Management

Alumni

Marah Ayad believes in putting yourself first.

The alumna of the University of Toronto Scarborough’s management program is now a technical account manager at Google.

She says the opportunity came about only after she left her previous full-time job at Microsoft to take some time to travel. But before she could leave for South America, she received a call from the search engine giant. Two months of studying new technical skills and six interviews later, she landed her dream job – and still managed to travel to Ecuador to volunteer as a hiking guide.

“If I had stayed [put] as everyone told me to, I would have never been able to prepare for my job at Google,” says Ayad. “Listen to your body, mind and heart, and if you have a dream, go for it.”

Ayad graduated from the first cohort of the Management and International Business Co-op Program (MIB) in 2017. The program offers students fundamental management skills, combined with domestic and international work and study opportunities to network and learn the industry through a global lens.

She previously studied economics at University College London before landing an internship at the Aga Khan University Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya. She also completed two co-ops at Microsoft Canada, where she gained valuable work experience with non-cloud and cloud technologies.

As a communications facilitator in Kenya, Ayad worked at the hospital’s provost office to obtain donations from private companies to assist families with the cost of health care. She credits the experience for preparing her to work in her current industry.

“As a 19-year-old, I learned a lot about how to communicate and get people to hear you. To be a girl who can speak loud and have her voice heard is super useful, especially in tech and business, which is still a male-dominated industry.”

During her years as a student, Ayad pursued extracurriculars that prioritized connecting communities and facilitating insightful conversations. This is what led her to TEDxUTSC – first as the director of speakers relations and later as chair. Under the role, Ayad organized their 2015 conference, Unleash Your Fantasy.

Despite a passion for public speaking, Ayad was not always comfortable with the idea. She credits a management communications course taught by James Howard, a sessional lecturer in strategy, as a launchpad that equipped her with presentation and leadership skills.

“It changed everything for me. The entire class was about being good at standing up in front of a group and speaking loudly and clearly to communicate meaningful points,” says Ayad, who was Howard’s teaching assistant for two semesters. “He helped us discover a side of ourselves that we always wanted to show.”

Now in a position to help others, Ayad is a big believer the value of servant leadership, which focuses on supporting employees' professional and personal goals in order to nurture an inclusive, uplifting work environment.

“Servant leadership is key to having a diverse workplace – it allows someone to climb the ladder, the new parent to have stability, and the 22-year-old a chance to travel. It's non-negotiable in the future of the workforce,” Ayad says.

Ayad encourages students pursuing any field to get certified in fundamental knowledge of the cloud ecosystem, coding languages and data science – all platforms that increasingly drive our everyday lives and decision-making.

She also wants to share her experiences and mentor business students who are considering the tech industry – particularly new immigrants, women and LGBTQ professionals.

“I will never question if it’s alright to take time off. I won’t have doubts about my employability with a gap on my resume. We need to let go of that mentality,” she says.

“If you invest the time and effort and truly believe in yourself, you can achieve anything.”

Ayad will be joining the management pathways IT career panel on Feb. 8 to share her career story and advice to students about breaking into the technology industry.

“There has been an increased demand for talent and growth in the technology industry for management co-op students from the BBA program,” says Sischa Maharaj, assistant director, external relations and communications in the department of management.

“It’s wonderful to have supportive alumni like Marah willing to help current students break into emerging technology careers.”

Reputation is key to predicting performance – but it's often overlooked by employers: U of T study

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 15 Jul 2021 15:24:32 +0000

Reputation is key to predicting performance – but it's often overlooked by employers: U of T study

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 07/15/2021 - 11:24

Cutline

Brian Connelly, an associate professor at U of T Scarborough, says organizations have historically relied on self-descriptions of personalities and traits to gauge future employees, but may be missing a key performance indicator (photo by Ken Jones)

Don Campbell

Topic

Breaking Research

Research & Innovation

Organizations spend significant time, money and resources searching for the right workers. Yet, according to a new University of Toronto study, they may be overlooking the key ingredient in determining the success of future employees: reputation.

“Our reputation seems to be the most important and accurate part of predicting performance,” says Brian Connelly, an associate professor in the department of management at U of T Scarborough and lead author on the study.

“It’s also one that’s largely been ignored in the past by personality assessments.”

The research, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, asked 455 military cadets in South Korea to rate their own personality while also having their personality rated by three fellow cadets. The researchers also collected ratings on citizenship behaviours as well as academic and job performance.

Not surprisingly, the cadets who were conscientious (hard-working and reliable) and agreeable (friendly and co-operative) tended to be the highest performing. But the researchers found it was the cadets’ reputation – not their personality traits or identity – that was the most accurate predictor of that success.

“There is overlap in the way you see your personality and the way others see your personality, and that overlap is important,” Connelly says. “Reputation, on the other hand, is uncovering the stuff that individuals might not be seeing about themselves.

Connelly says personality research and the way personality measures are practised have traditionally focused on traits, assuming that the best way to measure it is to ask people to describe themselves. Connelly adds that organizations have also largely relied on such self-descriptions – but when it comes to identifying talent, the approach risks leaving out what could be the most important part.

