Dean's Scholarly, Research and Creative Activity Award Recipients

2023 recipients

Alagan Anpalagan

Department of Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science

Dr. Alagan Anpalagan is an internationally recognized researcher in wireless systems engineering. He has made outstanding contributions to modeling, analysis, design, and optimization of joint energy and spectrally-efficient resource management techniques. His work in dynamic spectrum management in cognitive small cell radio networks are innovative and fostered the discovery and dissemination of new knowledge. He has authored over 300 papers that have garnered more than 10,400 Google Scholar citations, and edited six books including the first handbook on green information and communication systems. As an inspiring mentor, he has trained generations of engineers and researchers, providing exemplary service to society.

Samantha Biglieri

School of Urban and Regional Planning, Faculty of Community Services

Dr. Samantha Biglieri is an Assistant Professor in the School of Urban and Regional Planning, and the Director of the Health, Access + Planning (HAP) Lab. Dr. Biglieri’s SRC contributions in the area of Aging and Experience of People Living with Dementia in North American Communities are internationally recognized. Her works, which focus at the intersection of research and practice, have also been highlighted in professional venues. As an emerging scholar, she has published prolifically, secured several large research grants, and have demonstrated major academic leadership through the publication of a recent book titled “Aging People, Aging Places”.

Miranda Campbell

School of Creative Industries, The Creative School

Dr. Miranda Campbell is an Associate Professor in the School of Creative Industries where she teaches courses in creative collaboration, EDI, and care ethics. Her research focuses on creative employment, youth culture, and small-scale emerging forms of creative practice. In 2022, three of her book projects were published, Reimagining the Creative Industries: Youth Creative Work, Communities of Care, How to Care More: Seven Skills for Personal and Social Change and a she published a co-edited collection, Creative Industries in Canada. On top of her books, Miranda has several peer reviewed publications this past year and leads multiple other projects.

Farhad Ein-Mozaffari

Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science

Ein-Mozaffari is a renowned researcher in complex mixing operations utilized in chemical/biochemical industry. His publication list includes 143 journal papers, 7 book chapters, and 193 conference papers/presentations. He has had active research collaborations with industry and researchers around the world. Ein-Mozaffari has been awarded various reputable research grants and supervised/co-supervised 20 PhD, 25 MASc students, and 12 postdocs/visiting scholars. He has been the editor/guest-editor and a member of the editorial/advisory boards of many journals. He is the recipient of several prestigious awards. Ein-Mozaffari has been a member of organizing/scientific committees and the chair of technical sessions at numerous national/international conferences.

Hilary Evans Cameron

Lincoln Alexander School of Law

Professor Hilary Evans Cameron is a highly deserving candidate for the Dean’s SRC Activity Award. In addition to being a talented teacher and generous colleague, she is a productive scholar who demonstrates a clear concern that her work has a real impact for students, practitioners, and society alike. Recognized as a leader in the area of refugee law, her cutting-edge and interdisciplinary research—drawing on her past experience representing refugee claimants—offers important insights into the process of refugee status decision-making that have helped reduce legal barriers preventing people without status from accessing courts and achieving fair outcomes.

Alexandra Fiocco

Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts

Dr. Fiocco displays a strong commitment to SRC, evidenced by her ability to secure research grants, her ongoing engagement in knowledge dissemination, her national and international collaborations, and her commitment to the training of HQP. Dr. Fiocco’s 2021-2022 SRC activities included the acquisition of $272,970 in funding, 7 peer-reviewed publications, 3 conference and 3 community presentations, the co-creation of a knowledge translation toolkit, and the supervision of 4 graduate and 6 undergraduate students. She is a scientific member of a National Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging, Board Member of the Canadian Association on Gerontology, and Section Editor of two journals.

Mehdi Kargar

School of Information Technology Management, Ted Rogers School of Management

Dr. Mehdi Kargar has made significant contributions to the field of analytics, having published 64 peer-reviewed articles, most of it in top-tier journals and conferences (and 33 papers since he joined TMU in July 2018). Mehdi is the first faculty member at TMU to publish in first-tier Very Large Database Journal (VLDBJ) and is the first leading author from TMU to publish in first-tier IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (TKDE). Mehdi has secured over $1M funding to grow his research program. His recent PhD graduate, as well as his postdoc are currently Assistant Professors in Canada.

