The following graduating Junior Fellows were introduced at High Table on March 31, 2023.
Omolola Ajao
Introduced by Zach Blas, PhD
Omolola Ajao is a Nigerian-Canadian filmmaker and interdisciplinary artist. Her documents ruminate on Black migratory life, scripting from observation, meditation and personal introspection. She embraces Black reality as means of endless imagination, exploration and excavation. Often playing within introjection to speculate upon migratory presence. She has screened internationally at Miami Film Festival, Urbanworld, TIFF, she is a 2021-22 TIFF Fellow, Union Docs Fellow and Hot Docs Fellow.
Florence Ashley
Introduced by Junior Fellow Maeve Palmer
Florence Ashley (they/them/that bitch) arrived at Massey College in the Fall of Panini Year 2020 to complete a doctorate at the Faculty of Law and Bioethics. Hot off doing a clerkship at the Supreme Court of Canada and obtaining three law degrees from McGill University, they soon found their footing in Toronto and thrived in the transdisciplinary space that is Massey. They are the author of the UBC Press book Banning Transgender Conversion Practices: A Legal and Policy Analysis, which received a glowing review in the Harvard Law Review. Florence will be publishing their second book, a collection of theoretical essays and erotica titled Gender/Fucking: The Pleasures and Politics of Living in a Gendered Body, in Spring 2024—just in time to spice up life in their new scholarly home at the University of Alberta, where they are incoming assistant professor of criminal law.
Tommaso Alba
Introduced by Matthew Mitchell, Professor of Economic Analysis and Policy at Rotman School of Management.
Tommaso is a fourth-year resident Junior fellow from Italy, who is about to complete his PhD in Economics. His research revolves around the impact of patent trade and enforcement on the innovative performance of firms, including topics such as anticompetitive effects of abusive patent litigation, startup acquisitions, and “Patent trolls.” Tommaso is also passionate about fantasy literature and games, and he can finally admit that his research on “Patent Trolls” was motivated by the opportunity to sneak in some fantasy jokes in his presentations. When he is not busy with his research, he can be found running, playing hockey, or behind a bar counter as in-residence mixologist. He is now preparing to leave Canada to take up a position as Assistant Professor at KU Leuven in Belgium, but he cherishes the memories he has made at Massey College and looks forward to the possibility of visiting again.
Sourojeet Chakraborty
Introduced by The Honorable John Godfrey.
Sourojeet Chakraborty passed his departmental Ph.D. defense last week, and will shortly join the Stable Isotope Lab at the University of Toronto, led by Senior Fellow Barbara Sherwood-Lollar, as a postdoc. He is a chemical engineer, holding an MSc. from Imperial College London, a BSc. from Jadavpur University, India, a Finance Certificate from McGill University’s Desautels School of Management, and a Diploma in Inclusive & Social Business from HEC Paris. He served at the UofT’s Faculty Council and was President of the Water Environment Association of Ontario (WEAO) UofT, which was recognized as the best chapter in Ontario in 2021 and 2022. He is a Non-Resident Junior Fellow at Massey College and has presented his work at the Massey JFLS, served on the Admissions Committee, and also sits on the Finance and Audit Committee – a subcommittee of the Massey College Governing Board. Prior to his Ph.D., he worked as a Process Engineer in the UK, and as a Research Associate at the London Business School. His other interests lie in engineering education (where he has published extensively), painting and Indian Classical music; he was trained in these arts for over 15 years, and holds bachelors degrees in both. He also has a keen interest in Tibetan Buddhism, currently has over 15 teachers; and is writing a book on Tibetan yogic practices, for which he received a Khyentse Fellowship from the government of Bhutan in 2022.