“Personality isn’t fixed or uniquely ‘owned’ by the self – it emerges in the roles we occupy and the relationships we build with others,” says Connelly, who is an expert on how organizations can best use personality measures to address workplace challenges.

“Our findings suggest that it’s those emergent aspects of reputation that are the most important for employers and employees to consider.”

Connelly says there could be several reasons why reputation is such an accurate predictor of success. It could be that others are better at picking up on information that individuals tend to distort when looking at themselves. “Kind of like the way you hear your voice is different from others – there’s a vibration in your ear when you talk that actually distorts your voice,” Connelly says.

Peers also judge reputation based on behaviour. They don’t necessarily know an individual’s thoughts, feelings, goals or past experiences – they’re only witnessing performance. And, in the case of the workplace, that performance is only being viewed in one specific context.

That doesn’t mean that one’s reputation is set in stone – even if its is being determined by others. That’s because a person’s personality can and does change over time.

“It can shift in response to the demands or circumstances of life,” he says, pointing to research showing that as people reach their late-20s, for example, they become more agreeable and conscientious.

People can change aspects of their personality by setting goals, adds Connelly. If they want to be more assertive for example, they can set goals on how to achieve that in their interactions with others.

“It’s not necessarily the case that you are born with a specific personality stamped on you,” he says.

“I find it inspiring that you are not this fixed person, it’s more about what you do – and that you can change what you do in order to achieve these higher levels of performance.”

'We want everyone to feel safe and welcome': U of T Mississauga's new special adviser on anti-racism, equity

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 30 Jun 2021 14:49:15 +0000

'We want everyone to feel safe and welcome': U of T Mississauga's new special adviser on anti-racism, equity

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 06/30/2021 - 10:49

Cutline

A Canada Research Chair in Identity, Diversity and Inclusion, Sonia Kang of the department of management will become U of T Mississauga's special adviser on anti-racism and equity on July 1 (photo courtesy of Rotman School of Management)

Kate Martin

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

Diversity and Inclusion

Equity

Psychology

University of Toronto Scarborough

U of T Mississauga

When you receive an invitation to join the University of Toronto Mississauga community, it’s strictly come as you are.

That’s what Sonia Kang wants to emphasize as the campus’s new special adviser on anti-racism and equity.

“One of the big things for me will be really looking at making sure we have an inclusive culture where [people] can be their authentic selves, they can speak up and use their real names, for example,” says Kang, who is also the Canada Research Chair in Identity, Diversity and Inclusion.

“It’s just normalizing that we accept people here for who they are and that we don’t need them to shift their identities to fit into anything that’s happening here. We want everyone to feel safe and welcome.”

Kang officially takes over the role on July 1, building on the foundation laid by U of T Mississauga’s inaugural adviser, Rhonda McEwen, who has been named vice-principal, academic and dean. It was McEwen who encouraged Kang, an associate professor in the department of management, to become the new adviser.

“Identity and inclusion is something I do in my own research, and I love this opportunity to be able to apply that to a community I really care about and continue what Rhonda has put in place,” Kang says. “It’s still early days of building [the portfolio] up, and I am excited by the prospect of being part of the grassroots movement to keep expanding the office and the mission.”

Kang has published more than 25 peer-reviewed articles exploring questions of identity, diversity and inclusion, covering such topics as the implications of racial and gender self-presentation in cover letters, inclusivity in STEM subjects, the effects of pro-diversity statements and the damage of stereotypes on individual well-being.

Recently named one of Report on Business’s “Changemakers,” Kang’s work has been featured in the Atlantic, the Globe and Mail, Forbes and Harvard Business Review, as well as in her own podcast, For the Love of Work. Her award-winning published insights on “resume whitening” earned a spot on the Financial Times’s Global 100 list for “business school research with social impact.”

“These concepts aren’t just applied in academic life,” she says. “In professional life, in organizational life, you can see how people who have all this amazing potential can really be held back by these issues of not being included fully in these different spaces.”

Engaging in discussions of inclusion and diversity is vital for U of T students as they move towards life in the work world, says Kang.

“There is a real generation shift where people really care about the way they feel at work – it’s not just ‘I’m going to work to get paid,’” she says. “It’s really more so about the experiences and the relationships they feel they have. How much do they feel they can contribute? Do they have power? Do they have a voice?”

This year, Kang and Elizabeth Page-Gould, an associate professor in U of T’s department of psychology in the Faculty of Arts & Science, developed the first-ever Canada Summer Research Opportunity Program to increase equitable access to graduate school for Black, Indigenous and racialized undergraduates. Its inaugural cohort includes 15 Black and Indigenous students. In her new role as special adviser on anti-racism and equity, Kang says she hopes to continue creating opportunities for those facing barriers.

“I’ll be speaking to different department and stakeholder groups, faculty, staff and everyone to find out what their unique needs might be, what is missing, what they would like to see change,” she says. “My job will be to facilitate the connections and conversations to make those things happen.”

UPPERCASE or lowercase? The way brands write their names sends a subtle message to consumers

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 09 Apr 2021 15:34:52 +0000

UPPERCASE or lowercase? The way brands write their names sends a subtle message to consumers

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 04/09/2021 - 11:34

Cutline

A study by U of T Scarborough's Sam Maglio explores the effect of using upper- or lower-case letters on the way consumers view brands and their products (illustration by Anatoliy Babiy via iStockPhoto)

Topic

Research & Innovation

Brand names are often written using a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters. Others defy convention by using all lowercase, such as amazon or ebay, or all uppercase, such as IKEA.

