Celebrating Ted Rogers School faculty, staff and research achievements
Each year, awards are presented to recognize Ted Rogers School of Management and university-wide faculty, staff and research achievements. The Ted Rogers School community gathered on April 14, 2022 for an end-of-term event at the school to celebrate our 2021/2022 award recipients and other accomplishments. Congratulations to the winners!
Ted Rogers School Awards
Ted Rogers School Research Recognition Awards
Dr. Guoping Liu
Dr. Sui Sui
Dr. Peter Fisher
Dr. Mehdi Kargar
Dr. Sameh Al Natour
Dr. Daniele Bertolini
Dr. Martin Pyle
Dr. Anson Ho
Dr. Joseph Aversa
Dean's Scholarly, Research and Creative Activity Awards: Dr. Yoontae Jeon
Dr. Jeon has demonstrated excellence in Scholarly, Research, and Creative Activity beyond the level of a pre-tenure faculty member. The quality and quantity of his research output proves deserving of this award nomination. His past work demonstrates the extent of his research potential, and that the richness of his future research agenda demonstrates that he truly is a researcher at heart. Dr. Jeon’s FT-50 ranked research publications in the competitive field of Finance covering Information in Financial Markets, as well as Cryptocurrencies and Decentralized Finance, is of great importance and relevance to the finance literature and exemplary research.
Dean's Scholarly, Research and Creative Activity Awards: Dr. Sameh Al Natour
Dr. Natour’s research empirically investigates the factors surrounding the use of emerging technologies. Over the past year, his research has focused on timely and highly relevant issues, such as privacy in the context of mobile apps and AI-powered virtual advisors, and the factors that enhance students’ satisfaction with online presentations. This research has been published in leading Information Systems journals, such as Information Systems Research, Journal of Management Information Systems, Information and Management and Internet Research. For this research, he has received four Ted Rogers School Research Recognition Fund awards, and the 2020-21 Ted Rogers School Research Recognition Award.
Dean's Scholarly, Research and Creative Activity Awards: Dr. Hossein Zolfagharinia
Dr. Zolfagharinia is an outstanding scholar who has made significant contributions to the logistics and supply chain management field. He has successfully published 18 papers in A* and A-rated journals from the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) Journal Quality List.
Additionally, the high quality of his work has been recognized on several occasions by Ryerson and the broader research community (e.g., receiving best paper awards). Among other research achievements, he has secured over $450,000 in research grants in collaboration with industry partners at the provincial and federal levels, and trained 23 students at different levels.
Dean's Teaching Awards - RFA: Dr. Oliver Okafor
With a record of teaching excellence and hands-on learning teaching experience, Dr. Okafor was assigned one of the most complex accounting courses in the undergraduate program (Advanced Financial Accounting) when he joined Ryerson in 2017. As Assistant Professor, he demonstrated that teaching and research are complementary to each other. Even during the pandemic, Dr. Okafor showed that he is an effective teacher and a prolific researcher. He had impressive teaching evaluations, high research productivity and served in various committees. His greatest assets are the enthusiasm he brings to the classroom and innovative hands-on learning teaching techniques.
Dean's Teaching Awards - RFA: Dr. Janice Rudkowski
Dr. Rudkowski has demonstrated excellence and leadership within the Retail School. She has embraced Ryerson’s diverse student population and has consistently incorporated equity, diversity and inclusion into her teaching and curriculum as evidenced by projects that directly involve Indigenous groups. Notably, Dr. Rudkowski has led and managed Ryerson’s accreditation process whereby the Retail School became the first school in Canada to offer Category Management Association (CMA) certified training programs to students. Moreover, she challenges students to embrace and further develop their creative thinking skills through innovative projects that directly connect students with local and national retailers.
Dean's Teaching Awards - CUPE Unit 1: Richard Beutler
Beutler is respected by students, Ryerson colleagues and top industry employer partners as an emotionally intelligent teacher, mentor and leader who demonstrates “Experiential Learning = Everyone Wins.” An authentic practitioner of equity, diversity and inclusion, he has collaboratively built Retail Management internship and co-op opportunities while innovatively teaching and evolving his Internship, Career Strategies and Sales Management courses to focus on every student’s success.
Dean's Teaching Awards - CUPE Unit 1: Maurizio Di Maio
Di Maio is truly deserving of the Dean’s Teaching Award – Contract Lecturer for his genuine passion for student development through his personable teaching style, strong understanding and application of the academic content he educates, and the leadership and creativity he exudes not only within the classroom but beyond.
He exhibits a significantly rare patience in ensuring his students truly understand the material that is being taught. Beyond his evident teaching strengths, Di Maio is truly respected by students because of his wisdom – he continues to motivate and inspire students to achieve their fullest potential.