Liz Cunningham
Introduced by Leah Morris
Liz is a sixth year junior fellow working on a PhD in atmospheric physics. In their time at Massey Liz has been on numerous committees including the LMF, House Committee, Gender and Sexual Diversity Committee, and Equity and Inclusivity Secretariate. Liz’s involvement in committee work at Massey was focused on making Massey a more inclusive space for queer fellows. In addition to their work at Massey, Liz co-founded Physibility, a group aiming to make the physics department more inclusive to underrepresented students, and is the 2021 UCAR Next Generation Fellow in the diversity, equity, and inclusion stream.
Giancarlo Da-Ré
Introduced byMatthew Funk
Giancarlo Da-Ré has a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Biology, and in a couple of months, he will have a Master of Global Affairs from the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy. This includes completion of an innovation emphasis and a collaborative specialization in Environmental Studies. Giancarlo has worked as the President & CEO of the McMaster Students Union, and later developed McMaster’s inaugural Sustainability Strategy. A Lupina fellow in innovation, he has been researching Canadian energy infrastructure, and his capstone was on Canadian critical mineral value chains for EVs. He will be applying to PhDs this Fall.
Alexsandra Dojnov:
Introduced by Dr. Paul Yoo; PhD, PEng
Aleksandra is a graduate student at the Institute of the Biomedical Engineering where she is completing her Master’s in Applied Science. Prior to her work at the University of Toronto, she researched older adult fall biomechanics at Simon Fraser University and has published her work at several conferences and journals. Her current project focuses on the feasibility of non-invasively measuring neural activity evoked by saphenous nerve stimulation in hopes of providing an adequate telemetric diagnostic tool. This work has been funded by NSERC’s CGS-M and MITACS Fellowship in collaboration with EBT Medical. In her free time, she volunteers with Canadian Blood Services to promote stem cell donor registration and rock climbs every chance she gets.
Mariela Faykoo-Martinez
Introduced by Dr. Alexander Kostenko, Consultant (Transit, Infrastructure and Community at Global Public Affairs)/VP of Massey Alumni Association, Husband (who she met at Massey)
Mariela is a PhD Candidate in Cell and Systems Biology with a Collaborative Degree in Genome Biology and Bioinformatics. Her specialty is as a systems neurobiologist who loves figuring out how hormones dictate behavior and cognition. She studies the unique species, the naked mole-rat, to understand how environmental factors control timing of puberty. She was formally LMF co-chair among many other committees at Massey (CANT, MasseyWear, JFLS to name a few), but most importantly she holds the unofficial title of Queen Consort to her hubby Alex, King of Kriegsfilme, who is currently sharing this bio. Mariela will be transitioning from naked mole-rats to study another strange species, octopus, in September under a NSERC post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Chicago. She is very grateful for her time at Massey, for all the wonderful friendships she has gained and for finding her life partner. But more importantly, she is grateful for the bittersweet transition away from UofT after 10 long years of undergrad and PhD work.
Karthik Ganesan
Introduced by Prof. Deepa Kundur
Karthik is a first year JF and a final year PhD student in Computer Engineering. He researches the design of secure hardware for running artificial intelligence algorithms. Karthik has been a part of several student groups such as the ECE graduate students’ society and mental health advocacy groups such as Grad Minds and the engineering mental wellness commission. At Massey, he co-chaired the computing and health & wellness committees. Karthik has also helped launch the Massey Ventures Society, which brings together individuals in the Massey community interested in entrepreneurship. After graduating, Karthik plans to go to industry and work in the startup space.
Milan Ilnyckyj
Introduced by Prof. Robert Vipond
Originally from Vancouver, Milan Prazak Ilnyckyj (Mill-Lhun Prah-Jacques Ill-Knit-Ski) first joined an environmentalist organization in 1995. As an undergraduate at UBC he concentrated on environmental politics, including fisheries and persistent organic pollutants. In 2007 he completed his Oxford M.Phil with a dissertation on the role of science in global environmental policy-making, and specifically in the areas of persistent organic pollutants and climate change. After the M.Phil, Milan accepted a job in the Strategic Policy Branch of Environment Canada and later completed the Accelerated Economist Training Program. Obligated as a civil servant to support planet-wrecking policies and prohibited from communicating with the public about climate change, Milan left the federal government to begin a PhD in 2012.