It turns out this unconventional use of text does more than simply draw our attention – it could influence how we think or feel about a brand or product if there’s a strong gender connection.

“Our first encounter with a brand quite often is seeing its name splashed in text. But how that text is used can go a long way in influencing our initial attitudes about that product,” says Sam Maglio, an associate professor in the department of management at the University of Toronto Scarborough.

In a study published in the journal Marketing Letters, Maglio and co-author Aekyoung Kim from the University of Sydney looked at how the use of text influenced people’s attitudes towards certain products. Across four experiments they found a link between using lowercase letters and femininity, and uppercase letters and masculinity – and these gender perceptions influenced how favourably certain products were viewed.

“We found that female-specific products are viewed more favourably when presented in lowercase, and male products were viewed more favourably when presented in uppercase,” says Maglio, an expert on consumer behaviour.

They also found that the effect seems to hold regardless of font size. In one experiment, brands were shown using a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters as well as different font sizes (large 100-point font, and smaller 20-point font). The result was that switching font sizes had little effect on gender perception compared to using uppercase or lowercase letters.

The study builds on past work by other researchers that looked at how use of lowercase brand names, such as adidas, was more closely associated with traditional female gender attributes such as friendliness. It found that using uppercase and lowercase letters for brand names can have an unconscious effect on consumers’ attitudes based on gender associations.

The study by Maglio and Kim focused on how specific products like scarves and fragrances can be gendered using uppercase or lowercase letters.

Maglio says the lesson for marketers is there could be a benefit to using all lowercase or all uppercase if there is a clear gender connection to a particular product. If you’re selling women’s perfume, for example, lower-case letters may resonate more with customers. If you’re selling men’s aftershave on the other hand, using uppercase letters may be more effective.

For products where there is no clear gender connection, Maglio says it’s likely most effective to use a combination of uppercase and lowercase.

“The simple message is they may want to line up their signals – in this case their use of text – with what their product delivers. So, if it’s men’s cologne, putting the name in uppercase letters could mean that consumers might like it more.”

Maglio says the study focused on scarves and fragrances specifically because those products tend to have versions for different genders. He says they also found no difference in response to vacuum cleaners, which have been traditionally marketed to women.

“If people had a strong association between femininity and use of a vacuum cleaner, we should have seen a difference in our data depending on whether its brand name was written in all lowercase, but we didn’t,” he says.

“It’s not like ‘This type of product is for this gender, but it’s not for that gender', which would veer into problematic gender stereotypes.”

As for why our attitudes towards a product can be influenced by the use of text, Maglio says it comes down to how our brain processes information in order to derive meaning about the world around us.

“When you see a new brand and you don’t know anything about it, you can’t help but draw on a lifetime of experiences in making those snap judgements. People will latch on to whatever information they can in order to help them make sense of what they see.

“This effect works best for things with a strong gender connection, like a men’s cologne, than if the connection is less obvious, like a vacuum cleaner.”

U of T startup helps local restaurants cope with COVID-19

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 10 Mar 2021 15:26:37 +0000

U of T startup helps local restaurants cope with COVID-19

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 03/10/2021 - 10:26

Cutline

The U of T Scarborough students and alumni behind PickEasy, a restaurant-customer matching app, are helping local, independently run restaurants digitize their businesses and enable contact tracing (photo by Xinhua/Zou Zheng via Getty Images)

Jarek Landori-Hoffman

Topic

A new app developed by University of Toronto students and alumni is helping match potential customers with local, independently owned restaurants.

PickEasy, a restaurant matching app developed by Max Woo and Daniel Zhao, technical co-founder Cho Yin Yong, and mentor Mahmoud Halat, offers digital services to independently owned restaurants in Scarborough.

The startup’s goal is to help smaller restaurants navigate pandemic safety regulations as effectively as larger chain restaurants.

“Many of my family members own small restaurants in Hong Kong and they had to work very hard to achieve success and to support their families,” Woo says. “That’s given me an emotional attachment to small businesses not only in Hong Kong, but in Scarborough as well.”

Woo, a fourth-year management student at U of T Scarborough specializing in strategic management, and Zhao, a graduate of the management program, originally launched PickEasy to solve a simple yet relatable problem: “Where should we go to eat tonight?” Their answer was a swipe-based restaurant matching service that would pair users with restaurants based on their preferences and location.

When the pandemic hit, Woo and Zhao decided to leverage their startup to make a difference. They began offering free digital services to small restaurants in Scarborough, helping them create online menus to ensure customers could order safely online. More recently, they’ve also been working with restaurants to enable contact tracing, which not only helps the community stay safe, but also helps reduce costs when compared to physical contact tracing methods.

“We also went door to door to talk to restaurant owners, and they told us that this was something they needed because they didn’t have the capacity to do it on their own, and they were struggling to get an adequate return on investment with current practices,” Zhao says.

“That was the moment this project went from just an idea we had to a reality that could make a difference.”

