Five LA&PS faculty members were awarded the prestigious King Charles III Coronation Medal, including: Pat Armstrong, professor emerita and Distinguished Research Professor, receives this honour for her leading voice in health-care research and social policy; Sheila Embleton, Distinguished Research Professor and former VP Academic & Provost, was honoured for her work in linguistics, particularly in dialectology, sociolinguistics and mathematical/statistical methods in linguistics; Charles Hendriks, a contract faculty member with the School of Administrative Studies since 2000, was recognized for his teaching excellence at the university level and his work with Indigenous communities across Canada; Natasha Henry-Dixon, a professor of African-Canadian History, was awarded for her advancement of understanding of Black history in Ontario, as well as her numerous publications dealing with the enslavement of Black people in Ontario, their quest for freedom and celebrations of emancipation; Akolisa Ufodike, an associate professor in the School of Administrative Studies, was recognized for his research in public sector governance and accountability.

LA&PS professor Jennifer Bonnell, from the Department of History, was awarded the Lieutenant Governor’s Medal for Historical Writing from the BC Historical Federation for her book titled, Stewards of Splendour: A History of Wildlife and People in British Columbia (Royal BC Museum, 2023). Stewards of Splendour explores British Columbians’ changing relationships with wild animals and their habitats over more than 250 years, from the period of pre-contact Indigenous his­tory, prior to 1774, to the present.

LA&PS scholar Lynn Yu Ling Ng in the Department of Politics named among this year’s York University recipients of the prestigious Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship awarded by the Government of Canada. The fellowship program aims to attract and retain top-tier postdoctoral talent, develop their leadership potential and position them for success as research leaders of tomorrow. Valued at $70,000 per year for two years, it allows ambitious scholars to conduct their research and devote substantial time to work without the financial pressures that might typically arise.

This year, we continued to support our 8 Canada Research Chairs, and 14 York Research Chairs across LA&PS by facilitating research partnerships, research engagement, student training and knowledge mobilization.

New SSHRC research projects that were awarded in 2023-24 and focus on building knowledge, understanding of people, societies and the world began last year. LA&PS recipients include: Katarina O’Briain, Department of English, for the project, "Manila in the Transoceanic Archive: The Poetics of Colonial Occupation, 1762-1764" ($55,361); Lesley Wood, Department of Sociology, for the project, "Intergenerational Movements and Social Media Silos" ($64,387); Johannes Mahr, Department of Philosophy, for the project, "The Language of Episodic Thought" ($50,844); Andrey Stoyanov, Department of Economics, for the project, "The Cost of Red Tape: The Effect of National Regulation on Labor Markets" ($56,567); Shamette Hepburn, School of Social Work, for the project, "Retirement Time (In)equality in Canada" ($49,380); Chaoran Chen, Department of Economics, for the project, "Macroeconomic Analysis of Home Production and Gender Gap in Structural Transformation" ($82,202); Emilia Nielsen, Department of Social Science, for the project, "Chronically Ill Research-Creation: Engendering Experimentations in Form and Content" ($97,391); Laura Salisbury, Department of Economics, for the project, "An Investigation into the Growth of Nonmarital Fertility in North America" ($91,190); Sheila Cavanagh, Department of Sociology, for the project, "Psychotherapy in Ontario: Training, Access, Quality, and Medicalization" ($198,882); and Zachary Spicer, School of Public Policy & Administration, for the project, "The Capacity to Innovate: Governance and Policy Implementation in Canada’s Municipalities" ($57,954).

Miguel González, a professor in the Department of Social Science, leads a new project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) titled, “Emancipatory Horizons for Self-Determination of Indigenous and Afro-Descendant Peoples in Central America.” The project investigates how communities in these areas continue to develop their own self-governance systems to assert their rights and legal capacities. 

Assistant professor Marsha Rampersaud, who teaches law & society in the Department of Social Science, receives The Emerging Community-Based Researcher Award, a prestigious honour from Community-Based Research Canada (CBRCanada) in recognition of her work with marginalized youth. Rampersaud received the award in recognition of her research engagement with marginalized youth and their communities, working toward societal change in the criminal justice system.

Professor Christina Sharpe earns the 2025 Killam Prize, a prestigious honour recognizing her profound impact on Black studies and the humanities in Canada and beyond. Awarded annually to five distinguished Canadian scholars, the Killam Prize acknowledges sustained research excellence across the fields of engineering, health sciences, humanities, natural sciences and social sciences. Each recipient is awarded $100,000 in recognition of their contributions to advancing knowledge and fostering innovation.

Eric Kennedy, associate professor of Disaster & Emergency Management in the School of Administrative Studies, receives Ontario's Early Career Researcher Award, a competitive provincial honour that supports promising early-career faculty leading innovative research. Kennedy earned the award for a project aimed at enhancing wildfire predictive services in Ontario – an essential set of systems to protect communities from wildfire.