In summer 2011, Milan spent 15 days photographing over 1,500 people being arrested outside the White House in a 350.org-led protest against the Keystone XL pipeline. In the lead-up to starting at U of T, Milan was among the founders of the Toronto chapter of 350.org. He then initiated the fossil fuel divestment campaign at U of T, served as the primary author of the brief submitted to the organization, and was in the group who were allowed to present to president Meric Gertler before he rejected divestment in 2016. After the pandemic, and amid a series of housing crises, Milan defended his dissertation on the fossil fuel divestment movement in Canada in December 2022.
Between moving into Massey in September 2012 and until 2017 Milan photographed most Massey College events. The dissertation and the photos are both available for free online.
Alainna Jamal
Introduced by Joey Coleman
Alainna Jamal completed the combined MD-PhD program in June 2022. Her PhD was supported by the Vanier Canada Graduate scholarship and investigated transmission of antibiotic resistant bacteria in hospitals using epidemiological and genomic methods. This work informed hospital prevention and control guidelines for antibiotic resistant bacteria in Ontario. During her PhD, she received the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases 30 Under 30 honour. She was recently named a STAT Wunderkind by health and science media company STAT, honouring the brightest young minds in health and science. She is currently an internal medicine resident physician at Toronto General Hospital.
Bo Joseph:
Introduced by Kyle Wyatt, Editor-in-Chief of the Literary Review of Canada
Mobólúwajídìde D. Joseph will be finishing his M.A in Human Geography this summer. His research draws on abolition, community organizing, urban politics, and Black cultural and literary theory. Bo’s thesis focuses on the Toronto Covid-19 encampment clearings, placing them within Toronto’s larger histories of urban informality and vagrancy policing. His work also focuses on the networks of care, mutuality, and reciprocity formed in response to the group-differentiated vulnerability to premature death faced by the unhoused. In addition to his academic pursuits, Bo writes poetry, fiction, and essays. He is also a hobbyist photographer and community arts facilitator. His work has been featured in publications such as Existere, The Literary Review of Canada, and The Republic.
Andrew Kaufman
Introduced by Kim Kierans
Drew Kaufman is an economic geographer and a SSHRC postdoctoral researcher at Queen’s University, specializing in the debt of low-and middle-income countries. He defended his Ph.D. last December under David Harvey, one of the world’s most cited social scientists. Since then, Drew has been working on his book, Vulture Capitalism: How the market for the Global South’s debt was made.
Drew maintains an active interest in municipal finance, affordable housing, and urban justice. He’s worked as a research analyst with the C.D. Howe Institute, the Institute of Urban Studies, and the Centre for Sustainable Transportation. As an uninvited visitor to Treaty 1 Territory in Winnipeg, Drew spent four years evaluating a Housing First approach to helping people recover from houselessness. Later, he co-edited a book titled The Divided Prairie City as part of a national investigation into income inequality.
Drew is proudly bull-headed when it comes to supporting his peers. He’s written op-eds about racism at Massey College and was threatened with a lawsuit from the Pierre-Elliott Trudeau Foundation during his tenure as a scholar there. In addition to his academic work, Drew is a grant-writing consultant, youth mentor, and spends much of his free time volunteering. Drew was a co-chair of the Community Services committee for three years while a JF at Massey.
Now that he’s done his Ph.D., Drew realizes he’s a glutton for punishment. He’s studying for the Chartered Financial Analyst exam, is recovering from an injury suffered while training for an amateur Muay Thai fight, and is debating applying for professorships.
Charlotte Leferink
Introduced by Kim Kierans
Charlotte has enjoyed researching the human visual system, looking at how we process visually that makes uniquely human — situated in our bodies, how does this affect how we make sense of our environment? And, what can artificially intelligent models show us about human vision? Charlotte is thrilled by her findings. She is excited to continue trying to investigate embodied cognition, and hopefully apply it within the realm of mental health research.
