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Endowed Chairs

Home » Research Excellence » Research Chairs » Endowed Chairs

An introduction to Endowed Chairs.

A brief description of Endowed Chairs.


  • Abril Liberatori

    Mariano A. Elia Chair in Italian Canadian Studies

    Liberatori is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the Faculty of LA&PS. A historian by training, her research focuses on the experiences of Italian Canadians in the post-Second World War period. She is particularly interested in ethnic identity formation, as well as gender, transnational, and oral history.

  • Andrew Maxwell

    Bergeron Chair in the Bergeron Entrepreneurs in Science & Technology (BEST) Specialty

    Maxwell is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Director of Bergeron Entrepreneurs in Science and Technology (BEST) Lab at Lassonde. As the Director of the BEST Lab, he has been instrumental in supporting entrepreneurial ventures, enhancing university research commercialization and revolutionizing educational paradigms.

  • Carl James

    Jean Augustine Chair in Education in the New Urban Environment

    James is a Professor in the Faculty of Education and holds cross-appointments in the Graduate Programs in Sociology, Social and Political Thought, and Social Work. James’ research interests include the examination of how race, ethnicity, gender, class and citizenship/immigrant status intersect and mediate accessible and equitable opportunities and outcomes in education and employment for racialized youth – Black youth in particular.

  • Charles H. Cho

    Erivan K. Haub Chair in Business and Sustainability

    Cho is a Professor of Sustainability Accounting at the Schulich School of Business. His research interests include Social and Environmental Accounting, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), and Accounting and the Public Interest.

  • Cora Young

    Guy Warwick Rogers Chair in Atmospheric Chemistry

    Young is an Associate Professor of Chemistry in the Faculty of Science. Her research focuses on the development and use of important science analytical techniques to probe chemical mechanisms relevant to pollutants, indoor and outdoor air quality and climate change.

  • Cynthia Williams

    Osler Chair in Business Law

    Williams is a Professor Emeritus at Osgoode Hall Law School. She writes in the areas of securities law, corporate law, corporate responsibility, comparative corporate governance and regulatory theory, often in interdisciplinary collaborations with professors in anthropology, economic sociology, and organizational psychology.

  • David Johnston

    George Weston Ltd. Chair for Sustainable Supply Chains

    Johnston is the Professor of Operations Management and Information Systems and the Program Director of the Master of Supply Chain Management at the Schulich School of Business. His research focuses on innovation and collaboration in the management of sustainable supply networks, healthcare systems and industrial health and safety.

  • David Koffman

    J. Richard Shiff Chair for the Study of Canadian Jewry

    Koffman is an Associate Professor in the Department of History in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies. He is a cultural and social historian of modern Jewish life, with a specialization in Canadian and U.S. Jewries.

  • Detlev Zwick

    Tanna H. Schulich Chair in Digital Marketing Strategy

    Zwick is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the Schulich School of Business and serves as Dean of the School. His research focuses on cultural and social theories of consumption and the cultural politics of marketing and management practice. Working within the tradition of qualitative social sciences, he studies marketing and consumption practices from the view of the actors.

  • Dirk Matten

    Hewlett-Packard Chair in Corporate Social Responsibility

    Matten is a Professor of Sustainability at the Schulich School of Business. He is also the founding director of Schulich’s Centre of Excellence in Responsible Business. Matten has published 29 books and edited volumes as well as more than 90 journal articles and book chapters, which have won numerous prestigious awards.

  • Eileen Fischer

    Anne & Max Tanenbaum Chair in Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise

    Fischer is a Professor of Marketing at the Schulich School of Business and serves as the School’s Associate Dean, Research. She has wide-ranging research interests that span the fields of marketing, entrepreneurship and international business. She is particularly interested in how brands, firms and markets emerge and evolve, and in how consumers and entrepreneurs shape them and respond to them.

  • Eliezer Z. Prisman

    Nigel Martin Chair in Finance

    Prisman is a Professor of Finance at the Schulich School of Business. His research interests include aspects of Modern Finance in the Jewish tradition, the use of symbolic and numerical computation for methodological and commercial financial models, financial engineering, investment, tax effects in the derivative and fixed income markets, arbitrage models, market imperfections and arbitrage.