Professor Jimmy Huang from the School of Information Technology, earned the esteemed honour of fellowship at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). 2025 IEEE fellowship is the highest grade of membership awarded by IEEE and acknowledges individuals whose contributions in engineering, science and technology have demonstrated significant impact on society. Huang's work in information retrieval, web search, natural language processing and conversational systems has made significant contributions to the field and highlights York University's role in advancing technology and research.

Professor emeritus, Les Jacobs from the Department of Politics, has been awarded the prestigious Visiting Fellowship at Trinity College, University of Oxford, to pursue work examining the need for improved meaningful access to justice in the courts. Jacobs is a leading international expert in interdisciplinary socio-legal research, theoretical work on social justice and rights, and applied social research methods. He was the inaugural York Research Chair in Human Rights and Access to Justice (Tier 1) as well as professor and director of the Institute for Social Research at York.

LA&PS continued to have success in the SSHRC Partnership Development Grant (PDG) program. Three projects awarded in 2023-24 commenced in 2024. LA&PS researchers received a combined boost of more than half a million dollars from the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Partnership Development Grant, including Annie Bunting, professor in the Department of Social Science, for a project titled, “Youth-led initiatives for gender justice and peacebuilding,” which received $199,850. The project will bring together researchers, filmmakers, artists and others to study the long-lasting impacts of violence on youth, aged 15 to 29, in places affected by war and conflict; Marcello Musto, professor in the Department of Sociology, for a project titled, “War and the Left: A Global History,” which received the maximum amount of $200,000. The project will examine how left-wing political forces and theorists have responded to war, deepening understanding of the intellectual and political history of numerous progressive social movements and political parties around the world; and Miguel González, professor in the Department of Social Science, for a project titled, “Emancipatory Horizons for Self-determination of Indigenous and Afro-descendant Peoples in Central America,” which received $199,840. The project will gain insights into the struggles and strategies of these peoples to protect their land, rights and way of life. In March 2025, LA&PS received another 3 PDG grants, totaling almost $600,000 in combined funding, as the Faculty continues to support collaborative research with global impact.

Anne F. MacLennan, associate professor in the Department of Communication & Media Studies, receives a prestigious Partnership Development Grant from the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) for her groundbreaking research project titled, "Interrogating Canadian Identities (ICI)." The goal of this project is to shed new light on the complexities of Canadian identities and provide valuable insights into how historical narratives can influence contemporary understandings of what it means to be Canadian.

LA&PS professor Joann Jasiak was awarded the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Connection Grant for a project titled, “Inequality measures and econometric modelling.” The goal of the project was to organize an academic conference in Toronto in October, 2024. The conference showcased the state-of-the-art methodological developments and a broad range of inequality measures designed for individual and aggregate data, including a variety of econometric models for applications in micro- and macro-economics and finance.

Several new LA&PS faculty were awarded York Research Chairs (YRCs) in the last year, including: Annie Bunting, professor in the Law & Society program, named Tier 1 York Research Chair in International Gender Justice and Peacebuilding; and Kevin Lande, assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy, named Tier 2 York Research Chair in Philosophy of Representation (announced June 2024). The YRC is an internal program that supports outstanding faculty members as they produce research and excel in their wide-ranging areas of study, including cognitive neuroscience, gender justice and molecular ecology, among others. In May 2025, additional LA&PS faculty were awarded YRCs, including: Ian Stedman, professor in the Public Policy & Administration program, named Tier 2 York Research Chair in Law, Policy and Personalized Healthcare; and Ola Mohammed, assistant professor in the Department of Humanities, named Tier 2 York Research Chair in Black Sonic Cultures. These YRCs focus on the technologies and policies driving greater personalization in health care, with a specific emphasis on genomics, artificial intelligence and the experience of those living with rare disease (Stedman) and Black cultural production, Black social life and Black being with particular focus on the sonic dimension of anti-Blackness in Canada (Mohammed).

Professor Carmela Murdocca from the Department of Sociology, earns The President's Research Impact Award (PRIA) at York University's Annual Research Awards for her work examining socio-legal legacies of racial injustice and incorporating reparative justice practices in law and policy. The award recognizes full-time, active faculty members whose body of research or scholarship has made a notable impact on communities, individuals, public policies and more.

LA&PS faculty member Heather Lynn Garrett, from the Department of Sociology, was recognized during the 2024 Spring Convocation ceremonies with a President’s University-Wide Teaching Awards for enhancing quality of learning and demonstrating innovation and excellence in teaching.

York University honours LA&PS professor Leah Vosko during the 2024 Spring Convocation with a Distinguished Research Professor recognition. Distinguished Research Professor is a designation reflecting a member of faculty who has made outstanding contributions to the York community through research and whose work is recognized within and outside of the University.