Bonnie Li:
Introduced by Jon Cummings, architect and an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto.
Bonnie Ran Li is a third-year student in the Master of Architecture program at the University of Toronto. She was born in Beijing, China, and lived in Australia for 10 years before moving to Canada. She loved art from a child and always dreamed of turning her designs into reality. Her interests in architecture include public space health and computational design, with a focus on promoting better health outcomes in public spaces. Bonnie believes that current indoor public spaces need to be upgraded to address pandemic-related concerns. Her interests are influenced by her multinational work experience, and she aspires to create a more sustainable future through performance-driven designs that incorporate algorithmic thinking and computation, as well as the use of more efficient building materials. Bonnie is passionate about establishing harmony between human society and the natural environment.
Amanda Loder
Introduced by Prof. Lily Cho
Amanda is a recent Massey College Alumna having been a Resident and Non-Resident Junior Fellow between 2017-2022. During her 5 years at Massey, Amanda was a Co-Chair of the Lionel Massey Fund, Co-Captain of House IV, Co-Chair of the Environment & Sustainability Committee, Co-Organizer of the Annual Raclette Cheese Bonfire and a Massey College Tutor. Amanda loved and still loves taking part in everything Massey has to offer. She graduated with a PhD in Physical Geography and Environmental Studies this past fall, and is now working as a Wetland Specialist and Scientist with Environment and Climate Change Canada.
Aaqib Mahmood
Introduced by Anver Emon
Aaqib graduated from the JD/MBA in 2022. Aaqib was active with Massey QC, Massey’s tutoring program, and was a panelist at a docuseries showing “Guantanamo’s Child”, a story about Omar Khadr. During his time at law school, Aaqib published two law articles – one about the ever changing effects of COVID-19 on surveillance, border regulation and migration laws – and the other about racial and religious bias that played a quintessential role in one of the Toronto 18 terrorism cases. Aaqib is also a named contributor with work he has done for Amnesty International, PEN America, and Human Rights Watch.
Saqib Mahmood
Introduced by prof. Anita Lam Professor and Associate Dean of the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies at York University.
Saqib is a graduate of the JD/MBA program at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law and Rotman School of Management, with Distinction. Saqib was awarded the Gerald W. Schwartz Silver Medal for the second highest cumulative average over four years in the combined program. Saqib previously earned a Masters in Socio-Legal Studies (his thesis was on ISIS’ geo-political reality and their visual propaganda) and graduated Summa Cum Laude with an Honors Degree in Criminology from York University. Saqib has completed internships with Sierra Leone’s Justice Sector Coordination Office, the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights, the Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism on the Syrian crisis, at the South African Labor Society, and with PEN America’s Free Expression Program. During law school Saqib served as the President of the Muslim Law Students’ Association. Besides his interest in law Saqib is a professional magician with his twin brother Aaqib Mahmood, having performed at TEDxYork 2014 and TEDxUofT 2023.
Caroline Monahan
Introduced by Professor Peter Benson
Caroline is graduating from the Juris Doctor program at the UofT Faculty of Law. Before law school, she received an Honours BA in Philosophy and Gender Studies from McGill University, where she was the Gold Medalist in Philosophy. She enjoyed this past summer working at two big law firms, one in New York City and one in Toronto. After graduating, she will work as a judicial law clerk at the Court of Appeal for British Columbia. After that, she hopes to pursue a career in legal academia, focused on legal philosophy and criminal law.
Hannah Morand
Introduced by Senior Fellow Dr. Edward Jones-Imhotep
Hannah Morand is a recent graduate of the MA program at the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology. Drawn to the history of design and technology, her thesis considered the symbolic, social and chronological overlap between the eighteen-century style of architecture referred to as Revolutionary Architecture and the French Revolution. Particular attention was given to Claude Nicolas Ledoux’s pre-Revolutionary vision for an ideal industrial city in Franche Comté. This interest has led to her current focus on Royal manufactories and industrial monopolies in late Ancien régime France. She will be pursuing this project next year as she starts a PhD at Yale.