  • Felipe Montoya-Greenheck

    James & Joanne Love Chair in Neotropical Conservation

    Montoya-Greenheck is a Professor in the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change and is the Project Director of York University's Las Nubes Eco Campus. With over 30 years of experience teaching, researching, and working alongside rural communities in Costa Rica, Montoya focuses on sustainable development, environmental conservation, and community wellbeing.

  • Hilary Barlow

    W.P. Scott Chair in E-Librarianship

    As York University Libraries’ third W.P. Scott Chair for Research in E-Librarianship (2022-2024), Barlow is interested in the intersection of the archival and library fields, and how each interfaces with Open Education (OE). Barlow’s research seeks to answer the question of whether OE practices can increase access to archival and special collections materials in digital space.

  • Ivona Hideg

    Ann Brown Chair of Organization Studies

    Hideg is an Associate Professor at the Schulich School of Business. Her research examines issues surrounding gender and cultural diversity in the workplace and how emotions influence other people’s reactions in business interactions such as negotiations.

  • James Darroch

    The CIT Chair in Financial Services

    Darroch is an Associate Professor Emeritus at the Schulich School of Business. His research has focused upon strategic management for services firm with a particular interest in how large companies can become entrepreneurial in the context of corporate level strategy.

  • James Orbinski

    Dahdaleh Chair/Directorship in Global Health

    As the inaugural Director of York University’s Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research, Orbinski aims to make the institute a leader and catalyst in addressing global health issues, reflecting York University’s commitment to equity and trans-disciplinary research. A champion of health and humanitarianism throughout his career, Orbinski has extensive leadership, advocacy, and research experience in global health.

  • Jim Clayton

    Timothy R. Price Chair in Real Estate and Infrastructure

    Clayton is a Professor in the Schulich School of Business. As the Timothy R. Price Chair in Real Estate and Infrastructure at the Brookfield Centre, he is tasked with helping to lead and establish the Centre as a global centre of excellence in teaching, research and engagement with industry and government.

  • Joel Ong

    Helen Carswell Chair in Community Engaged Research in the Arts

    Ong is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computational Arts at the School of AMPD. Ong's research agenda includes multimodal expressions of Creative Data Aesthetics, focusing primarily on environmental sensing technologies to facilitate transactions of elements such as the wind through Ambisonic technologies of sound spatialization, mixed reality visualizations and physical computing.

  • John McDermott

    Institute & Chair for Functional Genomics

    McDermott is a Professor in the Department of Biology. His research focuses on the mechanisms that cause a simple cell to become more specialized. This work is primarily undertaken using cardiac, skeletal and smooth muscle cells and neurons as model systems, and it is aimed at understanding the role of specialized proteins that bind to DNA to orchestrate gene expression.

  • Joseph Mapa

    Krembil Chair in Health Management and Leadership

    Mapa is an Adjunct Professor and the Executive Director of the Health Industry Management Program (MBA specialization) at the Schulich School of Business. He teaches on leadership and strategic rethinking in the health care sector.

  • Joseph Ogilvie

    OMERS & Oxford Chair in Real Assets

    Ogilvie has been teaching in the Master of Real Estate and Infrastructure program at the Schulich School of Business since its inception in 2017. He is also leading applied research and industry partnerships in the Tim and Frances Price Urban Lab in the Real Assets Area at Schulich.

  • Kalman Weiser

    Silber Family Chair in Modern Jewish Studies

    Weiser is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Humanities and History in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies. His research focuses in the area of modern Jewish history and culture, specifically about language issues in Jewish life.

  • Kiridaran (Giri) Kanagaretnam

    Ron Binns Chair in Financial Reporting, Banking and Governance

    Kanagaretnam is a Professor of Accounting at the Schulich School of Business and serves as the School’s Associate Dean, Students. His primary research focus is on financial institutions, in particular bank stability, excessive risk-taking, and financial reporting transparency, as well as corporate governance issues, including CEO compensation, audit quality and tax avoidance.

  • Laura Wiseman

    Koschitzky Chair in Jewish Teacher Education

    Wiseman is a member of the Faculty of Education, Faculty of LA&PS, and Faculty of Graduate Studies. Her research focuses on the significance of intertextual reverberations in Hebrew language and literature. As Koschitzky Chair in Jewish Teacher Education, she works with students of the Jewish Teacher Education Program preparing to teach Jewish Studies in formal, informal and experiential education settings.

