Awards season at Ryerson has kicked off with the announcement of the Faculty Scholarly, Research and Creative Activity (SRC) Awards and the Sarwan Sahota – Distinguished Scholar Award.

The recipients will receive certificates at the second annual Ryerson Awards Night on April 4, an event celebrating excellence and acknowledging faculty and staff achievements.

“This year's award recipients are exceptional researchers in their field and have contributed greatly to advancing Ryerson's reputation internationally" said Wendy Cukier, vice-president, research and innovation. "While they work in very different areas, they share the commitment to excellence as well to solving pressing problems in health and well-being and mechanical and industrial engineering.”

In addition to the cross-Ryerson awards dinner in April, research award recipients will be honoured at an SRC awards luncheon on March 14 in the Cara Commons TRS 1-145 and 1-150 from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

This year there are three Sarwan Sahota Distinguished Scholar Awards. The award is presented annually to a faculty member who has made an outstanding contribution to knowledge or artistic creativity in their area of expertise. The award is made possible through the joint contributions of Sarwan Sahota, a retired professor, and the university. This year’s recipients are:

• Martin Antony, Department of Psychology - Antony is an expert in the nature and evidence-based treatment of anxiety and related disorders, and is regarded as one of the most prolific writers and researchers in this field.  He has made significant contributions to program development in psychology and other mental health disciplines by founding the Psychology Graduate Program at Ryerson, the internationally renowned Anxiety Treatment and Research Centre at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, and the CPA-accredited Clinical Psychology Residency Program, also at St. Joseph's Healthcare.
  
• Daolun Chen, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering - Chen is an internationally acknowledged leader in the field of deformation, fatigue and welding of advanced materials. His outstanding contributions in these areas have been recognized with a number of prestigious awards, including the Premier’s Research Excellence Award, and NSERC-DAS (Discovery Accelerator Supplements).
  
• Michael Kolios, Department of Physics - Kolios’s innovative and transformational research has helped position Ryerson at the forefront of international research in biomedical physics. In 2004, Kolios was awarded a prestigious Canada Research Chair in Biomedical Applications of Ultrasound, which was renewed in 2009. In his application for renewal, Kolios’ research program was evaluated in the top tenth percentile when compared to other researchers at the same stage in their career. He currently holds four patents with another three under consideration. His outstanding research track record was also recognized with an early Researcher Award from Ontario.

The Faculty SRC Awards recognize individual faculty members on an annual basis for outstanding achievement in scholarly, research and creative activity and impact on their disciplines during the previous academic year. The recipients are:

Faculty of Arts
Claus Rinner, Department of Geography
Emily VanderMeulen, Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology

Faculty of Community Services
Suzanne Fredericks, Daphne Cockwell School of Nursing
Josephine Wong, Daphne Cockwell School of Nursing

Faculty of Communication & Design
Marusya Bociurkiw, RTA School of Media
Gerda Cammaer, School of Image Arts
Osmud Rahman, School of Fashion

Ted Rogers School of Management
Shadi Farshadfar, Ted Rogers School of Business Management
David Valliere, Ted Rogers School of Business Management

Faculty of Engineering & Architectural Science
Farrokh Janabi-Sharifi, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Mehrab Mehrvar, Department of Chemical Engineering
Seth Dworkin, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering

Faculty of Science
Pawel Pralat, Department of Mathematics