Fall 2023 award winning grads honoured for standout success
President Mohamed Lachemi, left, smiles with TMU Gold Medal recipient Fateen Basharat, a PhD graduate in Physics, at the Fall 2023 convocation ceremonies.
Congratulations to nine award-winning Fall 2023 graduates, whose standout accomplishments and efforts have earned them the university’s top honours.
Determination, hard work, exceptional academic achievement and strong community impact have earned the following graduates the TMU Gold Medal and Board of Governors Leadership Awards:
Fateen Basharat · Danielle D’Amico · Reza Eslami · Mahdis Habibinia · Nerissa Inniss-Boston · Katey Park · Elissa Penfound · Simon Wells · Fadi Samir Layyous Gedeon
The TMU Gold Medal is the university’s highest academic honour and is awarded to students from each faculty in recognition of their academic excellence and outstanding community involvement.
The Board of Governors Leadership Award and Medal is one of the most prestigious university-wide awards offered to graduating students.
Meet these top scholars in the profiles and links below:
Fateen Basharat
PhD graduate in Physics
Faculty of Science
Gold Medal
Fateen Basharat, a PhD graduate in physics, flashes a smile at the camera as she holds up her TMU Gold Medal at Fall 2023 convocation ceremonies.
Physics PhD graduate Fateen Basharat has emerged as a shining star in the Faculty of Science. Throughout her studies, her dedication to the community and academia in the face of adversity has earned her the prestigious TMU Gold Medal upon graduating this fall.
Basharat first began her journey as an international student from Bangladesh. Over the course of her PhD, Basharat demonstrated extraordinary commitment to the science community. She served as the graduate student representative for the Faculty of Science Faculty Council, president of events for the Physics Graduate Student Union and co-founder of the Women in Physics club.
Beyond the university campus, she contributed her time to the Imaging Network of Ontario Student Committee and the Canadian Organization of Medical Physicists Women's Committee.
In addition to community involvement, her academic excellence is evident in her achievements. This year, a paper Basharat co-authored alongside principal investigator professor Jesse Tanguay received the prestigious Sylvia Fedoruk Prize for the best publication in the field of medical physics in Canada. This marks the second occasion in the past three years that TMU students and their supervisors have been honoured with the prize.
Learn more about Fateen Basharat
Danielle D’Amico
Ph.D. graduate in Psychology
Faculty of Arts
Governor General Gold Medal Award
Danielle D’Amico, recipient of both a TMU Gold Medal and the Governor General Gold Medal Award, says her PhD studies on healthy aging was inspired by her grandmother, who had Alzheimer’s disease. Above, D’Amico is joined by her parents, John D'Amico, left, and Sylvie D'Amico.
Danielle D’Amico’s involvement with her community is extensive. She was a trainee member of the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging, had the opportunity to conduct secondary data analyses from the Quebec Longitudinal Study on Nutrition and Healthy Aging, coordinated the Get Psyched course at the LIFE Institute at TMU, and was the Ontario co-lead and co-founder of the Wisdom Exchange Project.
When crossing the stage at convocation, she says, “I was thinking about my grandmother, a really important person to me who is the impetus for my work. We were very close while I was growing up, but unfortunately, she had Alzheimer's disease and passed away when I was a teenager. Seeing the disease take her life was devastating, but it inspired me to pursue a career dedicated to preventing dementia. I know she would be proud of my accomplishments because I feel her presence with me every day.”
One of the things D’Amico has valued most about her experience at TMU is knowledge translation and “bringing the science of healthy brain aging into the community.”
“Getting to connect with community members, learn about their life experiences, and share my research with them has been incredibly rewarding and has enriched both my research and my perspective on life. I credit my success, in part, to these wonderful people I've met along the way, so I'm really grateful,” she said.
D’Amico adds that the best piece of advice she has received is from her supervisor, Alexandra Fiocco, “who reminded me during some challenging times throughout my graduate training that this too shall pass. I have carried this advice with me as a lesson and reminder that struggles and adversities are temporary and there is always light at the end of the tunnel. This is now my personal mantra.”
Learn more about Danielle D’Amico here
Reza Eslami
Ph.D. graduate in Chemical Engineering
Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science
Governor General Gold Medal Award
Recipient of the the Governor General Gold Medal, PhD graduate Reza Eslami says, "I always look to grow myself personally, apart from the science, to inform my own journey. It’s important to me to bridge lab research and real-world challenges to strengthen myself and do my best to create practical solutions for society.”
