Dr. Atefeh Mashatan and PhD student Victoria Granova win Canada's Most Powerful Women: Top 100 Awards
A leading Ted Rogers School researcher and her PhD student have both been named to a list of Canada’s most powerful women.
Dr. Atefeh (Atty) Mashatan, whose expertise at the frontlines of global cybersecurity has been recognized around the world, has now been named one of Canada’s most notable female leaders by the Women’s Executive Network (WXN) 2023 Canada's Most Powerful Women: Top 100 Awards (external link) . Joining Dr. Mashatan as an honoree this year is Victoria Granova – a PhD student of Dr. Mashatan’s – in the STEM category.
“I am excited and humbled to be selected for this award,” said Dr. Mashatan, who is a Canada Research Chair, associate professor and director of the Cybersecurity Research Lab. “I share this award with all of the 2023 award recipients and all of my colleagues at the Toronto Metropolitan University, my research collaborators from around the world, my industry partners and my team at the Cybersecurity Research Lab.”
These awards celebrate the professional achievements of female leaders across Canada in the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors. They are presented to outstanding women in 12 categories with the winners selected by WXN's Diversity Council of Canada.
"It takes a powerful woman to lead like a legend in her field, organization or community, and it takes a powerful woman to empower those around her to do the same," said Sherri Stevens, owner and CEO of WXN, in a release (external link) . "This year's winners embody that power, giving us hope when we need it most, setting new bars and changing the status quo. They are legends celebrated not just for the things they do, but also how they touch the lives of others."
Granova was selected in the BMO STEM category, which celebrates the female leaders in science, technology, engineering and math roles who are challenging the status quo for knowledge and female empowerment. Her PhD dissertation focuses on the psychology of cybersecurity but with a human-centered approach that incorporates aspects of psychology and business studies.
Granova received the 2022 Emerging Leaders' Award (external link) from the Chartered Professional Accountants of Ontario. Granova was also named a Top 30 York University Alumni Under 30 (external link) in 2022 and named to the Top 10 Under 40 by Canadian Security, which celebrates the achievements of young security professionals working in Canada.
Dr. Mashatan was selected in the Executive Leaders category, which recognizes women who not only exemplify what it means to be a great leader, but also build confidence and champion others. She joins an influential community of 1,628 extraordinary women who make a transformational difference in their fields and actively shape a more inclusive future.
Dr. Mashatan has been a professor at the Ted Rogers School of Information Technology Management since 2016. She has supervised several award-winning graduate students and postdoctoral fellows and has taught undergraduate courses on information systems security and privacy and enterprise architecture, and graduate courses on quantum computing and blockchain. She is recognized as a leading expert in cryptography, blockchain technology, quantum-resistant solutions, enterprise security architecture and Internet-of-Things (IoT) security.
Dr. Mashatan is the founder and director of the Cybersecurity Research Lab (CRL) which conducts cutting-edge information security research and trains the next generation of cybersecurity experts.
She also holds a Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Quality of Security (QoS) Framework for Internet-of-Things (IoT). Dr. Mashatan works to address new threats that have arisen with the widespread adoption of IoT, create new security systems for these networks, and recommend best practices for users, technical audiences and policy-makers.
Dr. Mashatan was recently recognized for her outstanding scholarly, research and creative activities with a university-wide recognition, receiving the Early Research Career Excellence Award in March 2022. Previously, she received the Dean’s Scholarly Research and Creativity Award in December 2020. She was also celebrated as a Top 20 Women in Cyber Security in Canada by IT World Canada in July 2020. She was also celebrated by the Blockchain Research Institute in 2020 when she won the New Frontiers in Blockchain Research for Academic Research award for her work in blockchain research. In 2019, she was named one of Top 5 Women of Influence in Security globally by SC Magazine.
This year alone, she co-authored journal articles in Computers & Security, Communications of the Association for Information Systems and The Journal of Supercomputing, Psychology and Marketing, Computers in Industry and Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery.
Dr. Mashatan and Granova aren’t the only members of the Ted Rogers School community to win the WXN Top 100 award: Dr. Karen Peesker won in 2022; PhD student Charlie Wall-Andrews was recognized in 2021 and Diversity Institute Founder Dr. Wendy Cukier was recognized in 2019. Former Dean Dr. Daphne Taras was recognized in 2012, in the public sector leaders category.
“There are amazing female leaders who role modelled what it means to lead with passion at the Ted Rogers School and I wouldn't be here without extraordinary women who paved the way and supported my success,” Dr. Mashatan said.
The Top 100 Award will be presented to Dr. Mashatan and Granova at the 21st annual Top 100 Awards Gala on November 30, 2023 at Fairmont Royal York Toronto.