Max Woo and Daniel Zhao originally launched PickEasy as a swipe-based restaurant matching app that would pair users with restaurants based on their preferences and location (photo by Andy King)

Woo and Zhao brought their idea to the team at The Bridge, an academic space at U of T Scarborough that spans teaching, study, research, and experiential learning for business, finance, and entrepreneurship. There, the pair took part in the New Venture Program, which helps students in the early stages of building a start-up by helping them develop research skills to find data and information to support their business. It includes classes on research from U of T Scarborough’s entrepreneurship librarian, Sarah Shujah, with access to several online learning modules and direct faculty mentorship from Bill McConkey, assistant professor, teaching stream, and academic director of The Bridge.

“The Bridge was crucial to laying down the groundwork for success, whether in the workplace or in entrepreneurship. There are so many uncertainties in real entrepreneurship that guidance, practical knowledge, and mentorship are essential for success. That’s where The Bridge comes in.”

With the help of the New Venture Program, Woo and Zhao were able to do valuable secondary research and deliver an innovative product. With that data in hand, the duo partnered with Dave Fenton, entrepreneurship and work-integrated learning co-ordinator in the department of management, to offer a product solution that directly expands efforts to support Scarborough community restaurants.

“The Bridge has had a lot of involvement with the Scarborough Restaurant Recovery Project,” says Zhao. “That project ties into our goals of putting Scarborough restaurants on the map, and our partnership with the department gave us a number of new connections that allowed us to quickly scale our potential customer base. While it was a coincidence that our goals aligned, I feel like it was an amazing opportunity that benefits everyone.”

The team was recently awarded a $30,000 grant from U of T Entrepreneurship and the Lo Family Social Venture Fund to help take their app to the next level. They plan to use the support to grow their network of restaurants and patrons across the Scarborough food scene.

“Scarborough is very diverse. You have people from many cultural backgrounds and you get to actually experience people’s cultures, and that’s amazing,” Woo says. “It shows you how small our world is, and how Scarborough is like a miniature version of our world.”

From hip-hop to healthy soil: 56 U of T researchers receive Connaught New Researcher Award

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 17 Sep 2020 13:03:29 +0000

From hip-hop to healthy soil: 56 U of T researchers receive Connaught New Researcher Award

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 09/17/2020 - 09:03

Cutline

Lauren Cramer, one of 56 Connaught New Researcher Award recipients at U of T, is using architecture to theorize about hip-hop and the points of articulation between the aesthetics of Blackness and visual culture (photo courtesy of Lauren Cramer)

Paul Fraumeni

Topic

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Cell and Systems Biology

Anthropolgy

Astronomy & Astrophysics

Biology

Cinema Studies

Connaught Fund

Drama

Earth Sciences

Economics

Electrical & Computer Engineering

English

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Faculty of Arts & Science

Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Faculty of Medicine

Faculty of Music

Geography and Planning

History

Humanities

Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology

Mechanical & Industrial Engineering

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Philosophy

Political Science

Psychology

When you think of hip-hop, what comes to mind?

For many, it might be music. But Lauren McLeod Cramer is quick to point out that music is only one part of hip-hop’s broad culture – a culture that touches on everything from the way we speak, to the clothes we wear, to matters of race and identity.

The assistant professor at U of T’s Cinema Studies Institute will be exploring hip-hop’s global influence even further in a new research project called “A Black Joint: Hip-Hop and the Architecture of Blackness,” where she will use architecture to theorize about hip-hop and the points of articulation between the aesthetics of Blackness and visual culture.

“This project is about hip-hop and space,” says Cramer, who joined U of T in 2019 after earning her doctorate in communications from Georgia State University. “I realized that when I was talking with students about race and critical race theory, and about Blackness, it was clearer to them when I put it in spatial terms.”

“It is easier to understand visually or in 3D. I think of Blackness not as a characteristic of the body but as a way of seeing or experiencing space – from buildings to neighbourhoods.”

Cramer is one of 56 winners of the Connaught New Researcher Award, which recognizes assistant professors within the first five years of a tenure-stream academic appointment (see full list below). The awards, part of U of T’s commitment to fostering excellence in research and innovation, are designed to help recipients establish a strong research program and increase their competitiveness for external funding.

This year’s recipients, who will share $1 million in funding, represent the broad spectrum of research undertaken at U of T in the humanities, life sciences, social sciences and physical sciences and engineering.

“Lauren McLeod Cramer’s research reflects the broad range of scholarship at the University of Toronto and the Connaught New Researcher Award plays a key role in supporting such important and emerging areas of study,” says Ted Sargent, vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives.

“I want to extend my congratulations to Professor Cramer and all of the other award winners this year. I’m personally looking forward to seeing where this exceptional group of investigators takes their work in the years to come.”

As for Cramer, she says that “hip-hop visual culture has grown to include a staggering number of objects: music videos, films, photography, digital art, painting and even architecture.”

She says her project will explore the spatial nature of hip-hop through a wide range of objects from different cultural spaces and times, including: the choreography of Beyoncé’s “Formation” music video, the subterranean architecture of “the sunken place” in Jordan Peele’s 2017 horror film Get Out, Charles Gaines’s fine art photography and architect David Adjaye’s noted public buildings, including the National Museum of African American History and Culture (part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.).

