Faculty &amp; Staff

Institutional Strategic Initiatives

PRiME

Temerty Faculty of Medicine

Donnelly Centre for Cellular & Biomolecular Research

Entrepreneurship

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Regenerative Medicine

Startups

Subheadline

Cell and tissue engineer Molly Shoichet abandoned her plans to attend medical school, opting to focus on improving medicine itself

Molly Shoichet always wanted to be a doctor – until she made her first polymer.

“I thought that was the coolest thing,” says Shoichet of her first encounter with polymers – large molecules made of smaller repeating units found in materials ranging from proteins to plastics – during an undergraduate chemistry lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Inspired to advance medicine from the lab bench instead of the bedside, Shoichet deferred medical school to test out graduate studies – and never looked back. She earned a PhD in polymer science and engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and then worked at a Boston biotech firm. In 1995, she landed a faculty position the University of Toronto, where she believed she could expand her scope and impact.

She was right. Thirty years later, Shoichet – a University Professor and Pamela and Paul Austin Chair in Precision and Regenerative Medicine in the department of chemical engineering and applied chemistry in U of T’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering – has founded multiple startups, won dozens of awards, held several prestigious leadership roles and made numerous breakthroughs. She works on everything from spinal cord injuries, blindness and post-operative pain to stroke and cancer.

PhD candidate Sophia Lu, right, in the lab with Molly Shoichet, left (photo by Polina Teif)

A cell and tissue engineer, Shoichet is still fascinated with polymers – these days her focus is on hydrogels, which are polymer chains that can absorb relatively large amounts of water. These squishy, soft substances resemble the tissues of the body and can be formulated to slowly release medications, impact stem cells and access hard-to-reach locations such as the retina and brain.

“Like FedEx, we work on the packaging to get the therapeutics where they need to be and when they need to be there,” she says from her office in U of T’s Donnelly Centre for Cellular & Biomolecular Research.

For example, she has a longstanding stroke collaboration with Cindi Morshead, professor and co-chair of the division of anatomy in the department of surgery at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine. They work together to solve a key problem: more than 85 per cent of stroke patients don’t get to the hospital on time to get emergency, clot-busting treatment, leaving them with few options beyond rehabilitation to recover. So, Shoichet and her team designed an enzyme that can pass through the stroke injury scar and into the brain to promote repair. The approach underpins Chase Biotherapeutics, which aims to further this promising new treatment approach.

Former PhD student Daniela Isaacs-Bernal, right, with Shoichet, left, when a lab coat baring Isaacs-Bernal’s name was hung from the wall – a Shoichet lab tradition following a successful thesis defence (photo supplied)

She’s also been researching the retina and blindness for the last 16 years via collaborations with Toronto Western Hospital’s Valerie Wallace, a professor in the department of ophthalmology and vision sciences at Temerty Medicine, and with Derek van der Kooy, professor in the department of molecular genetics. Some of their resulting discoveries are now behind Synakis, a spin-off company that is fine-tuning treatments for retinal detachment, glaucoma and macular degeneration using a hyaluronic-based hydrogel.

With yet another spinoff company, Shoichet’s hydrogel-based drug delivery system allows surgeons to inject pain medications directly at the incision site, with the gel releasing the drugs locally over a two-week period. The technology being commercialized by AmacaThera would potentially eliminate the need to prescribe powerful – and potentially addictive – opioids to post-op patients.

Never content with just one mode of research, Shoichet also uses hydrogels to study how cancer cells invade – a huge question unto itself.

“I’m attracted to these big problems,” says Shoichet, adding that she’s endlessly curious and enjoys working with collaborators to learn the nuances of thorny health problems – a process that spans years. “I think I have a certain amount of comfort with discomfort.”

The scientific community has taken note of Shoichet’s omnipresence. She has been inducted into all three of Canada’s national academies: the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Engineering. An Officer of the Order of Canada and the Order of Ontario, she is also a fellow of the Royal Society in the U.K. and the National Academy of Engineering in the U.S. She has been recognized with the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal – the highest award in Canada for science and engineering – and the National Research Council’s Killam Prize in Engineering, among many other awards.

Her leadership work is similarly high profile. She briefly served as Ontario’s chief scientist, the only person to ever hold the role, and co-launched knowledge translation web site Research2Reality. At U of T, she is scientific director of both PRiME Next-Generation Precision Medicine, a U of T institutional strategic initiative, and Biomanufacturing Hub Network (BioHubNet), which develops training programs for the biomanufacturing industry.

Molly Shoichet, left, chats with PhD candidates Xiang (Olivia) Li, centre, and Shumaim Barooj (photo by Polina Teif)

Shoichet’s commitment to supporting the next generation of researchers is evidenced by the lab coats emblazoned with the names of PhD graduates that hang from the pillars of her lab – a tradition reminiscent of a hockey team that hangs its star players’ jerseys from the rafters.