Awarded in 2023-24 and commencing in 2024-25, Professor Idil Boran from the Department of Philosophy was awarded $3.1M in international research funding tackling climate change. Professor Boran is the Principal Investigator (PI) of one of the three large-scale team grants awarded to York University in the New Frontiers Research Fund International - 2023 International Joint Initiative for Research in Climate Adaptation and Mitigation competition. The grant — valued at $3.1M — is awarded to Professor Boran with co-PI University Professor Dawn Bazely (Department of Biology), and other York University professors, Angele Alook, Tarra Penney and Felipe Montoya, for the Biodiversity Integration in Climate Adaptation and Mitigation Actions for Planet (BioCAM4) consortium project. The BioCAM4, People and Human Health project will develop supports for good governance practices to halt biodiversity decline and to accelerate Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) in Central America and East Africa. In addition to New Frontiers in Research Fund International, the consortium receives funding from the German Research Foundation and the United Kingdom Research and Innovation with the partnership of the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) and the Institute of Zoology of the Zoological Society of London.

Tameka Samuels-Jones, an assistant professor in the School of Administrative Studies, alongside four of her colleagues, has been named a recipient of the Robbins-Ollivier Award for Excellence in Equity, a prestigious $100,000 grant from the Government of Canada and its Tri-agency Institutional Programs Secretariat. The grant aims to increase equity levels in the Canada Research Chairs program and the country’s research ecosystem more broadly. The York University initiative is a team effort and it establishes the Black, Indigenous and Latinx Research Laboratory (BILX-Lab) at the Centre for Research on Latin America & the Caribbean (CERLAC), of which Samuels-Jones is co-director. Additional LA&PS team members includes Miguel González Pérez, an assistant professor in the Department of Social Science and former associate professor Andrea Davis.

LA&PS researcher Arik Senderovich from The School of Information Technology, receives new infrastructure funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) for his project, "Data Analytics in Services," which received $76,520 in funding.

The Portuguese Canadian History Project (PCHP), led by Department of History research lead, Gilberto Fernandes, secures $500,000 from members of the Portuguese Canadian community and the Consulate of Portugal in Toronto, sustaining the project over the next five years. The cultural preservation project is an incorporated non-profit organization that aims to preserve, digitize and provide access to important historical materials that are vital for understanding the contributions of the Portuguese community in Canada. Founded in 2008, the project works in partnership with the Camões Institute and York University.

Disaster & Emergency Management associate professor Eric Kennedy, from the School of Administrative Studies, leads a new project entitled, “Understanding and Improving Wildfire Mitigation Partnerships with Local Government,” which received $386,000 in funding from Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) through its Build and Mobilize Foundational Wildland Fire Knowledge Program under the Wildfire Resilient Futures Initiative. The grant will be used to research the issues faced by local governments in wildfire mitigation practices, and establish how these efforts can be scaled up. 

Jimmy Huang, a professor in the School of Information Technology, was elected as fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE), joining a distinguished group of professionals whose achievements have influenced the field of engineering. A Tier 1 York Research Chair in Big Data Analytics, Huang was recognized for his contributions to the field of information retrieval, artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP).

Professor Randal F. Schnoor received the 2024 Louis Rosenberg Canadian Jewish Studies Distinguished Service Award from the Association of Canadian Jewish Studies (ACJS) in recognition of his significant contributions to the field of study. The report by the award jurors recognized Schnoor as a “brilliant and insightful scholar [who] has looked at a wide range of topics in Canadian Jewish life … and has done particularly important comparative work in those areas.” Schnoor has been teaching Jewish studies and religious studies at York University in the Department of Humanities since 2004, specializing in the study of contemporary Canadian Jewish life.

To diversify funding sources, LA&PS faculty increased their non-Tri-Agency submissions, including 2 Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) Innovation Fund applications, a Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) Grant, Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) Grant, Ministry Youth Ontario, Global Affairs Canada and more.

To continue to promote excellence in research, this year, LA&PS increased our Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Program submissions from 42 to 78 and exceeded targets for SSHRC Partnership Development Grants and SSHRC Larger Partnership Grant Stage 1 submissions.

LA&PS saw significant growth in application submission rates. SSHRC Insight Grants submissions were 36, up from 24 last round. Seventeen of these were funded, resulting in a success rate of 47% -- higher than both the national and York averages. The awards totaled almost $2.5M. SSHRC Insight Development Grant (IDG) submissions rose from 17 in 2024 to 41 in 2025, with over $1.1M in awarded funding. The total number of grants awarded in these programs combined more than tripled, rising from 10 in 2023 to 34 in 2024-25. Overall the total value awarded through SSHRC external grants in 2024-25 was almost $4.4M.

LA&PS had a record year for NSERC Discovery Grant awards, receiving 6 out of the 9 submissions (66.7% success rate), with a total value of awarded funding at over $1.2M, the most that the faculty has received in over a decade. The total value of Tri-Agency Funding awarded to LA&PS researchers in 2024-25 was over $5.6M, supporting 52 new projects.

The LA&PS Advancement team continued to raise funds in support of our research endeavors including $2.5M for the Elizabeth Sabiston Graduate Scholarships for the Study of Women and $265,000 for a new Jewish Studies Chair.

This year, we continued to support the Dean's Award for Research Excellence (DARE) program. Fifty projects were submitted to the program and participating students will receive mentorship in research from professors across LA&PS, showcasing the diversity of our research across the entire Faculty.