Cramer says that once we are past the pandemic and can travel more easily, the Connaught award will enable her to see that architecture first-hand.

“I was incredibly excited after I was told I had won one of the awards,” she says. “I believe that hip-hop allows Blackness to travel through space. Thanks to this funding, I can now map that space.”

In response to the protests against anti-Black racism surrounding the most recent incidents of police brutality – including the killing of George Floyd and the shooting of Jacob Blake – Cramer says it’s necessary to approach issues “at the appropriate scale” if you want to have a serious conversations about anti-Blackness.

“Racial difference is made and enforced through space: urban planning, environmental action, transportation and the built environment,” she says. “So, it is helpful to think about anti-Blackness in the spaces that we occupy, including pop culture.

“That means looking at architectural design, both real – like Adjaye’s work – and imagined, such as in in hip-hop music videos, as a way to understand how race is formed. What is particularly interesting to me is how hip-hop visual culture’s experimental aesthetics might also show us how Blackness can deform space.”

The funding for the Connaught New Researcher Award comes from U of T’s Connaught Fund, which was founded in 1972 when the university sold the Connaught Medical Research Laboratories for $29 million. This year, the Connaught New Researchers program has awarded funding to 14 researchers in humanities, nine in life sciences, eight in physical sciences and engineering, and 25 in social sciences.

Here is the full list of winners of the 2020 Connaught New Researcher Award:

Humanities

Mark Campbell, department of arts, culture and media, U of T Scarborough

Urvashi Chakravarty, department of English, U of T Scarborough

Lauren McLeod Cramer, Cinema Studies Institute, Faculty of Arts & Science

Anup Grewal, department of historical and cultural studies, U of T Scarborough

Ellen Lockhart, Faculty of Music

Christian Pfeiffer, department of philosophy, U of T Scarborough

Adrien Rannaud, department of language studies, U of T Mississauga

Anjuli Raza Kolb, department of English and drama, U of T Mississauga

Laura Risk, department of arts, culture and media, U of T Scarborough

Victor Rivas, department of Spanish and Portuguese, Faculty of Arts & Science

Timothy Sayle, department of history, Faculty of Arts & Science

Avery Slater, department of English and drama, U of T Mississauga

Anna Thomas, department of English and drama, U of T Mississauga

Elizabeth Wijaya, department of visual studies, U of T Mississauga

Life Sciences – Social

Amaya Perez-Brumer, Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Nicholas Spence, department of sociology, U of T Scarborough

Life Sciences – Molecular

Scott MacIvor, department of biological sciences, U of T Scarborough

Adam Martin, department of physical and environmental sciences, U of T Scarborough

Heather McFarlane, department of cell and systems biology, Faculty of Arts & Science

Glenn Mott, department of biological sciences, U of T Scarborough

Derek Ng, department of biology, U of T Mississauga

Nicole Novroski, department of anthropology, U of T Mississauga

Scott Yuzwa, department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology, Faculty of Medicine

Physical Sciences

Merve Bodur, department of mechanical and industrial engineering, Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Xu Chu, department of Earth sciences, Faculty of Arts & Science

Gwendolyn Eadie, David A. Dunlap department of astronomy and astrophysics, Faculty of Arts & Science

Dan Gregory, department of Earth sciences, Faculty of Arts & Science

Nicolas Papernot, Edward S. Rogers Sr. department of electrical and computer engineering, Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Silvana Pesenti, department of statistical sciences, Faculty of Arts & Science

Ting-Kam Leonard Wong, department of computer and mathematical sciences, U of T Scarborough

Masayuki Yano, U of T Institute for Aerospace Studies, Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Social Sciences

Elizabeth Acorn, department of political science, U of T Scarborough

Andrea Allen, department of anthropology, Faculty of Arts & Science

Martha Balaguera Cuervo, department of political science, U of T Mississauga

Michael William Best, department of psychology, U of T Scarborough

Waqas Butt, department of anthropology, U of T Scarborough

Laurent Cavenaile, department of management, U of T Scarborough

Nicole Charles, department of historical studies, U of T Mississauga

Akash Chattopadhyay, department of management, U of T Mississauga

Alexandre Corhay, Rotman School of Management

Negin Dahya, Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology, U of T Mississauga

Michelle Daigle, department of geography and planning, Faculty of Arts & Science

Claudia Milena Diaz Rios, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Greg Distelhorst, Centre for Industrial Relations & Human Resources, Faculty of Arts & Science

Jim Goldman, department of economics, U of T Mississauga

Cassandra Hartblay, department of anthropology, U of T Scarborough

Christopher Higgins, department of human geography, U of T Scarborough

Janelle Joseph, Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Arlo Kempf, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Fikile Nxumalo, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Rachel Ruttan, Rotman School of Management

Jason Spicer, department of geography and planning, Faculty of Arts & Science

Anton Tsoy, department of economics, Faculty of Arts & Science

Mark Wade, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Jue Wang, department of geography, geomatics and environment, U of T Mississauga

Jennifer Wemigwans, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

From exploring immigrant identities to treating cancer: U of T awarded 31 Canada Research Chairs