Daniela Isaacs-Bernal, a recent PhD grad who immediately got a job as a research engineer at ophthalmic drug-delivery startup Ripple Therapeutics, says Shoichet encourages her students to mine the literature so they understand what’s already been done. That way they build on past knowledge instead of repeating avoidable mistakes in their research.

She says Shoichet also emphasizes communication and collaboration, asking students to give regular updates on their work during lab meetings – a process Isaacs-Bernal initially found stressful. “Now, working in industry, one of the things I value most is the way she taught us to synthesize complex ideas into something other people can understand,” she says.

As Shoichet heads into her fourth decade at U of T, she makes time for life, too – going to the ballet, dog walking, hiking and trying open-water swimming. But not surprisingly, she has no plans to slow down anytime soon.

“If we in academia don’t go after the hardest challenges, nobody else will.”

Decoding our memories: U of T researcher explores brain chemistry with new Connaught mid-career funding

mattimar — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 15:03:11 +0000

Decoding our memories: U of T researcher explores brain chemistry with new Connaught mid-career funding

mattimar Thu, 12/18/2025 - 10:03

Cutline

An associate professor of psychology in U of Ts Faculty of Arts & Science, Katherine Duncan's research into memory variability could lead to new ways of assessing brain health in aging populations (photo by Lisa Lightbourn)

Mariam Matti

Topic

Vice-president of Research and Innovation and Strategic Initiatives

Leah Cowen

Connaught Fund

Psychology

Subheadline

Katherine Duncan is one of five U of T faculty members to receive inaugural Connaught Mid-Career Researcher Awards

Katherine Duncan doesn’t experience memory the way most people do. She can’t vividly relive the past or picture it in her mind.

That personal trait sparked a two-decade-long quest to understand why memory works so differently for each of us – research that could help predict who’s aging healthily and who’s at risk for dementia.

Duncan is one of five University of Toronto scholars to receive Connaught Mid-Career Researcher Awards, which provide up to $250,000 to foster research excellence and enhance competitiveness for external funding. With the funding, she will explore why people remember the same experiences so differently.  

An associate professor in the department of psychology in U of T’s Faculty of Arts & Science, Duncan says the award will support her in pursuing “higher risk, higher reward” research that explores creative ideas and generates feasibility data necessary for major federal grants.

“[It's] giving me the dedicated resources to focus in on this really exciting new research area, and take the calculated risks necessary to make new discoveries,” Duncan says.

Leah Cowen, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives, says the awards address a crucial gap in the research funding landscape.

“We recognize that mid-career researchers are at a pivotal point in their careers. This support provides the resources to pursue significant research and innovative ideas – and strengthen their competitiveness for major funding from external agencies,” she says.

Cowen encourages mid-career researchers across U of T to review the award criteria, noting that the next round of applications is now open.

Much of Duncan’s research focuses on variability in memory, specifically “why it is that we sometimes vividly remember experiences without effort, and other times we struggle to even recall a colleague’s name. It’s more than just embarrassing; it’s a mystery.”

She says the one answer lies in something called “event segmentation” – how our brains automatically chop continuous experience into distinct moments.

“If you and I have the same experience, I might chunk it into different events than you do, leading to fundamentally different interpretations and memories,” explains Duncan, who is also the associate chair of the department of psychology. “We don’t know much about why.”

Duncan says she didn’t see her experience reflected in textbook descriptions of episodic memory when she was completing her undergrad in psychology at U of T nearly two decades ago.

While many people recall past experiences with rich sensory detail, Duncan’s memory doesn’t work that way: she has little visual imagery and doesn’t experience the sense of “mental time travel” that memory researchers often describe.

"I have a clear sense of knowing, which is what we refer to as more of a semantic memory,” she says. “I’m great at understanding how things work and building knowledge structures. But, I can’t tell you much about what my past experiences looked or felt like."

As a researcher, Duncan studies the neurochemical systems that are among the first affected in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. These chemicals help regulate how we form and retrieve memories, and the neurons that produce them are especially vulnerable to age-related degeneration.

By understanding how these systems affect memory and event segmentation, Duncan hopes to develop new ways to assess brain health – research that may have profound implications for understanding cognitive decline.

“I believe that deeply understanding the functions – not just the structure – of these regions will more powerfully estimate how well a region is aging and what that could mean for an individual’s cognitive trajectory.”

For Duncan, becoming a faculty member at U of T felt like a full-circle moment. “It was such an amazing opportunity to be able to return back home to the department and institution that first got me interested in this field of research,” she says.

The four other U of T faculty members to receive Connaught Mid-Career Research Awards alongside Duncan are:

Hilary Brown, associate professor, department of health and society, U of T Scarborough: “Healthcare provider training on disability and sexual and reproductive health”

Alexander Ensminger, associate professor, department of biochemistry, Temerty Faculty of Medicine: “Evolution vs artificial intelligence: Establishing design principles of pathogenic inhibition”

Thierry Mallevaey, associate professor, department of immunology, Temerty Faculty of Medicine: “Exploring the roles of MAIT cells in intestinal inflammation”

Irina D. Mihalache, associate professor, Faculty of Information: “Re-writing national history in Romanian museums, 1850s-1989: Stories from museum professionals”

The Mid-Career Researcher Award is supported by the Connaught Fund – the largest internal university research funding program in Canada. Established in 1972 through the sale of Connaught Medical Research Laboratories, the fund has since provided more than $191 million to U of T scholars through a range of funding programs that support the university research community across all disciplines and career stages.

