Faculty Honours
The positive impact of SRC activity by Ryerson researchers continues to be acknowledged through honours and awards. The following are examples of recognitions received by our esteemed faculty in the past year.
External Awards
In recognition of their contributions to their fields and society, Ryerson researchers have received a number of external honours and awards, including the following highlights:
Ben Barry (Fashion) was selected by Research Matters as one of 50 game-changing discoveries to emerge from Ontario universities over the past 100 years.
Jean-Paul Boudreau (Psychology) was named as a fellow of The Canadian Psychological Association in recognition for his contributions to the field in Canada.
Wendy Cukier (Information Technology Management) received the 2016 Harry Jerome Diversity Award by the Black Business and Professional Association (BBPA) for her longstanding community service.
The Emerald Literati Network 2016 Awards for Excellence granted highly commended status to outstanding papers by Chris Gibbs (Hospitality and Tourism), Joanne McNeish (Marketing Management), Kelly MacKay (Hospitality and Tourism) and Steven Murphy (Entrepreneurship and Strategy).
Kathryn Church (Disability Studies) received the David C. Onley Award for Leadership in Accessibility in the Role Model Award category, recognizing her advocacy and significant lifetime contribution to improving the overall quality of life for people with disabilities.
Medhat Shehata (Civil Engineering) was appointed a Fellow of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering.
Sui Sui (Global Management Studies) received the 2015 Best Paper Proceedings Award from the Academy of Management (International Management Division).
Josephine Wong (Nursing) received the Community Partners Award from the Ontario AIDS Network.
Isaac Woungang (Computer Science) received the NSERC Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) short-term program award, which enables a limited number of promising researchers to conduct research in Japanese universities.
Internal Awards
University-Wide SRC Awards
Each year, through the University-Wide SRC Awards, we recognize the diversity and range of scholarly, research and creative activity at Ryerson. The following are the recipients of the 2015-16 awards:
The Sarwan Sahota Ryerson Distinguished Scholar Award is presented to a Ryerson faculty member who has made an outstanding contribution to knowledge or artistic creativity in their area(s) of expertise — either through a long-term cumulative contribution or a single insightful or seminal idea, experiment, application, or interpretation.
This year’s recipient was Harald Bauder (Geography and Environmental Studies), whose research has broken new ground in conceptualizing the relationship between immigration policies and national identity, as well as guiding the labour market integration of immigrants. The culmination of his work was recently published in the book Migration Border Freedom, outlining solutions to facilitate safe passage and ease settlement for immigrants.
The Social Innovation and Action Research Award was presented to Trevor Hart (Psychology), who is working with his research team to develop novel HIV prevention interventions in major urban areas while also scaling up existing HIV prevention programs.
The Knowledge Mobilization Engagement Award was presented to Frauke Zeller (Professional Communication) for “hitchBOT,” a hitchhiking robot that travelled in Canada and abroad to help researchers better understand people’s relationship with smart technologies. The robot became an international sensation, earning more than 64,000 followers on Twitter worldwide and attracting considerable interest from mainstream media.
The Collaborative Research Award was presented to two researchers in 2015-16.
Sepali Guruge (Nursing) was awarded for her extensive work to address the complex intersections of gender, violence, and health throughout migration processes, which includes the completion of more than 45 projects with local, national, and international partners.
Henry Parada (Social Work) was awarded for his work with several partners in the Dominican Republic, informing policy, program development, and practices for strengthening children’s protection systems to prevent the sexual and commercial exploitation of children.
The Early Research Career Excellence Award was presented to Hossein Rahnama (Media) for his research into context-aware computing, big data, and data analytics, which he has successfully translated into high-impact commercial successes. He is the co-founder and research and innovation director of Ryerson’s DMZ, as well as co-founder and director of research of the Ryerson Centre for Cloud and Context-Aware Computing (RC4).
Deans’ SRC Awards
Individual faculty members are also recognized through the Deans’ Scholarly Research and Creative Activity Awards for outstanding achievement in SRC activity and having made an impact within their disciplines during the previous academic year.
The following are the recipients for 2015-16:
Faculty of Arts
- Claus Rinner (Geography and Environmental Studies)
- Jane Sprott (Criminology)
Faculty of Communication and Design
- Alison Matthews David (Fashion)
- Thierry Gervais (Image Arts)
Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science
- Daolun Chen (Mechanical and Industrial Engineering)
- Farrokh Janabi-Sharifi (Mechanical and Industrial Engineering)
- Umberto Berardi (Architectural Science)
Faculty of Science
- Michael Arts (Chemistry and Biology)
Ted Rogers School of Management
- Philip Walsh (Entrepreneurship and Strategy)
- Sui Sui (Global Management Studies)