, Malik and her project partner Sonya Fatah found that as Canada’s demographics have shifted, news organizations have failed to reflect the country’s increasing diversity in both content and staffing. 

Building on this work, the team hopes to look beyond demographics and assess equity and inclusion in Canadian newsrooms, using a qualitative approach to measure the culture in news organizations. The survey aims to uncover the experiences of racialized journalists, including whether their ideas for stories outside of those for mainstream audiences are supported, and if they have ever been kept from reporting stories that are connected to their community.

As a journalist, Malik is looking forward to being in Massey College’s cross-disciplinary environment and hearing about the work of other scholars.    

“I’m excited to see who I may encounter at Massey, and to hear ideas that may or may not be connected to what I do,” says Malik. “The opportunity to learn about new perspectives can open up so many possibilities, and inspire new directions to follow and explore.”

Ruth Panofsky is a poet, writer, editor and a professor in the Department of English, where she teaches courses on Canadian literature and culture, Canadian Jewish writing, and Holocaust literature. In 2021, she was named a finalist in the Heritage Toronto Book Award for her book Toronto Trailblazers: Women in Canadian Publishing (external link) . 

Panofsky plans to work on her SSHRC-funded project to expand a chapter of her book that featured Anna Porter and her work as editor at McClelland & Stewart. After receiving the SSHRC grant in 2020, Panofsky was forced to sideline the project as it required archival research that couldn’t be accessed during the pandemic closure of libraries and archives.

Anna Porter (external link)  is an award-winning author and one of Canada’s most respected book publishers of the last 30 years. She was the co-founder of Key Porter Books, a former Canadian book publishing company. Key Porter became an important independent trade publisher, primarily of non-fiction. Panofsky’s new work will highlight Porter’s accomplishments and her impact on Canadian publishing.

“The Department of English has been incredibly supportive of my research throughout my career,” says Panofsky. In 2017, she was the recipient of the Sarwan Sahota Distinguished Scholar Award. “It was a special feeling to have my work recognized in that way, and I felt honoured to receive that award.”

“I’d like to congratulate professors Danielle Lamb, Asmaa Malik and Ruth Panofsky on being named Massey Fellows from TMU for 2023-24,” says Roberta Iannacito-Provenzano, provost and vice-president, academic. “It’s wonderful to see members of our faculty have the opportunity to share their work with the wider academic community and showcase the scholarly, research and creative activity happening at TMU.”

TMU has a strong history with Massey College. Previous appointees include Sarah Henstra from the Department of English, Carolyn Kane from the Creative School, Atefeh Mashatan from the Ted Rogers School of Management, Dan Horner from the Department of Criminology, Farzin Vejdani from the Department of History, Anthony Bonato from the Department of Mathematics, John Shields from the Department of Politics and Public Administration and Dae Kun (Rilla) Hwang from the Department of Chemical Engineering.

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