U of T ranks third globally in artificial intelligence in new Shanghai subject ranking

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 19:00:26 +0000

U of T ranks third globally in artificial intelligence in new Shanghai subject ranking

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 12/08/2025 - 14:00

Cutline

(photo by Moussa Faddoul)

Adina Bresge

Topic

Global Lens

Melanie Woodin

Artificial Intelligence

Global

Rankings

Shanghai Ranking Consultancy

Subheadline

The university placed in the top 10 globally in five subjects and was the top university in Canada in 28 subjects, more than any other school

The University of Toronto has been ranked third in the world in artificial intelligence and among the top 10 universities globally in four more subjects in the ShanghaiRanking Consultancy’s 2025 Global Ranking of Academic Subjects.

U of T’s performance in AI – one of two new subjects added to this year’s edition of the annual ranking – underscores the university’s leadership in developing the potentially revolutionary technology. That includes foundational work by University Professor Emeritus and 2024 Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton, widely known as the “godfather of AI,” and his graduate students.

In addition, U of T placed fifth in the world for biomedical engineering, sixth for public health, eighth for statistics and ninth for human biological sciences – and ranked among the top 25 in 21 subjects, placing it among the most widely ranked institutions globally.

It was also named the top university in Canada in 28 subjects, the highest total in the country.

“These global rankings consistently reflect the outstanding work that U of T researchers are doing each day across our three campuses,” said U of T President Melanie Woodin. “Our faculty and students are making major contributions in a wide range of fields. And it’s great to see our world leadership in artificial intelligence reflected here as well, with the addition of AI as one of the subjects covered by ShanghaiRanking.”

The Shanghai subject ranking is closely watched as an international benchmark for research performance across disciplines, with about 2,000 universities from nearly 100 countries and regions assessed every year. Each subject is evaluated using nine indicators, including number of papers published, international collaboration, journal quality, citation impact and major academic honours.

In addition to AI, one other new subject was added this year’s ranking: robotic science and technology – an area in which U of T ranked 31st globally.

The ShanghaiRanking consultancy ranked a total of 57 subject areas for 2025, and U of T featured in the top 50 in 31 of them. Only five universities – Harvard University, National University of Singapore, Stanford University, Tsinghua University and Zhejiang University –ranked that highly in more subjects.

Compared to last year’s ranking, U of T’s position rose in 18 subjects, declined in 24 and remained unchanged in six.

Earlier this year, U of T placed 25th globally in the 2025 edition of ShanghaiRanking’s overall ranking of universities worldwide.

Overall, U of T continues to be ranked among the top 30 universities globally across the five most closely watched international rankings: QS World University Rankings, U.S. News & World Report’s Best Global Universities, Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings, ShanghaiRanking Consultancy’s Academic Ranking of World Universities and National Taiwan University World University Rankings.

‘Thank you all’: A holiday message from U of T President Melanie Woodin

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 20:23:47 +0000

‘Thank you all’: A holiday message from U of T President Melanie Woodin Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 12/04/2025 - 15:23

Topic

In a holiday message to the U of T community, President Melanie Woodin thanks faculty, librarians, staff, students and alumni for their encouragement during her first year as the university’s 17^th president.

She remarks that it has been a privilege to engage with the community about the university’s future.

“U of T is a place where we can think freely about what it means to be human, what it means to live in society, and about the wonders that nature has to reveal. And it’s a forum where we can talk openly and respectfully about the challenges and opportunities before us,” she says in a video message released today.

“With a new year on the horizon, let’s resolve to build on our history of excellence in service to society.”

“I wish you and your loved ones a very happy holiday season.”

Watch U of T President Melanie Woodin’s holiday message

U of T establishes new Hinton Chair in Artificial Intelligence with support from Google

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 19:10:17 +0000

U of T establishes new Hinton Chair in Artificial Intelligence with support from Google

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 12/03/2025 - 14:10

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(photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Topic

Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society

Artificial Intelligence

CIFAR

Computer Science

Geoffrey Hinton

Nobel Prize

Vector Institute

The University of Toronto has established the Hinton Chair in Artificial Intelligence with $10 million in funding from Google.

This new chair will honour the extraordinary legacy of University Professor Emeritus and Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton at U of T and Google by enabling the university to recruit and retain another brilliant, internationally recognized AI expert to make profound contributions to the field.

“On behalf of the university, I would like to express our deepest gratitude to Google for this wonderful investment,” said U of T President Melanie Woodin. “This new chair will enable us to build on Geoff Hinton’s historic contributions in artificial intelligence and to advance our record of transformational research in fields of crucial importance to the world.”

