The York University Alumni Board recognized four distinguished York students with 2022 Alumni Awards and Scholarships for their academic excellence and leadership. Tiana Putric, a School of Administrative Studies graduate, was among those honoured.

Alumni Golden GRADitude Award

The Alumni Golden GRADitude Award recognizes graduating students who leave York University a better place thanks to the significant leadership they demonstrated during their time on campus. This year, there are two recipients: Tiana Putric and Issa Abdi Jamaa.

Putric, a recent graduate of the Disaster & Emergency Management (DEM) program (BDEM ’22) has been recognized for her research involvement and contributions to the York brand and community. While at York, Putric maintained various positions, including her role as an emergency management assistant with York’s Office of Emergency Management, where she helped modernize York’s Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (HIRA). Putric later became lead editor of the HIRA and co-authored six papers with the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research on the ethics of digital contact tracing for COVID-19.

She said her motivation to do research was “not only about developing an expertise, but it’s about discovering new knowledge and becoming a thought leader.”

Putric also helps York international students navigate their experience at York and continues to be a proud ambassador of the University. She actively promotes York and its DEM program at various events, including Collision, one of the world’s largest tech conferences, and abroad, as the first DEM student in Canada and the United States to be awarded the Fulbright Killam Fellowship, where she completed an exchange program at Wellesley College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and participated in the Harvard University Women in Foreign Policy Conference.

Currently, Putric is employed at the Ontario Ministry of Health as a policy analyst, where she works on policy projects concerning Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI). She hopes that her work with the ministry will advance the “prevention, diagnosis and treatment of illnesses and diseases, and ultimately improve the health and well-being of Ontarians.”

As one of this year’s recipients, she says, “receiving the Alumni Golden GRADitude award is evidence that my research and contributions as an undergraduate student were recognized. This is incredibly encouraging and for this I am very grateful.”

Learn more about this year’s recipients in yFile.