Meet TMU’s fall 2026 Gold Medal winners

Sean Guptill celebrates receiving his Gold Medal Award at fall convocation. After leaving school in Grade 10, Guptill returned to education and went on to earn his master's degree in Child and Youth Care, using his lived experiences to advocate for vulnerable young people.

Sean Guptill's path to earning TMU's highest academic honour was anything but conventional.

After leaving school in Grade 10, Guptill eventually returned to education, driven by a desire to use his lived experiences to support vulnerable young people and create meaningful change in the child and youth care field.

During his master's degree, he contributed to the Indigenous Youth Justice Project and earned the Dean's Graduate Essay Award for his research on trauma and youth empowerment.

His commitment to supporting others also led him to establish Got Your Back, a day program for young adults with developmental disabilities. He went on to become a board member of the Ontario Association of Child and Youth Care.

Through his academic work, professional practice and advocacy, Guptill has demonstrated how lived experience can help shape compassionate approaches to supporting children and youth.

Advice from Guptill to future students:

"Don't compare your journey to anyone else's. Mine certainly wasn't a straight line! Ask questions, build relationships, and challenge what you think you know."

Faculty of Arts Gold Medal recipient Michelle Jadormeo combined academic excellence with a passion for public policy and community engagement. Through her research on freshwater policy and initiatives connecting young people with decision-makers, she has demonstrated a commitment to creating meaningful and sustainable change. 

Michelle Jadormeo's journey at TMU reflects a commitment to public service, advocacy and creating opportunities for young people.

As a Bruce Fellow in Canadian Freshwater Policy, she researched the demands of AI-driven data centres on Ontario's water resources and helped lead a national campaign calling for the official recognition of Canada Water Week.

She also founded Beyond Tomorrow Impact, a youth-led conference initiative connecting young people with leaders in government, innovation and advocacy. Beyond campus, Jadormeo volunteered with the Canadian Red Cross and Journey Home Hospice while mentoring students from underrepresented backgrounds.

Despite facing uncertainty earlier in her academic journey, Jadormeo embraced opportunities that ultimately shaped her path in public policy and community leadership.

Advice from Jadormeo to future students:

"An unfamiliar path should be something you can investigate, rather than a reason to count yourself out."

Electrical and Computer Engineering PhD graduate Luella Glaiza Baccay Marcos received the Gold Medal Award for her academic achievements and dedication to supporting the engineering community. Throughout her time at TMU, she mentored graduate researchers, supported more than 300 undergraduate students and encouraged young women to pursue STEM. 

Luella Glaiza Baccay Marcos has spent years at TMU combining innovative engineering research with a commitment to mentoring and supporting the next generation of students.

After completing her undergraduate and master's degrees at TMU, Marcos continued into doctoral research focused on medical imaging and artificial intelligence.

As a lead graduate teaching assistant, she supported more than 300 engineering students over five years. She also mentored graduate researchers in the Computer Vision and Image Processing Lab and served as a graduate ambassador, helping strengthen connections across the engineering community.

As a digital assistant and graduate ambassador, Marcos also helped develop faculty webpages and connect graduate students with resources and opportunities across campus.

She is now a postdoctoral researcher at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, where she is advancing medical image processing research using deep learning techniques.

On mentoring the next generation:

"Connecting with undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds gave me fresh perspectives, and I learned just as much from them as they did from me."

TRSM Gold Medal recipient Samin Shaaban-Nejad was recognized for her academic achievements and contributions to accessibility and inclusion. Her doctoral research examined electric vehicle adoption, bringing together sustainability, emerging technologies and transportation. 

Samin Shaaban-Nejad combined academic excellence with a passion for sustainability, emerging technologies and creating more inclusive communities.

Graduating with the highest GPA among PhD students at the Ted Rogers School of Management, Shaaban-Nejad completed interdisciplinary research examining electric vehicle adoption and the intersection of sustainability, technology and transportation.

Her contributions extended beyond research. As a Disability Justice Ambassador, she helped organize TMU's second Annual Student-Led Accessibility Conference and contributed to initiatives through TMU's Diversity Institute.

Looking ahead, she hopes to continue teaching and researching ways emerging technologies and public policy can help improve people's lives while advancing accessibility and inclusion.

Advice from Shaaban-Nejad to future students:

"Be curious, be kind to yourself, and don't be afraid to take a different path."

Evgenia Silajev was recognized for her academic achievements, research exploring Canada's labour market and contributions to student life through mentorship and athletics.

Evgenia Silajev combined a passion for data science with a commitment to helping fellow students succeed and making the most of university life.

Her graduate research explored how machine learning could help better understand and forecast changes in Canada's labour market. Through her major research project, she developed and evaluated a forecasting approach designed to analyze complex economic data, with the potential to inform decisions by job seekers, employers and policymakers.

Outside the classroom, Silajev supported students as a graduate mentor with TMU's Tri-Mentoring Program, welcomed newcomers during Orientation Week and served as an Ontario University Athletics figure skating ice captain.

For Silajev, her TMU experience was as much about discovering new interests and building connections as it was about academic achievement.

Advice from Silajev to future students:

"Some of the most valuable things I've learned came from experiences that weren't just related to my degree."

Toni Thomson, right, celebrates receiving her Gold Medal Award alongside TMU President Mohamed Lachemi at fall convocation. The Documentary Media graduate was recognized for her academic and creative achievements, as well as her commitment to environmental justice, education and community engagement. 

For Toni Thomson, documentary storytelling is more than a creative practice. It's a way to bring people together, encourage understanding and inspire positive change.

Throughout her graduate studies, Thomson demonstrated academic excellence alongside a commitment to environmental justice, community engagement and supporting her peers.

As a documentary filmmaker and impact producer, she explores social and environmental issues through character-driven stories that highlight human experiences and our relationship with the natural world.

Thomson is also the founder of Possible Worlds Foundation, a grassroots charity celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2026. The organization provides educational opportunities and empowerment initiatives for children in underserved communities.

Her work reflects a belief in the power of education and storytelling to help build more compassionate and sustainable communities.

In Thomson's words:

"These values also extend through my belief in the power of documentary storytelling to bring people together, foster understanding and inspire positive change."

 Faculty of Science Gold Medal recipient Andrew Vincent Zwaniga combined his passion for physics with research aimed at improving cancer treatment. Now a medical physics resident at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, he is working toward a career advancing radiation therapy and patient care.

Andrew Vincent Zwaniga's passion for physics has always been rooted in solving complex problems. At TMU, he found a way to apply that curiosity to improving cancer treatment and patient care.

During his PhD in medical physics, Zwaniga conducted computational research investigating the potential of antimony-119, a radioactive element, for targeted cancer therapy. The experimental approach aims to deliver radiation directly to cancer cells while minimizing damage to surrounding healthy tissue.

Beyond the lab, he was deeply involved in building community among graduate students. As vice-president of the Physics Graduate Student Union and a member of the Graduate Program Council, he advocated for student engagement, professional development and academic excellence.

His leadership also extended to national medical physics organizations, where he helped connect TMU students with professional networks and opportunities across Canada.

Today, Zwaniga is a medical physics resident at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, working toward becoming a certified clinical medical physicist.

A lesson Zwaniga will carry forward:

"The most important lesson I learned during my PhD is twofold: firstly, to trust in my community, and secondly to trust in myself."