U of T is matching Google’s support with an additional $10 million in funding. This historic $20-million investment makes the Hinton Chair in Artificial Intelligence one of U of T’s most prestigious and generously supported advanced research roles, with substantial endowed support for a leading-edge AI researcher and additional funds to drive fundamental discoveries and insights – creating the intellectual underpinnings necessary to take AI to the next level.

“Google is proud to partner with the University of Toronto in establishing this endowed chair, recognizing the extraordinary impact of Geoff Hinton, whose Nobel Prize-winning work laid the foundation for modern artificial intelligence,” said Jeff Dean, chief scientist at Google DeepMind and Google Research. “On a personal level, it was a delight to have Geoff as a colleague for more than a decade. This chair will empower world-class academic scholars to accelerate breakthrough innovations and drive responsible research that shapes a future where AI serves a common good.”

The Hinton Chair is the first in the university’s newly developed Third-Century Chairs program, a strategic effort established on the cusp of U of T’s bicentennial to attract and retain visionary scholars who can transform disciplines, shape global discussions, improve lives and strengthen Canada’s capacity to prosper. With competition for talent at an all-time high, the program will help the university amass critical expertise in areas essential to the country’s future – a key priority shared by the Canadian government, which recently announced a $1.7-billion commitment to attract top global research talent.

The Hinton Chair will also help U of T recruit, teach and train some of the world’s most talented students in the field, fuelling innovation in AI applications across medicine, engineering, discovery science, the humanities and more, expanding the university’s AI networks and international partnerships and sparking a new wave of promising AI startups.

Building on Hinton’s revolutionary research

The Hinton Chair in Artificial Intelligence aims to support the same brilliant, exploratory research that its namesake has pursued during his time at U of T and at Google.

After receiving his PhD in artificial intelligence from the University of Edinburgh in 1978 and completing several years of postdoctoral work in the United Kingdom and the United States, Hinton came to U of T in 1987 as a fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR). There, along with several graduate students, he accelerated his expansive work on artificial neural networks as a potential pathway for advancing AI, developing core concepts such as: backpropagation algorithms; distributed representations; time-delay neural nets; mixtures of experts, variational learning and deep learning; and, most famously, Boltzmann machines.

In the 2000s, Hinton’s ideas began to yield extremely promising results. In March 2013, as more tech companies recognized the promise of artificial neural networks, Hinton joined Google as a vice president and engineering fellow, where he would stay for the next decade, splitting his time between the company and U of T.

Although many people have contributed to the current state of AI, arguably none was more important than Hinton, whose decades-long research forms the foundation of modern artificial intelligence and its myriad applications across nearly every discipline and sector. He is also responsible for the “Hinton effect,” which saw many of his students go on to lead AI advances in universities and companies across the globe.

“I am grateful for having been able to pursue my research at the University of Toronto, which afforded me the time and resources to develop the ideas that would eventually grow into the success of neural nets,” said Hinton. “I am encouraged that the Hinton Chair in Artificial Intelligence will support the next generation of AI research in the same vein, allowing ideas of great promise to germinate for the benefit of all humanity.”

Together with John J. Hopfield, Hinton won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2024 for his foundational work in enabling deep learning and propelling the field to its current peak.

University of Toronto – a world leader in AI

Based at the Faculty of Arts & Science’s department of computer science – ranked 12th in the world according to the 2025 QS World University Rankings by Subject and a global leader in deep learning and generative AI – the Hinton Chair in Artificial Intelligence will leverage U of T’s and Toronto’s substantial and widely recognized strengths in AI.

“It’s thrilling to consider the astonishing possibilities of welcoming a globally leading AI researcher into this setting,” said Stephen Wright, interim dean of the Faculty of Arts & Science. “At the department of computer science, the chair-holder will be surrounded by a remarkable concentration of scientific knowledge and creative skills, and a deep, proven track record of research excellence. It’s an ideal platform for charting new pathways and pursuing breakthrough discoveries in our shared goal of a brighter technological future for all.”

U of T is home to CIFAR AI Chairs and Canada Research Chairs in AI and has spurred several cutting-edge AI startups such as BlueDot (infectious disease intelligence), Waabi (autonomous trucks) and Deep Genomics (RNA-focused AI for disease detection). In addition to Hinton’s Nobel Prize, U of T’s faculty members and graduates have earned many other distinctions, including two Turing Awards, two of the three Herzberg Gold Medals ever awarded to computer scientists, and 15 Sloan Research Fellowships.

The university also consistently attracts and trains the best and most diverse cohort of undergraduate and graduate students from around the world, with hundreds pursuing AI-related studies across the university.

In addition, U of T is home to an array of AI-focused research initiatives such as the Acceleration Consortium, the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society, the Data Sciences Institute and the Temerty Centre for AI Research and Education in Medicine. The university also maintains a close partnership with the Vector Institute, a globally renowned organization co-founded by Hinton that empowers researchers, businesses and governments to develop and adopt AI responsibly.