Christopher Patton
Introduced by Kit MacNeil, College Printer, Tours & Educational Programming at Massey College
Christopher Patton is a poet, translator, and curator in training. “The Past in Play,” an exhibition he helped curate for the Toronto International Film Festival, went live earlier this month. Other projects include “Typographia,” an exhibition for the Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies, and “Box 15,” an exhibition for the Robertson Davies Library drawn from an enigmatic bunch of manuscripts in their collection. He has published five books, most recently “Dumuzi” and “Unlikeness Is Us,” both with Gaspereau Press. “Unlikeness,” a book of translations from Old English, received an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. He holds an MFA from Columbia University, a PhD from the University of Utah, and soon a Master of Museum Studies from here. He’s taught creative writing and literature for nearly 30 years and misses teaching a bunch. Not the marking, or department politics, but the rest of it: most of all, meaningful connection with his students. He hopes his new career will offer some of that too.
Zeesy Powers
Introduced by Dianne Godkin, Senior Ethicist at Trillium Health Partners
Zeesy Powers pursued her long-term interest in the invisible roles of technology in human experience as a Bioethics MHSc student in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. During her degree, she analyzed emerging definitions of Personal Health Information at the Ministry of Health. Her independent capstone project evaluated the impact of remote hearings on processes and outcomes for participants contesting Mental Health Act forms in the Consent and Capacity Board. Parallel to her studies, Zeesy continued research into deepfakes as digital kidnapping through a Canada Arts Council grant. Please say hi, she is looking for work developing humane systems.
Zahida Rahemtulla
Introduced by Natasha Grzincic, William Southam Journalism Fellow
Zahida is an MA student in Adult Education. Her research focuses on designing training programs for diverse actors over the age of 55. She is also a playwright and short story writer. Her first play, The Wrong Bashir, a comedy about the Ismaili community, premiered in Vancouver a few weeks ago and will receive its Toronto premiere in May 2024. Her second play, The Frontliners, a comedic drama about refugee resettlement, won the Playwrights Guild of CanadaTom Hendry Award, Theatre BC’s Play of Special Merit Award, and was runner-up for the national Voaden Prize in playwriting. Her stories have been shortlisted for the Alice Munro story award and longlisted for the CBC short story prize. She is currently working with Tarragon Theatre’s East of Tarragon Project for residents in Scarborough and Markham.
Rakshith Ramesh
Introduced by Prof. Jonathan Rose
Rakshith Ramesh is a second-year master’s student studying Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto and my research, under the supervision of Dr. Taufik Valiante, is on the design of neuroelectronic interfaces for understanding basic neurophysiology and treating neurological disorders. During undergrad, he double majored in physics and electrical engineering and went on to work as a research engineer in the aerospace and communication technology industries. Designing India’s first private spacecraft for the Google Lunar X-Prize competition – a space race to the moon. Outside of academia, he finds meaning in volunteering for social causes, particularly in educating underprivileged children and communities. Rakshith also enjoys organizing socio-cultural events, which is an interest he picked up in the theater committee and the financial advisory committee during his undergrad.
Book (Alex) Sarra-Davis:
Introduced by Prof. Lily Cho
Alexander Samuel Book Sarra-Davis was a Junior Fellow for six years from 2016-2022, during which time he was variously a chair or co-chair of House Committee, the Equity & Inclusivity Secretariat, the Lionel Massey Fund, the Quarter Century Fund, the literary arts journal Audeamus, and two of the JCR’s constitutional reform taskforces. He worked as a Weekend Porter and won the Adrienne Clarkson Laureateship for Public Service in 2022. But his proudest achievement while at Massey College is that he helped Amanda Loder convince everyone who attended the first High Table of the 2019-2020 academic year to wear a bib.