  • Marcel Martel

    Avie Bennett Historica Chair in Canadian History

    Martel is a Professor in the Department of History. In his capacity as the Avie Bennett Historica Canada Chair in Canadian History, he has published extensively on nationalism, relations between Quebec and the French-speaking minorities of Canada, public policy and counterculture, moral regulation, deviance, drug use, and RCMP surveillance activities.

  • Matthias Hoben

    Helen Carswell Research Chair in Dementia Care

    Hoben is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health. His research aims to understand and improve the health and wellbeing (quality of life) of individuals living with dementia, their family and friend care partners, and their paid caregivers. In his role as the Helen Carswell Chair in Dementia Care, he evaluates day care programs for older adults with dementia.

  • Matthias Kipping

    The Richard E. Waugh Chair in Business History

    Kipping teaches in the Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) and Master of Business Administration (MBA) Programs at the Schulich School of Business as well as in the Kellogg-Schulich Executive MBA Program. His research focuses on the international transfer of management knowledge with a particular interest in the evolution and role of management consulting firms and management education.

  • Moren Lévesque

    CPA Ontario Chair in International Entrepreneurship

    Lévesque is a Professor of Operations Management and Information Systems at the Schulich School of Business. Her area of research is entrepreneurial decision making where she views individual actions as a key to the success (or failure) of entrepreneurial activity. As such, she views individuals’ decision making as one of the most important aspects of developing an understanding of entrepreneurship.

  • Nazilla Khanlou

    EAC Women's Health Chair

    Khanlou is a Professor at the School of Nursing in the Faculty of Health. Khanlou's clinical background is in psychiatric nursing. Her overall program of research is situated in the interdisciplinary field of community-based mental health promotion in general, and mental health promotion among youth and women in multicultural and immigrant-receiving settings.

  • Olaf Weber

    CIBC Chair in Sustainable Finance

    Weber is a Professor at the Schulich School of Business. His research and teaching interests address the connection between financial sector players, such as banks and sustainable development and the link between sustainability and financial performance of enterprises.

  • Ron Westray

    Oscar Peterson Chair

    Westray joined York's Music Department in 2009 as the Oscar Peterson Chair in Jazz Performance, a position endowed by the Government of Ontario to commemorate legendary Canadian jazz artist Oscar Peterson. Westray is best known for his work as lead trombonist with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra directed by Wynton Marsalis and his collaborations with Wycliffe Gordon.

  • Russell Belk

    Kraft Foods Canada Chair in Marketing

    Belk is a Professor of Marketing at the Schulich School of Business. Belk’s research focuses on consumption, consumer culture, consumer behaviour, materialism, collecting, gift-giving, sharing and the digital self. In 2017, he was elected to the Royal Order of Canada as a Fellow in the Division of Social Sciences.

  • Sakis Gekas

    Hellenic Heritage Foundation Chair in Modern Greek History

    Gekas is an Associate Professor in the Department of History in the Faculty of LA&PS. His research interests include the history of British colonialism in the Mediterranean, the economic and social history of the Ionian Islands and the Greek State in the nineteenth century, and the history of Greeks in Canada.

  • Sarah Rugheimer

    Allan I. Carswell Chair for the Public Understanding of Astronomy

    Rugheimer is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Science. Rugheimer’s research interests are in modelling the atmosphere and climate of extrasolar planets with a particular focus on atmospheric biosignatures in Earth-like planets, as well as modelling early Earth conditions. Her interests include many topics in the field of astrobiology, such as the origin of life on Earth.

  • Satinder Kaur Brar

    James and Joanne Love Chair in Environmental Engineering

    Brar is a Professor in the Civil Engineering Department at the Lassonde School of Engineering. Her research is on the intersecting areas of environmental engineering and its impact on the overall well-being of the global community. She primarily works in the two converging fields of value-addition of wastes and removal of emerging contaminants.

  • Steven J. Hoffman

    Dahdaleh Distinguished Chair in Global Governance & Legal Epidemiology

    Hoffman is a Professor in the Faculty of Health and is cross-appointed as Professor in Osgoode Hall Law School. He is an international lawyer who specializes in global health law, global governance and institutional design. His research integrates analytical, empirical and big data approaches to craft global regulatory strategies that better address transnational health threats, social inequalities and human rights challenges.