Irene Campagna Excellence in Service Award: Nancy Amaral
Amaral is a highly respected member of Ted Rogers School’s Dean's Office. In recognition of her outstanding leadership skills, in January 2010 she was promoted to the Manager of Administration, and most recently recognized as the Manager, Academic Administration leading a team of fifteen staff. Amaral provides exceptional client services in all areas of Academic Administration. Her incredible knowledge of HR, Collective Agreements and Policy/Procedures, coupled with her enthusiasm, confidence and “can do” attitude, helps inspire others to support a culture of superb customer service.
Irene Campagna Excellence in Service Award: Margot Whitfield
Whitfield has been managing the Inclusive Media and Design Centre (IMDC), for over 10 years, and has provided incredible levels of service that address the often complex needs that the lab has in managing daily operations. Margot has an active role in all research projects and makes significant contributions to research grant applications. Margot is also very involved in the Ryerson community beyond the IMDC and Ted Rogers School, being a member of the IT Accessibility Working Group.
University-wide Ryerson Awards
Chancellor's Award of Distinction Recipients: Dr. Seung Hwan (Mark) Lee
Dr. Lee strives for excellence in the classroom by creating an inclusive environment using experiential and active learning techniques. He has supported the pedagogical growth of an academic program as the Director of Retail Management at the Ted Rogers School. Dr. Lee regularly contributes to higher education outlets, and is the Editor for Marketing Education Review. He has also secured funding to advance pedagogy and EDI initiatives. Dr. Lee is a former recipient of the YSGS Outstanding Graduate Education award. In 2019, he was granted the Distinguished Teaching award by the Society of Marketing Advances, becoming only the second Canadian to receive this prestigious distinction.
Provost's Award for Teaching Excellence: Dr. Karen Peesker
Dr. Peesker, Assistant Professor in the Ted Rogers School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, has made an impactful teaching contribution that is second to none, to benefit students, the faculty and the university. She demonstrates exceptional and enthusiastic teaching skills in the classroom to bring theory to life. In addition, she has devoted time and energy to create the Ted Rogers Sales Leadership program, which has led to increased student engagement and satisfaction, student coop placement, hiring of alumni, corporate fundraising and increased Ted Rogers School/Ryerson visibility and reputation in the Canadian business community as well as in the North American academic community.
Early Research Career Excellence Award: Dr. Atefeh Mashatan
Dr. Mashatan is a Canada Research Chair and founder and director of the Cybersecurity Research Lab. Her research is focused on the development of novel cybersecurity designs based on emerging technologies such as Internet-of-Things, blockchain and quantum computing. Her expertise at the frontlines of the cybersecurity field has been recognized by several external awards, such as Top Five Women of Influence in Security globally, Canada’s Top 19 of 2019 Tech Titans and Top 20 Women in Cybersecurity in Canada. She has consistently demonstrated excellence in her cybersecurity research and development in collaboration with academic and industry partners.
Alan Shepard Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Employee Award: Michael Mihalicz
Mihalicz has guided, shaped and transformed the business reconciliation process at Ryerson. In the span of two years, most of it during the pandemic, he has brought the Ted Rogers School community into a collective circle of commitment to Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action #92, weaving EDI and Indigenization into the fabric of the school. Mihalicz has championed an Indigenous healing garden, art installation, established pathways for access to business education and developed an inclusive curriculum and cultural awareness programming. His relational approach is of respect reciprocity that shines through every interaction and illuminates the path to inclusion.
Errol Aspevig Award for Outstanding Academic Leadership: Dr. Daphne Taras
Since 2018, Dr. Taras has served as Dean of the Ted Rogers School, Canada’s largest English-speaking business school with over 12,000 students, 250 faculty members, 12 undergraduate programs, four graduate programs and 15 innovative research centres/labs. During her tenure, the school has transformed, and its reputation and rankings have skyrocketed. Dr. Taras is principled, bold, compassionate and steadfast in her commitment to students and their success. She promotes and supports the best in her colleagues, and is talented at building unity across differences so inclusion and diversity blossom. We appreciate her leadership qualities and the meaningful impacts she has made.
YSGS Outstanding Contribution to Graduate Education Awards: Dr. Andre Laplume
As the Graduate Program Director, Dr. Laplume has shown exceptional dedication to a burgeoning Master of Science in Management (MScM) program, as well as a budding PhD in Management program. He led the transformation of the MScM program to establish its unique identity as a research-focused program, and made distinctive contributions to leading the operationalization of the newly launched PhD in Management program. Meanwhile, Dr. Laplume is also a well-rounded educator and prolific researcher. He develops a number of courses in both programs and publishes in top-tier academic journals and brings SSHRC grants to support a number of graduate students.