Shane Saunderson
Introduced by Junior Fellow Christine Tran
Shane Saunderson is an expert in the design and psychology of interactions with social machines. He is the founder of Artificial Futures, a digital strategy and user experience firm for the age of automation. Shane also lectures on digital transformation with the Schulich School of Business, has helped found numerous startups, has chaired several industry boards, is a prolific technology writer, and frequently gives talks on robotics, AI, design thinking, and the future of technology in society. He is a former Vanier scholar who holds a PhD in robotics with a specialization in psychology from the University of Toronto, an MBA in Technology and Innovation from the Ted Rogers School of Management, and a B. Eng. from McGill University.
Isabelle Savoie
Introduced by Rosemary McCarney, Senior Fellow in Foreign & Defence Policy @ Massey College
Isabelle Savoie is graduating from the Faculty of Law. During her time there, she served as Editor-in-Chief of the Faculty of Law Review and President of the Privacy & Cybersecurity Law Group. She has also spent this year working as a Policy Researcher at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society. In this position, she authored a whitepaper on Consumer Protection Legislation as a Regulator of Client-Facing Artificial Intelligence in the Canadian Financial Services Sector, which will be published through SRI this spring. This summer, Isabelle will begin articling at Fasken and hopes to specialize in data privacy law.
Connor Sebestyen
Introduced by Senior Fellow Kim Kierans
Connor Sebestyen is an historian of Modern European History and Jewish Studies. His research interests lie at the intersection of military history, international relations, and the postwar social and judicial reckoning with the Holocaust. Connor completed his PhD in July 2022 and now holds the Joint Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Toronto’s Department of History and Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies.
During his time as a Junior Fellow, Connor contributed to college life by serving on House Committee, as a Co-Chair of the Quarter Century Fund and the Junior Fellow Lecture Series, and as a musician with the Massey Belles. However, he is most proud of co-founding Massey’s Kriegsfilme Society – a war film viewing and discussion group, made up of the entire range of Massey community members, that has met every Wednesday evening – without fail – since 2016.
Reed Smith
Introduced by Alumni, Aaqib Mahmood
Reed is a third year junior fellow. He holds a BA from Queens University where he studied Art History. This Spring, Reed will graduate with a Juris Doctor from the Faculty of Law. Throughout his time at Massey, Reed has been involved in the Massey mentorship program, the Massey tutoring program, and is currently sitting on the Social Science Admissions Committee. At law school, Reed volunteered with the artists legal advice program to connect artists with pro bono legal advice. He also served as a senior editor on the Critical Analysis of Law Journal. After graduation, Reed with clerk at the Supreme Court of British Columbia in Vancouver. And after that, he will begin his career at a regional law firm in Vancouver. One day, Reed hopes to find a career that bridges his love for Karaoke and the law.
Jean-Paul R. Soucy
Introduced by Joey Coleman
Jean-Paul R. Soucy is a Vanier Scholar and a soon-to-be graduate of the PhD program in Epidemiology at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. His research focuses on infectious disease epidemiology and surveillance ranging from COVID-19 to antibiotic resistance. Jean-Paul is a passionate advocate for transparency in data and decision-making as a key component of public health policy and good governance. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he co-founded the COVID-19 Canada Open Data Working Group and maintained its widely used public dataset. He is also the curator of the Canadian COVID-19 Data Archive and a Founding Editor of the University of Toronto Journal of Public Health.
Anna Wong
Introduced by Senior Fellow Dr. Aubie Angel
Anna Wong is a third-year Junior Fellow and JD candidate graduating from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law this June. She is also a research fellow at the WHO Collaborating Centre for Governance, Accountability and Transparency in the Pharmaceutical Sector, where she studies how corruption and intellectual property rights limit patient access to medicines. During her time at Massey, she co-chaired the Massey College Mentoring and Tutoring Program, Massey Grand Rounds, and Massey Law Students’ Group. After graduation, she will be moving to Boston to begin her legal career as an associate at WilmerHale, a full-service international law firm.