An impactful partnership: Google and U of T

Establishing the Hinton Chair in Artificial Intelligence is the latest instance of U of T and Google’s longtime partnership in supporting discovery-based research. Over the years, Google has engaged many AI-focused U of T alumni and academic leaders, including Hinton, and the two organizations are founding partners in Toronto’s Vector Institute. Previous funding from Google has helped position U of T as a preeminent centre for advanced research in AI, and this new chair will greatly expand this impact.

“We are extremely grateful to Google for partnering with us to establish a chair dedicated to cutting-edge research on the defining technology of our time, which will help generate societal and economic benefits for communities across the planet,” said David Palmer, U of T vice-president, advancement. “Hinton himself once said that real breakthroughs come from people focusing on what they’re excited about, and the Hinton Chair will honour this example by providing unprecedented support for the next era of elemental, curiosity-driven work in artificial intelligence.”

Geochemist draws on billion-year-old water discovery to aid green energy transition

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 21:06:58 +0000

Geochemist draws on billion-year-old water discovery to aid green energy transition

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 12/02/2025 - 16:06

Cutline

A University Professor in U of T’s department of Earth sciences, Barbara Sherwood Lollar has spent nearly three decades studying deep underground water – a subject that’s shed light on everything from life on other planets to the future of our own (photo by Lisa Lightbourn)

Topic

Sustainability

Water

Subheadline

Barbara Sherwood Lollar explores how naturally occurring underground hydrogen, produced when ancient water mixes with rock, could help decarbonize heavy industry

Barbara Sherwood Lollar has spent more than 30 years studying deep, underground water and its surprisingly vast potential – from offering clues about potential life on other planets to locating valuable energy sources.

A geochemist at the University of Toronto, she has found new tools to monitor the clean-up of contaminated groundwater, developed a better understanding of deep, subsurface gases and discovered what may be the world’s most ancient water – a find that drew the attention of NASA.

Most recently, she’s become a sought-after expert in the global search for clean-burning underground hydrogen, which occurs naturally when salty underground water mingles with certain types of rock.

The resource could play a key role in reducing global greenhouse gas emissions.

“These things are intertwined,” says Sherwood Lollar, University Professor in the department of Earth sciences in the Faculty of Arts & Science. “You bring a certain novel approach to things, and it can allow you to crack open a variety of problems.”

Research Associate Weibin Chen, left, and postdoctoral researcher Zohra Zahir, middle, chat with Lollar, right, in her lab (photo by Lisa Lightbourn)

The Dr. Norman Keevil Chair in Ore Deposits Geology, Sherwood Lollar co-authored a study in Nature and a 72-page policy briefing for the Royal Society in the United Kingdom earlier this year that both explore the potential of harnessing naturally occurring hydrogen as part of a broader decarbonization strategy.

A US$135-billion global industry, hydrogen is currently used to produce ammonia (used in fertilizer) and methanol (an industrial solvent and marine fuel) and to refine metals. The highly combustible gas, which burns without creating carbon dioxide, also holds huge potential in the global transportation industry, where it can power everything from cargo ships to trains – and even passenger jets. It’s therefore considered an important part of the global green energy transition.

Most of the hydrogen currently used for energy is made from coal or natural gas – processes that generate 2.4 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions. So, finding it underground and extracting it – ideally with existing mining infrastructure and alongside other valuable materials – would be a much cheaper and more climate-friendly solution, Sherwood Lollar says.

“If there are places where Mother Nature has produced hydrogen for us, this could be a contribution not only to decreasing costs, but decarbonization.”

Sherwood Lollar’s recent work for the Royal Society focuses on the opportunities and limitations of hydrogen extraction and use in the U.K., but she hopes Canadian policy-makers are paying attention, too.

“The nature of the rocks we have in Canada are amongst those that produce hydrogen,” she says.

Lollar holds a sample of billion-year-old water from the Kidd Creek Mine near Timmins, Ont. (photo by Lisa Lightbourn)

Her current work builds on earlier studies exploring how ancient water interacts with rock to produce the gas deep underground, which feeds and sustains microbes. The work led to her discovery of 1.6-billion-year-old water in a mine north of Timmins, Ont., drawing global headlines.

“Sometimes the billion-year-old water gets talked about as if I stumbled over it while staggering around in the dark somewhere,” Sherwood Lollar says.

The scientific community, on the other hand, immediately understood the find’s wider significance.

It led to a partnership with NASA to assess the potential for extraterrestrial life below the surface of other planets. More recently, Sherwood Lollar has been called upon to help develop safety protocols for bringing space samples back to Earth.

All of this happened against the backdrop of Sherwood Lollar’s ongoing work with contaminated groundwater. She developed a process for assessing the breakdown of dangerous substances in water using naturally occurring isotopes of carbon. It’s a widely used approach, so much so that she wrote a guidance document to describe it for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

For her accomplishments, Sherwood Lollar has won numerous prestigious awards, including the Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering and the Killam Prize for Natural Sciences. She’s also been named a Companion of the Order of Canada. Earlier this year, she received the Geological Society of London’s Wollaston Medal.