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 10 Aug 2020 16:02:28 +0000

From exploring immigrant identities to treating cancer: U of T awarded 31 Canada Research Chairs

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 08/10/2020 - 12:02

Cutline

Neda Maghbouleh, an associate professor at U of T Mississauga, is one of 31 new and renewed Canada Research Chairs at U of T. She is studying how borders, wars and other geopolitical forces influence immigrants' identities (photo by Romi Levine)

Carla DeMarco

Topic

Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

Astronomy & Astrophysics

Canada Research Chairs

Chemistry

Computer Science

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Faculty of Arts & Science

Faculty of Law

Faculty of Medicine

History

Hospital for Sick Children

Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing

Molecular Genetics

Psychology

Research & Innovation

Sociology

St. Michael's Hospital

Ted Sargent

U of T Mississauga

University Health Network

The University of Toronto’s Neda Maghbouleh seeks to better understand how borders, wars and other geopolitical forces influence the formation of immigrants’ identities.

“My work is fundamentally motivated by unresolved questions about integration, assimilation, and racialization,” says Maghbouleh, an associate professor in U of T Mississauga’s department of sociology.

“Through a strategic focus on Syrian refugees and others from the Middle Eastern/North African region, I am building a multilevel analysis of the evolving identities of newcomers to Canada and the U.S. today.

“The goal is to advance new theories that explain the influence of geopolitics, borders, war, sanctions and surveillance on everyday people’s racial identifications and attachments.”

An international expert on the formation of racial identity, Maghbouleh is one of 31 new or renewed Canada Research Chairs at U of T. Her tier two chair in migration, race and identity will allow her to further expand her scholarship on how racial identities traffic across borders and categories.

The Canada Research Chair Program was established in 2000 to fund outstanding researchers in this country. It provides approximately $295 million annually to universities to help retain and attract top minds, spur innovation and foster training excellence in Canadian post-secondary institutions.

“Congratulations to the University of Toronto’s new and renewed Canada Research Chairs,” says University Professor Ted Sargent, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives. “This investment will further strengthen and build on the exceptional research environment at U of T.

“The Canada Research Chairs Program enables our nation’s researchers to make ground-breaking discoveries, create new knowledge and attract talent that ultimately benefits all Canadians.”

Maghbouleh is among those emerging researchers who are making their mark. Her 2017 award-winning book The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian Americans and the Everyday Politics of Race explored the culture and identity of Iranian Americans as well as the discrimination they face. It has been adopted in courses at over 30 universities in North America and the U.K.

Since she became a faculty member at U of T Mississauga in 2015, Maghbouleh’s research has received consistent funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), including a major Insight Grant for the project “Settlement, Integration, & Stress: A 5-Year Longitudinal Study of Syrian Newcomer Mothers & Teens in the GTA.” She recently presented early findings from the project to the research and evaluation branch of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

Maghbouleh says the research chair will help fuel her ambitious research program and further communicate her findings.

“The CRC will turbo-charge my work,” she says. “And most excitingly, it solidifies the status of UTM, U of T and the Greater Toronto Area as a premier North American hub for research on migration and race.”

Kent Moore, U of T Mississauga’s vice-principal, research, said he was thrilled with the campus’s success in securing three Canada Research Chair designations. In addition to Maghbouleh, they include Sonia Kang in the department of management, who is a newly named tier two chair in identity, diversity, and inclusion, and Iva Zovkic in the department of psychology, who is a tier two chair in behavioural epigenetics.

“This recognition exemplifies the innovative work being undertaken by our researchers,” says Moore.

“With the impressive and exceptional breadth of work Professors Kang, Maghbouleh and Zovkic are doing, they continue to forge new ground in many areas of research and elevate UTM to a higher level of excellence. This support and validation of their work by the Canada Research Chair program demonstrates the outstanding caliber of their scholarly leadership.”

Here are the new and renewed Canada Research Chairs at U of T:

New Canada Research Chairs

Jeffrey Ansloos, in the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, tier two in critical studies in Indigenous health and social action on suicide
Isabelle Aubert, in the department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology in the Faculty of Medicine and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, tier one in brain repair and regeneration
Gisele Azimi, in the department of chemical engineering and applied chemistry in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, tier two in urban mining innovations
Hilary Brown, in the Interdisciplinary Centre for Health & Society at U of T Scarborough, tier two in disability and reproductive health
Ann Burchell, in the department of family and community medicine in the Faculty of Medicine and Unity Health Toronto, tier two in sexually transmitted infection prevention
Arthur Chan, in the department of chemical engineering and applied chemistry in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, tier two in atmospheric chemistry and health
Maria Drout, in the David A. Dunlap department of astronomy and astrophysics in the Faculty of Arts & Science, tier two in time-domain and multi-messenger astrophysics
Katherine Duncan, in the department of psychology in the Faculty of Arts & Science, tier two memory modulation
Benjamin Haibe-Kains, in the department of medical biophysics in the Faculty of Medicine and University Health Network, tier two in computational pharmacogenomics
Björn Herrmann, in the department of psychology in the Faculty of Arts & Science and Baycrest Centre, tier two in auditory aging
Sonia Kang, in the department of management at U of T Mississauga, tier two in identity, diversity, and inclusion
Neda Maghbouleh, in the department of sociology at U of T Mississauga, tier two in migration, race, and identity
Maryam Mehri Dehnavi, in the department of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science, tier two in parallel and distributed computing
Sharmistha Mishra, in the department of medicine in the Faculty of Medicine and Unity Health Toronto, tier two in mathematical modeling and program science
Michelle Murphy, in the department of history in the Faculty of Arts & Science, tier one in science and technology studies and environmental data justice
Catherine O'Brien, in the department of surgery in the Faculty of Medicine and University Health Network, tier two in translational research in colorectal cancer
Myrna Simpson, in the department of physical and environmental sciences at U of T Scarborough, tier one in integrative molecular biogeochemistry
Janet Smylie, at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and Unity Health Toronto, tier one in advancing generative health services for Indigenous populations in Canada
Darrell Tan, in the department of medicine in the Faculty of Medicine and Unity Health Toronto, tier two in HIV prevention and STI research
Paaladinesh Thavendiranathan, in the department of medicine in the Faculty of Medicine and University Health Network, tier two in cardiooncology
Teresa To, at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and the Hospital for Sick Children, tier one in asthma
Kimberley Widger, in the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, tier two in pediatric palliative care
Andrei Yudin, in the department of chemistry in the Faculty of Arts & Science, tier one in medicine by design
Iva Zovkic, in the department of psychology at U of T Mississauga, tier two behavioural epigenetics

Renewals of Canada Research Chairs

Morgan Barense, in the department of psychology in the Faculty of Arts & Science, tier two in cognitive neuroscience
Anver Emon, in the Faculty of Law, tier two in Islamic law and history
Larissa Katz, in the Faculty of Law, tier two in private law theory
Julie Lefebvre, in the department of molecular genetics in the Faculty of Medicine and the Hospital for Sick Children, tier two in developmental neural circuity
Matthew Roorda, in the department of civil and mineral engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, tier two in freight transportation and logistics
Leonardo Salmena, in the department of pharmacology and toxicology in the Faculty of Medicine, tier two in signal transduction and gene regulation in cancer
Aristotle Voineskos, in the department of psychiatry in the Faculty of Medicine and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, tier two in neuroimaging of schizophrenia

'It's our turn to be there for them': U of T Scarborough joins effort to support local restaurants

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 12 Jun 2020 14:00:04 +0000

'It's our turn to be there for them': U of T Scarborough joins effort to support local restaurants

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 06/12/2020 - 10:00

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Supported by U of T, the Scarborough Restaurant Recovery Project is a multi-media initiative that will bring community leaders together to share the stories – and food – of Scarborough restaurants (photo by Xinhua/Zou Zheng via Getty Images)

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The University of Toronto Scarborough is working with Centennial College and local councillor Jennifer McKelvie to support small businesses in the community during the pandemic – and help put them on Toronto’s culinary map.

“Many of our community members want to support their local restaurants and that’s because they’ve supported us in the past,” McKelvie says. “It’s our turn to be there for them.”

The BRIDGE, a research and innovation centre at U of T Scarborough, will work with Centennial’s School of Hospitality, Tourism and Culinary Arts on The Scarborough Restaurant Recovery Project. Students will play an important part in the multi-media initiative that will bring community leaders together to share the stories (and the food) of establishments in Scarborough. The project will initially support businesses that register on To Go Toronto, an online delivery resource created by Tourism Toronto.

It will also help restaurants register to Ritual ONE, a commission-free online ordering website, and work to develop websites with ShopHERE, a city initiative assisting independent businesses and artists to open a free online store.

“We were evaluating how COVID-19 has changed things, and how our students can jump in to help local businesses,” says Bill McConkey, academic director at The BRIDGE, who along with Dave Fenton, will lead the project at U of T Scarborough.

“We’re still here, operational and available to explore solutions that we can help develop and meet the needs of the community,” says Fenton, who is the entrepreneurship and work-integrated learning program co-ordinator at The BRIDGE.

Scarborough has a rich and vibrant food scene that highlights the diversity of the area. While east-enders know these local gems, they sometimes get lost in Toronto’s larger culinary scene.

McConkey notes that registering local businesses on the website will not only give people outside the Scarborough community a chance to discover new restaurants, it will also make the restaurants more accessible to people on campus.

“Something you hear about often is that the Scarborough campus is great in so many ways, but it’s hard to walk to entertainment and dining,” McConkey says. “We also know that some of the best world food is here, and that it’s also not that expensive.”

“The online ordering world is something that is part of the solution here.”

The BRIDGE, a partnership between U of T Scarborough’s department of management and the UTSC Library, fuses research and experiential learning opportunities in entrepreneurship, finance and business. The Scarborough Restaurant Recovery Project will involve three summer courses, as well as co-op and work-study students.

“The project really speaks to what we’ve been working to build at The BRIDGE, which is a very multi-dimensional approach to work-integrated learning,” Fenton says.

With a list of approximately 100 restaurants, the city is currently contacting local businesses to inquire about their interest in To Go Toronto’s website.