Seeing diabetes patients “struggling with painful self-checking procedures,” Reza Eslami asked himself, “How can I help contribute a solution to this problem?” The answer, he believed, could be found in electrochemistry. Eslami saw the potential of using polymer and nanomaterial science to introduce non-invasive health monitoring solutions. Working alongside Dr. Hadis Zarrin and the Nanoengineering Laboratory for Energy and Environmental Technologies (NLEET) lab, they developed a revolutionary Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) system that could detect glucose levels from bodily fluids, like sweat. Accompanied by other health monitoring systems such as body-motion monitoring sensors, this idea evolved into a comprehensive health monitoring platform.
Building on this momentum in his first year of Ph.D. study, Eslami founded Sensofine Inc., a start-up dedicated to designing health-monitoring wearables that can prevent and manage diabetes. He also set out to develop a first-of-its-kind self-powered textile wearable as part of his doctoral thesis defense. Eslami’s tenacious passion and work ethic would lead him to new challenges and accolades – including the 2023 Mitacs Award for Outstanding Innovation—Ph.D.
Learn more about Eslami’s journey and ground-breaking research.
Mahdis Habibinia
Master’s of Journalism
The Creative School
Gold Medal
Journalism graduate and Gold Medal winner Mahdis Habibinia, left, stands with renowned Canadian journalist Lisa LaFlamme, centre, and Charles Falzon, dean of The Creative School.
Mahdis Habibinia realized that journalism could be far more than a career – it was a conduit to tell human interest stories, amplify unheard voices, and bring attention to injustices. In her final Major Research Project (MRP), Habibinia delved into the intricate landscape of culture and entertainment-based platforms. Her research focused on unravelling how these platforms, in blending news with entertainment, often contributed to disinformation and misinformation.
Platforms like 6ixBuzz, once an entertainment-centric brand, underwent a transformation that risked compromising the integrity of the information they shared. Habibinia's research project unearthed the potential harm these platforms might unknowingly inflict on their audience.
"In a time where Canada is not immune to the tsunami of institutional distrust at play south of the border, these platforms could be doing more harm than they realize to its very own industry," Habibinia said. "Their rise to fame with their current editorial models could actually be doing a disservice to its audience."
Learn more about Mahdis Habibinia
Nerissa Inniss-Boston
Master’s of Child and Youth Care graduate
Faculty of Community Services
Gold Medal
Master’s of Child and Youth Care graduate Nerissa Inniss-Boston, centre, receives her Gold Medal from President Mohamed Lachemi, left, and Kiaras Gharabaghi, dean, Faculty of Community Services and professor, School of Child and Youth Care, at right.
While balancing a full-time position as a child and youth care practitioner with the Peel District School Board, Nerissa Inniss-Boston earned not only her master’s degree but also a TMU Gold Medal. During her studies, she also seized opportunities to participate in competitive and leadership experiences. Now, she’s aiming to pay it forward by eventually becoming a professor in child and youth care (CYC).
“Receiving TMU’s Gold Medal is an absolute honour,” she said. “I am so humbled and thankful to receive this award. I believe that the Gold Medal shows my hard work and dedication... It also demonstrates how the professors and faculty of CYC view my contributions to our field and the community.”
She says that in addition to completing the program while working full-time, her proudest accomplishment was presenting on "The Path to Compassion Satisfaction" in the Three-Minute Thesis Competition (3MT).
“It was an outstanding achievement and I placed 2nd overall my first time competing,” she said.
In addition, she says that sitting on many committees and councils helped shape her experience during her graduate studies, giving her a sense of leadership outside of the classroom.
“For example, by serving on the committee for my graduate program, I had the chance to help implement changes that impacted the delivery of the program for incoming students,” she said.
Learn more about Nerissa Inniss-Boston
Katey Park
Ph.D. graduate in Psychology
Faculty of Arts
Gold Medal and Board of Governors Leadership Award
Katey Park, a PhD graduate in psychology, and recipient of the TMU Gold Medal and the Board of Governors Leadership Award, says particular attention must be paid to the well-being of graduate students since many have additional responsibilities such as child-rearing or caring for aging parents. She is pictured above with President Mohamed Lachemi, left, along with her husband, her children and her parents.
Katey Park’s dedication to enhancing the well-being of graduate students through multiple channels has resulted in concrete initiatives to enhance student support, as recognized by the Jennifer Mactavish Graduate Student Leadership Award.
Park’s outstanding scholarship has also been recognized by prestigious funding bodies, including a SSHRC doctoral award.
“I was honoured to receive both the TMU Gold Medal and the Board of Governors Leadership Award, primarily for my work in graduate students’ mental health,” she said.
Park says she pursued these initiatives, workshops, and research projects because she really enjoyed talking about and navigating work-life balance with her peers.
“I always felt as though the supports for ‘students’ well-being’ was primarily geared towards undergraduates, and didn’t capture the unique academic experiences of graduate students,” she said. “Many of us have been in school for over a decade, have responsibilities that come with our (typically) older age such as child-rearing or caring for aging parents, and much of our academic learning environment is outside of a classroom.”