Sherwood Lollar traces her early interest in water, geology and underground life to the 1977 discovery of life in hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean – far from sunlight and sustained by chemicals rather than photosynthesis. “It changed our thinking of life on the planet.”

Fed a “steady diet of Jules Verne” by her parents – both history professors at Queen’s University – Sherwood Lollar went on to study at Harvard University, where she recalls titling one of her first-year papers “Captain Nemo Was Right.”

She completed her PhD at the University of Waterloo and joined U of T in 1992. Since then, she has published more than 200 peer-reviewed papers.

Geography continues to fascinate her because of its huge scope.

“Earth science and geology are fundamentally interdisciplinary. It’s the study of life, it's the study of the Earth, it's the study of resources, it's the study of water, it's the study of climate,” she says.

“When I was a little kid, I thought science and geology would be fun. I didn't realize it was going to be this much fun. And the beauty of it is, the questions matter. You feel like you're giving something back in a time when the world is so chaotic.”

Cramped, risky and awe-inspiring: U of T researcher explores the psychological impact of life in space

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 18:01:09 +0000

Cramped, risky and awe-inspiring: U of T researcher explores the psychological impact of life in space

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 12/01/2025 - 13:01

Cutline

Canadian Space Agency astronaut David Saint-Jacques is the International Space Station during his 2019 space mission (photo by Canadian Space Agency/NASA)

Kate Martin

Topic

Psychology

Space

U of T Mississauga

Subheadline

The project, supported by the Canadian Space Agency, looks at how astronauts aboard the International Space Station cope with stress and process other emotions

Living and working on the International Space Station is cramped, challenging and filled with risk.

It’s also pretty awe-inspiring.

“You’re seeing the Earth in a way few people ever will,” says Jennifer Stellar, an associate professor in the department of psychological and brain sciences at the University of Toronto Mississauga.

“It can be dangerous and scary, but it also offers these opportunities for awe, connection, love, gratitude and compassion – positive human emotions.”

That range of experiences can have a significant impact on the mental health of astronauts, particularly those engaged in long space missions, she adds.

Just how they cope with stress, and process emotions like gratitude and compassion, is the focus of a new research project Stellar and several others are conducting, with the support of the Canadian Space Agency.

“We know a lot about what happens to genes and bones and blood (in space),” says Stellar. “But we have a lot to learn about what it does to your mind to be up there.”

The research project is called “Stress, Transcendence and Resilience in Space – Coping, Meaningful Work and Growth Among ISS Astronauts,” or C-STARS for short.

It launched this fall and will explore how personal traits and psychological resources play a role in resilience during and after spaceflight.

“The human species isn’t always going to be restricted to living on Earth, so if we are going to live on the moon and Mars, we need to know that psychological part, too,” says Stellar, who is the director of the Health, Emotions and Altruism Lab at U of T Mississauga.

“We don’t just want to survive when we get there, we want to thrive.”

(image by Canadian Space Agency)

The research group is led by principal investigator Jelena Brcic of the University of the Fraser Valley. In addition to Stellar, the team includes co-investigators Jason M. Harley of McGill University and Kirsten Robertson of Brock University as well as student Patrick Nicoll of the University of Victoria.

The researchers will survey U.S. and Japanese astronauts before, during and after their eight-month missions.

The project will collect data to measure physical health, including cortisol levels, while psychological insights will be shared by astronauts through interviews and self-reported diaries. But first the researchers need to sign up six to 10 willing participants.

“It’s totally voluntary,” Stellar says, noting there are usually more than 200 experiments being conducted on the space station at any given time.

“(The astronauts) have precious little time and they get to choose what they spend it on, so right now we are just asking ‘please do our survey.’”

Stellar says she has performed similar studies, but this one has unique challenges – not the least of which is getting the information to Earth.

“Getting data back from space isn’t easy, there’s a lot of levels and security,” she says.

Stellar says the research team hopes to use the findings – which it plans to collect and analyze through 2031 – to help improve conditions not just for astronauts but also for those who work in high-stakes situations closer to home, including in remote or confined environments such as military crews, search-and-rescue teams and wildfire firefighters.

“We owe it to these people who put their lives at risk for us to ask questions that move humanity forward, and to learn the emotional responses that can help them cope,” she says.

“We don’t want to just look at negatives like stress, fear or anger, but positives, too. Working in extreme environments can be a double-edged sword: the stresses are stronger, but the feeling of awe is also larger.”

