Faculty Honours & Awards
Here are a selection of the various honours, awards and accolades received by Ryerson faculty in recognition of their scholarly, research and creative activities. We congratulate them for their achievements and for their contributions to society, culture and industry.
Royal Society of Canada
The Royal Society of Canada (RSC) was established in 1883 to recognize the country’s leading scholars, artists and scientists through a competitive, peer-juried process. The lifelong honour is one of the highest a Canadian scholar can receive.
Blake Fitzpatrick (Image Arts) was elected as a Fellow of the RSC’s Academy of Arts and Humanities. A hybrid scholar-practitioner, his research interests examine the dynamic relationship between place and history through a documentary lens, such as the Berlin Wall and the impacts of radium and uranium processing in Port Hope, Ontario.
Eliza Chandler (School of Disability Studies) was made a member of the RSC’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists, which recognizes her emerging leadership bringing together disability studies and disability arts to showcase and elevate the work of disability artists through partnerships and collaborations.
Other External Awards
Faculty of Arts
Cathy Crowe (Politics and Public Administration) was presented with an honorary Doctor of Laws by the Law Society of Ontario for her immense impact on homelessness and social justice in Canada.
Faculty of Communication and Design
Alison Matthews David (Fashion) and her co-author won the 2020 Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children’s Non‐Fiction for their book, Killer Style: How Fashion Has Injured, Maimed, & Murdered Through History.
Faculty of Community Services
Maher El-Masri (Nursing) was inducted into the inaugural class of fellows at the newly established Canadian Academy of Nursing.
Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science
Umberto Berardi (Architectural Science) was a winner of Canada’s Clean50 for 2021 and led in the category of R&D for Canada’s Clean16 award.
Faculty of Law
Donna E. Young (Law) was named a 2021 Top 25 Women of Influence and received a Female Trailblazer Excellence Award from the Canadian Law Awards.
Faculty of Science
Stefania Impellizzeri (Chemistry and Biology) was a winner of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s 2021 PCCP Emerging Investigator Lectureship Award.
Ted Rogers School of Management
Atefeh (Atty) Mashatan (Information Technology Management) won the New Frontiers in Blockchain Research (Academic) award at the second annual Enterprise Blockchain Award ceremony.
Ryerson SRC Awards
The Social Innovation & Action SRC Award was awarded to Jonathon Anderson (Interior Design), whose work explores how industrial manufacturing influences the design and making processes. In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, he partnered with the local medical community to prototype a groundbreaking, medical-grade face shield, a highly collaborative SRC initiative to address the critical shortage of personal protective equipment for front-line workers.
The Early SRC Career Excellence Award was awarded to Miranda Kirby (Physics), internationally recognized as a rising leader in the field of quantitative, multi-modality imaging of lung disease. She has over 70 publications and has, to date, trained 28 HQP, many of whom have received SRC awards and distinctions.
This year, the Knowledge Mobilization & Engagement Award went to two recipients:
Kristine Newman (Nursing) explores assistive technologies to detect agitation in persons with dementia, and dementia awareness within intergenerational relations and amongst caregivers. This engagement with audiences, from students to caregivers to community partners, exemplifies excellence in knowledge mobilization beyond the university.
Ivor Shapiro’s (Journalism) leadership in the dissemination of scholarly knowledge has had a deep impact on the understanding of journalism practice in this country, including a blueprint for a national system of press accountability, open-access educational modules focusing on journalism’s role in democracy and a robust website showcasing current debates and best practices in Canadian journalism.
The Collaborative SRC Award also went to two recipients:
Ebrahim Bagheri (Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering) has built capacity in the area of artificial intelligence and data analytics, and his committed to knowledge transfer includes collaborations with small and medium-sized enterprises such as Warranty Life, ThinkCX and Persuasive Labs, and large industrial corporations including IBM Canada, SAS Canada and Royal Bank (RBC).
Sharareh Taghipour (Mechanical Engineering) is recognized for her groundbreaking work on physical asset management and on cancer progression modelling and screening optimization. Her extensive and successful history of collaboration with both industry and academic partners has effected positive change in her field, including seven international best paper awards and hundreds of citations.
Deans’ SRC Awards
Every year, Ryerson’s faculty deans recognize the SRC contributions of exceptional faculty members. In 2020–21, there were 12 recipients of the Deans’ SRC Awards.
Faculty of Arts
Eric de Noronha Vaz (Geography and Environmental Studies)
Lixia Yang (Psychology)
Faculty of Communication and Design
Carolyn Kane (Professional Communication)
Linda Zhang (Interior Design)
Faculty of Community Services
Eric Liberda (Occupational and Public Health)
Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science
Leila Farah (Architectural Science)
Naimul Mefraz Khan (Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering)
Mehrab Mehrvar (Chemical Engineering)
Faculty of Science
Niushan Gao (Mathematics)
Alireza Sadeghian (Computer Science)
Ted Rogers School of Management
Deborah De Lange (Business Management)
Atefeh (Atty) Mashatan (Information Technology Management)
Lorraine Janzen Kooistra (English) was honoured for her pioneering research on the complex relationships between pictures and words in 19th century print culture. Her innovative methodology and collaborative, interdisciplinary approach have advanced illustration studies and demonstrated the fundamental utility of bibliographical and textual studies in literary criticism.
The Sarwan Sahota Ryerson Distinguished Scholar Award is given annually to Ryerson faculty members to commend their seminal scholarship in their areas of expertise. The award is made available through the joint contributions of Sarwan Sahota, a retired professor, and Ryerson University.