YSGS Outstanding Contribution to Graduate Education Award Recipients

2020 recipients

Miranda Campbell

School of Creative Industries, Faculty of Communication and Design

Dr. Miranda Campbell's contribution to graduate supervision at Ryerson University involves a holistic approach to creating supportive conditions for success through personalized, close and effective mentorship; rigorous and comprehensive training; and connecting students will further professional development opportunities. Campbell's research assistants are involved in the whole life cycle of her research projects from beginning to end. This training creates well-rounded graduate students who are well equipped for further graduate work and employment in industry, public, and non-profit sectors. She has made her mark on ComCult and on the Ryerson graduate students that have been privileged to work with her.

Seung Hwan (Mark) Lee 

School of Retail Management, Ted Rogers School of Management

Dr. Lee firmly believes in taking an active interest in mentoring students. To enable this, Dr. Lee has secured numerous grants (e.g., Internal/SSHRC) that provides research and training opportunities for students. Within the Retail program, Dr. Lee hosts an annual Retail Research Colloquium, inviting graduate students to present their ongoing research. These opportunities have helped students realize their potential, leading to numerous peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations/proceedings. To date, he has co-authored with 24 students yielding 53 academic contributions. Dr. Lee currently teaches the Applied Research Methods I course for the Master of Science in Management Program at TRSM.

Mehrab Mehrvar

Department of Chemical Engineering, YSGS Interdisciplinary

Dr. Mehrab Mehrvar has had tremendously positive impact on graduate education through training graduate students in research and teaching. While helping them in professional life, well-trained graduate students are the centre of his research activities. He has created an effective training environment that fosters students' excitement and commitment in research and provides increased research self-efficacy. He encourages growth and learning where students enjoy their research by thinking, interacting and analyzing their findings. He mentors them to think beyond problems, critical outcomes and hypothesis, and how they could be implemented. He cultivates their curiosity about critical points in their research outcomes.

Maurice Roche 

Department of Economics, Faculty of Arts

Dr. Maurice Roche has made extraordinary contributions to graduate education. He has displayed excellence in graduate teaching, created an environment for “a supportive environment for graduate research and scholarship”, advocated for students, and helped students in seeking employment. He has supervised six PhD dissertations (two at Ryerson), and over forty master's research papers. In particular, his PhD students’ initial placements were a tenure-stream assistant professor at MacEwan University, a senior economist at Financial Accountability Office of Ontario, an economist at World Bank, an economist at Irish Central Bank, and a senior economist at Economic and Social Research Institute in Ireland.

Alireza Sadeghian

Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Science

Dr. Sadghian's contributions to graduate education have been extremely impactful but are highlighted by simple metrics. He has supervised 13 Phd, 27 Masters and 11 Post Docs. Many are now professors in their own right or have leadership roles in industry. All this has been accomplished while spending 10 years as the Chair of the Department of Computer Science. Prof. Sadeghian has clearly shown leadership in this capacity and heartily deserves this award.

Sharareh Taghipour

Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science

Dr. Sharareh Taghipour is Canada Research Chair in Physical Asset Management, and the Director of the Reliability, Risk and Maintenance Research Laboratory. She is recognized for her ground-breaking work on physical asset management and on cancer progression modeling and screening optimization. She has received 21 awards, including 6 best paper awards at international competitions. She has secured over $1.5M in external research funding and has supervised 80 HQPs, including postdoctoral fellows, and graduate and undergraduate students. Her former graduate students could secure excellent jobs in academia or industry, such as faculty, consulting, or engineering positions.

Past recipients