The next generation of teaching leaders: Meet 6 exceptional U of T educators

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 19:01:02 +0000

The next generation of teaching leaders: Meet 6 exceptional U of T educators

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 11/26/2025 - 14:01

Cutline

Clockwise from top left: John De Backere, Lisa Zhang, Shelby Riskin, Lauren Cramer, Aditi Mehta, and Naomi Levy-Strumpf (photos of Backere, Riskin and Mehta by Polina Teif; photo of Lauren Cramer by Tim Fraser; photo of Levy-Strumpf supplied)

Mariam Matti

Topic

Early Career Teaching Award

Chemistry

Cinema Studies

Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Excellence in Teaching Awards

Geography and Planning

Teaching

U of T Mississauga

Urban Studies

Subheadline

“These early-career scholars and teachers have put student learning first"

From making chemistry greener to examining the aesthetics of Blackness in popular culture, University of Toronto professors are constantly developing new ways to advance learning and engage students in the classroom and beyond.

Six of U of T’s innovative educators were recently recognized with the Cheryl Regehr Early Career Teaching Awards, named for U of T’s former vice-president and provost Cheryl Regehr, a professor in the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work and a longtime champion of teaching excellence and innovation at the university.

“These early-career scholars and teachers have put student learning first and demonstrate through their teaching how important students are to U of T and to the future of research and scholarship,” said Heather Boon, vice-provost, faculty and academic life, at a recent reception for the award-winners.

From left: Susan McCahan, John De Backere, Aditi Mehta, Shelby Riskin and Heather Boon at a recent reception (photo by Polina Teif)

Susan McCahan, associate vice-president and vice-provost, digital strategies and vice-provost, innovations in undergraduate education, added that she’s “extremely proud of the immense talent and experience of our faculty, and the deep commitment we have to bringing knowledge and research to life for our students.”

U of T News spoke with all six award winners about their teaching focus and approach to educating students:

Shelby Riskin

Assistant professor, teaching stream – department of ecology and evolutionary biology, Faculty of Arts & Science

Shelby Riskin (photo by Polina Teif)

With a keen interest in the impact of global change on organisms and ecosystems, Riskin wants her students to gain first-hand experience with environmental challenges.

“I try to make sure students get their hands dirty, whether that’s in the field, in the lab or in discussion about the human impact on ecosystems and organisms. I take students on a field trip to the Koffler Scientific Reserve for soil sampling and deploying carbon dioxide detectors that students build themselves. Hands-on experiences with passionate teachers profoundly shaped my own life and career, and I strive to inspire others as I was inspired.”

Naomi Levy-Strumpf

Assistant professor, teaching stream - human biology program, Faculty of Arts & Science

Naomi Levy-Strumpf (supplied image)

Committed to providing innovative and unique learning experiences, Levy-Strumpf develops e-learning modules, multifaceted biotechnology curriculum and experiential learning opportunities.

“I am passionately committed to providing students with innovative and unique learning experiences. I strive to facilitate engaging and meaningful learning opportunities that build strong foundational knowledge while fostering holistic development of my students. My goal is to foster leadership, innovation and resourcefulness, enabling and empowering students to reach their full potential and fulfil their life aspirations.”

John De Backere

Assistant professor, teaching stream – department of chemistry, Faculty of Arts & Science

John De Backere (photo by Polina Teif)

De Backere is passionate about green and sustainable chemistry education and his teaching focuses on enriching students’ laboratory experiences.

“My goal as an educator has always been to enrich students’ learning experiences and drive the continual evolution of chemistry education through thoughtful curriculum renewal, reform and innovation. I’m extremely proud of what we’ve achieved so far, such as developing new teaching laboratories that provide students with more authentic and contextualized research-like experiences while simultaneously embedding principles of green and sustainable chemistry – preparing students to address future challenges responsibly.”

Aditi Mehta

Assistant professor, teaching stream – urban studies program and department of geography and planning, Faculty of Arts & Science

Aditi Mehta (photo by Polina Teif)

To instill civic values in her students, Mehta designs courses and research projects in collaboration with non-profit organizations for the purpose of social change.

“One of the overarching purposes of my teaching is to explore the drivers of urban inequality and to imagine how can we build places where everyone has access to basic needs, rights, opportunity, economic mobility and the freedom to design a better future.

Through my community-engaged teaching, I aim to advance the democratic production of knowledge and social change by elevating the position of underrepresented and marginalized communities in academic discourse. I expose students to neighbourhoods and communities that may differ from their own and I value each student’s situated knowledge as a vital contribution to our collective learning. Drawing from my experiences as a city-building practitioner in affordable housing policy and community development, I design educational experiences that equip my students to become compassionate changemakers in the city.”

Lisa Zhang

Assistant professor, teaching stream – department of mathematical and computational science, U of T Mississauga

Lisa Zhang (supplied image)

With an emphasis on undergraduate engagement and mentorship, Zhang’s interests include writing education and artificial intelligence education within computer science.

“Excellent teaching is creative. It develops foundational skills, it is social, it is introspective, it lets us imagine, it grounds us in our responsibilities and it is radically kind and inclusive. Excellent teaching is too many conflicting things to be embodied by a person.