Students in McConkey’s consumer behaviour course will highlight trends such as rush hours and popular dishes, and conduct field research to identify east-end businesses’ marketing needs and help them with branding. The student club, The Marketing Group, will identify digital marketing assets to help businesses register on To Go Toronto; a collaboration between The BRIDGE and computer science students will create websites for businesses to display their menu and support online ordering.

“What you get is a cultural ecosystem where we can tell the stories of these restaurants, their chefs and how they learned to cook,” says McConkey. “It’s a broad celebration of Scarborough food and dining.”

‘I can proudly say I’m a U of T graduate’: How Alex Harold defied the odds to earn his degree

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 02 Jun 2020 13:52:28 +0000

‘I can proudly say I’m a U of T graduate’: How Alex Harold defied the odds to earn his degree

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 06/02/2020 - 09:52

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Diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy when he was four, Alex Harold has already lived seven years longer than doctors expected – and is now graduating from U of T with a degree in management (photo by Don Campbell)

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Alex Harold was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy when he was four. His parents were told by doctors he would be fortunate to see his 20^th birthday.

Now, at 27, he can say he’s a University of Toronto graduate, having completed the highly competitive management co-op program at U of T Scarborough.

“It hasn’t really sunk in quite yet, but it’s so satisfying to know that after nine years I’ve earned my degree,” says Harold, who plans to watch his virtual convocation at home with his parents.

Duchenne is a neuromuscular disorder, one of many different forms of muscular dystrophy characterized by progressive muscle degeneration, according to Muscular Dystrophy Canada.

“The fact it’s a progressive disorder can be tough because what I can do today isn’t necessarily something I will be able to do tomorrow,” says Harold, who grew up in Pickering and attended St. Mary Catholic Secondary School.

“I may be able to brush my teeth one day, but all of a sudden it will get harder to do – and then in a few weeks or a month, I won’t be able to do it at all. That can be demoralizing. But I always take things one day at a time. And for all the challenges, I like to think I have a pretty good life.”

Harold, who started taking three credits per semester in 2011 but switched to part-time in 2017, credits the support he received from staff and faculty in the department of management and AccessAbility Services at U of T Scarborough. Most importantly, he credits the support of his parents, Janice and Tony.

“I rely on my parents for a lot – drives to campus, bringing me to class, even helping to type an assignment when my fatigue levels are high. Without their support and encouragement, I don’t think I would have been able to make it,” he says.

Harold says his highlights as an undergrad include earning a 100 per cent in a third-year statistics course, his classes with Associate Professor Syed Ahmed and Associate Professor Lisa Harvey – both teaching stream – from the management department, and his co-op work placements.

“Alex is one of the most dedicated, hard-working, well-rounded students I’ve had the pleasure of teaching,” says Harvey, who taught Harold third- and fourth-year auditing courses.

“He always came to class prepared, was eager to participate and even caught a few errors in the coursework that I was able to correct.”

Harold also spent four months on a co-op work term with Ontario’s Ministry of Finance, who were so impressed by his work they offered Harold a second four-month placement, which he finished in 2016.

“The co-op program is much stronger having had Alex as a student,” says Christine Arsenault, managing director of the management program at U of T Scarborough.

“We learned so much about working with employers to create more inclusive work opportunities for students,” she says. As a result, the management co-op team presented on the topic at the Co-operative Education and Work Integrated Learning Canada conference, and the World Association for Co-operative Education conference.

Despite his daily physical challenges, Harold says he refuses to be defined by his diagnosis. When he wasn’t studying for school, he was an active volunteer and advocate for people dealing with their own accessibility challenges.

Since he started taking part in the Durham Region Walk for Muscular Dystrophy in 2008, Team Alex, which includes friends and family, has raised close to $200,000, with Harold personally raising more than half of his team’s total. The funds support research into treatments as well as services and equipment for people living with muscular dystrophy. Harold is also a spokesperson for Muscular Dystrophy Canada, and a volunteer organizer for the Pickering Terry Fox Run.

Among the many awards he’s received for his volunteer and advocacy work include a Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012 (he is one of the youngest Canadians to receive the award) and, more recently, a City of Pickering Civic Award.

Harold plans to dive back into volunteer and charity work, especially with Muscular Dystrophy Canada. He’s been excited to hear about recent drug treatments and therapies that have in part been aided by money raised by himself and others.

“I know I may be too old for some of the treatments to make a huge impact on my life, but I’m also inspired and motivated knowing that down the road it may help a three- or four-year-old child who has just been diagnosed to have a better life,” he says.

If Harold has one piece of advice to fellow students, it’s that no matter what obstacles you face, try to stay positive and not lose hope.

“If you get down on yourself or feel like you want to give up, it’s OK, it happens to all of us at some point. If you can build a support network and find people you can talk to about the things you are struggling with, that can really make all the difference,” he says.

“I can now proudly say I’m a U of T graduate, which sounds really cool when you say it out loud.”

COVID-19: U of T experts on whether working from home will become the ‘new normal’

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 15:34:27 +0000

COVID-19: U of T experts on whether working from home will become the ‘new normal’

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 04/27/2020 - 11:34

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While working from home brings its share of challenges, researchers from U of T Scarborough say the pandemic may cause employers to rethink their expensive workspaces while giving employees a sense of independence (photo by Tom Werner via Getty Images)

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