Linda Rothman

School of Occupational and Public Health, Faculty of Community Services

Dr Rothman has made significant contributions to the field of injury prevention; currently focusing on social inequities in unintentional injuries as related to the COVID-19 pandemic. She provides expertise to researchers and municipalities across Canada in evaluating built environment infrastructure to promote safe active transportation. Dr Rothman was awarded the Early Researcher Award from the provincial government, and secured 2 CIHR grants (as PI, Co-PI ) and a municipal contract, while holding 4 additional grants/contracts (3 CIHR). Her research makes a significant impact on society, as it recently contributed to City Council’s decision to make new ActiveTO cycling infrastructure permanent.

Debashis Sinha

School of Performance, The Creative School

Multi award winning Debashis Sinha has established himself as an adventurous and curious sound explorer, whose creative work has deeply impacted the world of Performance. Since joining TMU in 2021, he has sustained an ambitious practice-based research agenda with exhibitions in galleries, panel presentations at multiple academic conferences, professional awards, and compositions, record releases and sound creation projects. He continues researching radical futures through and with sound, with audio, image and writing projects currently underway (e.g. considering machine learning and its interface with traditional knowledges), participating in dynamic programs of knowledge exchange with a wide range of international collaborators.

Roxana Suehring

Department of Chemistry and Biology, Faculty of Science

Dr. Sühring is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biology and an expert in environmental analytical chemistry. Her research has been selected as cover articles for international journals and led to keynote speaker invitations at international meetings. She is an active science communicator who has been featured in written and broadcast interviews.

She is a member of the RSC, the Society of Environmental Chemistry and Toxicology, the ACS, and a board member of the International Network for Environmental Forensics (INEF). Dr. Sühring has over 40 publications and has trained more than 20 HQP.

Emily van der Meulen

Department of Criminology, Faculty of Arts

Dr. Emily van der Meulen’s SRC activities in the 2021-2022 academic year included a substantial number of funded projects held or received as Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator (six SSHRCs, one TMU research grant, one publication grant). Publications arising from these undertakings comprised two new co-edited books as well as six journal articles, two book chapters, and one non-reviewed article published, accepted, or submitted. Of those, six were co-authored with students. She further engaged in a significant amount of departmental, faculty, and university service, including completing her fourth year as the Department of Criminology’s Undergraduate Program Director.

Isaac Woungang

Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Science

Dr. Woungang is a leading researcher in area of 5G and Beyond (B5G) wireless networks, focusing on the development of strong and resilient resource management and security solutions for such networks. In the last 5 years, he has published 55 journals and 50 conference papers, 1 authored
book, 6 edited books, and delivered 4 invited addresses at international conferences. He is highly regarded for the quality and impact of his research, and his role in supervising students and researchers in the aforementioned area. He is IEEE Senior Member, with Google scholar citations > 4950, h- index: 35, i-10 index: 118

Hadis Zarrin

Department of Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science

Hadis Zarrin is an Assistant Professor at the Chemical Engineering Department, a Principal Investigator at FIBRE-KITE-UHN and NSERC CREATE Hybrid Thermal Electric Microgrid network, and the Director of Nanoengineering Laboratory for Energy and Environmental Technologies. Her expertise in the design and engineering of multifunctional nanostructures for clean energy storage/conversion, wearable devices, smart coatings, and environmental remediation have resulted in >36 publications with >1514 citations to date. Since 2017, she has secured >$1,280,000 research funds from NSERC, Mitacs, DND, and TMU to conduct research and train >27 HQP that have achieved >28 different awards and landed academic or industry jobs.

Morteza Zihayat Kermani

School of Information Technology Management, Ted Rogers School of Management

Morteza is an associate professor at TRSITM. He published 14 journals (four in 2022) and 20 conference papers since joining TRSITM. He is a ten times recipient of TRSM Outstanding Research Recognition which will be given to faculties who publish in top-tier journals of the field. He has strong ties with the industry where he has been working with large-scale enterprise systems in collaboration with AT&T, IBM, Microsoft Research, Dapasoft Inc., and Globe and Mail Inc. He has secured more than $1.1M in funding to grow his research program. His funding comes from the public sector (e.g., NSERC, MITACS).

Past recipients