I'm fortunate to work in an environment where students routinely encounter excellent instructors, allowing my teaching to focus on not just my values but my strengths: building fundamental skills in authentic ways. I'm grateful for a collaborative environment where students, TAs and colleagues are celebrated.”

Lauren Cramer

Assistant professor – Cinema Studies Institute, Faculty of Arts & Science

Lauren Cramer (photo by Tim Fraser)

Known by students for her “transformative” teaching style, Cramer’s research focuses on the aesthetics of Blackness and pop culture with published writing that explores everything from Jay-Z videos to Meghan Markle’s wedding.

“Teaching is truly the centre of my scholarly praxis. The advances I make in my research are all, in some way, a result of the time spent in the classroom. Here, where students are looking to me to make sense of the material and explain the purpose of advanced study in our precarious time, I’m constantly pushed to become a better reader and writer. So, at the same time I’m honoured to receive this teaching award, I’d like to express my gratitude to U of T’s students for being such wonderful interlocutors.”

Researchers investigate contaminants in traditional Indigenous food sources

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 19 Nov 2025 20:57:00 +0000

Researchers investigate contaminants in traditional Indigenous food sources

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 11/19/2025 - 15:57

Cutline

Élyse Caron-Beaudoin, an assistant professor in U of T Scarborough, is collaborating with Marc-André Verner, a professor at Université de Montréal, and Julian Napoleon, a biologist, agrologist and member of Saulteau First Nation, on a research project that aims to advance knowledge on the safety of traditional food sources (supplied image)

Topic

Indigenous

U of T Scarborough

Subheadline

Initiated at the request of First Nations leaders in northeastern B.C., a study co-led by U of T's Élyse Caron-Beaudoin aims to support Indigenous health and food security

An interdisciplinary research project co-led by the University of Toronto’s Élyse Caron-Beaudoin is working to assess potential contamination in traditional Indigenous food sources in northeastern British Columbia – an effort that could help communities make informed decisions about their health, food security and land stewardship.

Traditional foods are central to Indigenous culture, nutrition and food security – but communities in northeastern B.C. have harboured concerns that industrial expansion and energy industry activity may be threatening their food sources and the health of people living in the area.

To address these concerns, Caron-Beaudoin, an assistant professor in U of T Scarborough’s department of health and society, is collaborating with Marc-André Verner, a professor at Université de Montréal, and Julian Napoleon, a biologist, agrologist and member of Saulteau First Nation, to test for contaminants in food sources near First Nations communities in the Peace River Valley, including Saulteau and West Moberly First Nations.

The project was initiated at the request of local First Nations leadership, with Napoleon – who owns Amisk Farm, a small-scale vegetable market farm on Saulteau First Nation reserve – bringing both scientific expertise and lived experience to the project.

“We are a land-based people and our country foods are a defining component of our culture,” Napoleon said. “The safety of these foods – especially for our mothers, babies and children – is essential to our cultural survival.”

The project involves the creation of a biobank of traditional food samples, including wild berries, mushrooms, medicinal plants, fish and game. The samples are sent to Montreal, where levels of 22 different trace materials are measured. Isotopic tracing is then used to determine whether the metals are naturally occurring or the result of industrial activity.

In addition to food sampling, the team will recruit a cohort of 100 to 150 Indigenous adults living both on and off reserve and will assess their exposure to metals using blood, urine and hair samples. They will also collect and test tap water samples.

Caron-Beaudoin says it’s important to promote the consumption of traditional foods, particularly in populations that are burdened by food insecurity, as such foods are nutritious, affordable and foster deep connections to culture and community.

“But the problem that we have in northeastern British Columbia is that because of the expanding industrial activity – whether it be oil and gas, mining, hydroelectricity – a lot of people are more and more hesitant to consume traditional foods because they're worried that it might have been contaminated by all this industrial activity,” she says. “And that's really a fair and a valid concern.”

The project is supported by $876,000 in funding over five years from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Indigenous leadership is central to its design and implementation, in keeping with the principles of ownership, control, access and possession (OCAP), which prioritize Indigenous data sovereignty and respect for First Nations’ world views, knowledge and protocols.

“Everything that we do has to be approved by those partners, including all the questionnaires, the consent forms, the way we collect the data, who owns the data, who uses the data and in what way,” Caron-Beaudoin says.

The researchers hope the project will provide First Nations in the Peace River Valley the information they need to safeguard traditional food sources if contamination is detected – or peace of mind in the event that it is not.

They note the region is part of Treaty 8 territory, with First Nations’ traditional way of life – including consumption of traditional foods – protected under the treaty.

“If there are samples that are concerning, the Nations with whom we're partnering will be able to use that as a leverage with the province to have better regulation and protection of traditional foods,” says Caron-Beaudoin.

Add new author/reporter

David Blackwood

U of T launches $24-million program to create 100 new postdoctoral positions, accelerate independent research

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 20:07:33 +0000

U of T launches $24-million program to create 100 new postdoctoral positions, accelerate independent research

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 11/12/2025 - 15:07

Cutline

(photo by Matthew Volpe)

Topic