Park says that she had previously held a stereotype that leaders “were loud, extroverted, dominant, and wildly self-confident,” which she says, did not describe her. One of the biggest lessons she learned at TMU is that great leaders can take many different forms.
“Competent leaders can be kind, introverted, humble, and still make great strides in action,” she said.
Elissa Penfound
Ph.D. graduate - Interdisciplinary
Yeates School of Graduate Studies
Gold Medal
Environmental Applied Science and Management (EnSciMan) PhD student Elissa Penfound smiles as she accepts her Gold Medal award from President Lachemi at Fall 2023 convocation.
Environmental Applied Science and Management (EnSciMan) PhD student Elissa Penfound wants to tell the full story of wetland loss and environmental degradation in the Great Lakes region.
Using geographic information systems, deep learning and machine learning, Penfound is exploring the anthropogenic drivers of wetland loss through historical, present and future perspectives.
Her dissertation reveals the wide extent of wetland loss in southern Ontario due to human activity, and uses self-organizing map clustering to measure how changing land cover influences the flood mitigation attributes of urban wetlands in Toronto and Chicago. By employing predictive modelling, Penfound’s research showcases how increasing development could exacerbate wetland loss in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area over the next 20 years.
When asked what inspires her research, Penfound says, “The Great Lakes Region has experienced devastating wetland loss over the past several centuries. My goal with this research was to combine temporal and spatial data to present a long-term story of this wetland loss to highlight the extent of the environmental degradation that has occurred. The third manuscript was particularly inspired by the provincial government's 2022 amendments to the Greenbelt boundaries to increase housing development in the region, a decision which has recently been reversed.”
As a female in STEM, she shares advice for other young women in this field: “Be curious, explore topics that interest and excite you, and advocate for yourself and your work.”
Learn more about Elissa Penfound
Simon Wells
MBA
Ted Rogers School of Management
Gold Medal
Gold Medal winner Simon Wells, right, a graduate of the MBA program at the Ted Rogers School of Management, has also been working in disaster and emergency management. He says winning a Gold Medal shows how much TMU values community service.
Wells says receiving the Gold Medal is a great honour.
“It means that the school recognizes the value of community engagement and community service, and that it recognizes the value of public service, not just as an occupation, but as calling,” he said.
Wells stands out as a committed leader who is passionate about community service. His achievements extend beyond academic excellence – his extracurriculars include participating in the MBA Student Association.
Wells’ background is in the public sector, non-profit and the military. Currently, he is a program manager on the strategic initiatives team at Toronto Emergency Management, where he leads strategic initiatives and projects that improve public safety. He has experience leading emergency response teams, including managing mass immunization clinics during the pandemic. For the last five years, he’s worked in disaster and emergency management.
Wells founded the Canadian Journal of Emergency Management, an open-access, peer-reviewed, bilingual journal for the disaster and emergency management industry.
“There are a lot of dedicated people in my industry,” Wells says of emergency management. “But, in Canada there is not a lot of knowledge mobilization and exchange between scholars, policymakers and practitioners. And so our mission is to create a forum so that they can share their knowledge, lessons learned, and insights so that emergency management and the safety of the public in Canada can flourish.”
Fadi Samir Layyous Gedeon
Chemical Engineering
Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science (FEAS)
Gold Medal
Fadi Samir Layyous Gedeon receives his Gold Medal award from President Mohamed Lachemi. Gedeon, who graduated in Chemical Engineering, and says work-life balance is crucial for one’s well-being.
A passionate and curious student, Gedeon used his time at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) to satisfy his hunger for knowledge. Early on in his chemical engineering undergraduate program, Gedeon’s work caught the attention of FEAS faculty. In just his second year, he co-authored a chapter of the book, Advances in Membrane Technologies, alongside associate professor, Dr. Chil-Hung Cheng.
The following year, he completed two cooperative placements, which allowed him to apply his learning to the real world. Gedeon’s academic acumen eventually landed him in the Accelerated Master of Applied Science (MASc), a program designed to allow top undergraduate students to complete graduate-level courses in their latter years. Equally enthusiastic about researching zeolites and understanding their complex properties, Cheng became Gedeon’s MASc supervisor.
Balancing work and rest is something Gedeon emphasizes the importance of to new and prospective students. “The resting is equally as important as the working,” he says. “[Otherwise] you're not going to be efficient… if you pull an all-nighter tonight, make time for yourself tomorrow.”
Gedeon has a long history of student advocacy. He served on the First-Year Engineering Office’s First-Year Committee, and later joined the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, where he recommended curriculum modifications based on his experiences as an undergraduate.
Having also played rugby for TMU and been a member of the Organization of Latin American Students, Layyous adds, “There’s no better way to make friends than (though) a hobby.”
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