visiting scholars at Massey
Lisa Cameron
Western University Massey Fellow
Lisa Cameron is an Associate Professor and PhD scientist in the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry at Western University. Her research program is focused on understanding the pathogenesis of asthma subtypes, how they relate to other immune-mediated diseases and revealing common pathogenic pathways. While at Massey College, Dr. Cameron looks forward to engaging with experts in health policy, translational science, and team-based research to learn best practices for creating new partnerships to bridge research and clinical practice. Building cross-disciplinary collaborations will accelerate discovery, maximize the use of current therapeutics and help to improve care for patients with immune disease.
Mario Di Paolantonio
York University Massey Fellow
Dr. Mario Di Paolantonio is an Associate Professor of philosophy of education in the Faculty of Education at York University in Toronto. His award-winning research and scholarship follow two distinct yet interwoven streams. One examines how memorial, aesthetic, and legal “forums” serve pedagogically to address historical injustices in post-dictatorship societies, particularly in the Southern Cone. The other critically traces how the rise of informational capitalism, and the technocratic logic it advances, erodes public truth and destabilizes the shared lifeworld essential to cultivating democratic sensibilities. His published works span across philosophy of education, curriculum theory, social and political thought, social-legal studies, memory studies, and the arts. He is an International Research Associate at the Centro de Estudios en Pedagogías Contemporáneas and the Escuela de Humanidades at the Universidad Nacional de San Martín, Buenos Aires.
Building on themes from his 2023 book, Education and Democracy at the End, which explores the crises of meaning confronting democracy and education, part of his sabbatical will examine the profound impact of digital technologies on youth—particularly how these technologies, which neither forget nor forgive, threaten their capacity for growth, self-reinvention, and the full embrace of education’s transformative promise. To counter this, his work will turn to investigate how interpretive practices cultivated through the arts, culture, and philosophy can empower individuals to reclaim personal agency, resist digital determinism, and embrace the liberating potential of forgiveness and self-reinvention.
Massey Toronto Metropolitan University Fellow
Dr. Jane Griffith (settler) is an associate professor in the School of Professional Communication at Toronto Metropolitan University and author of Words Have a Past: The English Language, Colonialism, and the Newspapers of Indian Boarding School (University of Toronto Press). She is currently completing a book on the history of hydroelectricity and public relations as well as another book, coauthored with Feather Maracle and Brendan Edwards, on the history of the Canadian Press Clipping Service.
Cuiying Jian
York University Massey Fellow
Dr. Cuiying Jian is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at York University. She is a trailblazer in developing green applications for carbon-intensive materials, focusing on sustainable, economically viable uses of heavy hydrocarbons in energy storage, wastewater management, and environmental sensing. Committed to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), she leads a pioneering project integrating EDI into assessment questions and chairs the national EDI standing committee for the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering (CSME). Dr. Jian is the recipient of the 2025 CSME I.W. Smith Award, the 2025 Lassonde Innovation Award, and the 2024 Petro-Canada Emerging Innovator Award.
Lia Langworthy
Massey Toronto Metropolitan University Fellow
Lia Langworthy is an award-winning TV writer, producer, and screenwriting professor whose work champions emotional complexity and bold, character-driven stories. A seasoned industry veteran, Lia has developed and produced acclaimed series while mentoring emerging voices at institutions like UCLA and TMU. Her writing centers nuanced portrayals of womanhood, race, and identity, blending sharp wit with deep heart. A sought-after story consultant and speaker, she inspires writers to embrace messiness and truth on the page. Currently on sabbatical, Lia is developing a new feature script and expanding her Substack, Dear Grown Women, exploring love, art, and reinvention.
Isabel Meirelles
Massey OCAD University Fellow
Isabel Meirelles is an information designer and Professor in the Faculty of Design at OCAD University. Her research focuses on the role of data visualization in society, culture and education. She has organized numerous conferences and exhibitions on the topic, including Information+, and the Arts, Humanities, and Complex Network symposium at NetSci. She is the author of “Design for Information: An introduction to the histories, theories, and best practices behind effective information visualizations”(Rockport, 2013). Isabel is currently working on a new book provisionally entitled “A Data Visualization Odyssey.”
Alfonso S. Nocilla
Western University Massey Fellow
Alfonso Nocilla is a tenured Associate Professor and the Catalyst Capital Fellow in Insolvency Law at Western. He has broad interests in commercial law, with particular emphasis on Canadian and cross-border bankruptcy, insolvency and restructuring. His research is methodologically diverse, incorporating comparative and empirical approaches, and has been cited favourably by courts at all levels across Canada, including the Supreme Court of Canada.
He is a co-editor of Canadian Bankruptcy and Insolvency Law, 2nd Edition, 2024 CanLIIDocs 2210, the first open access casebook on Canadian bankruptcy law. He is also a co-editor of the Journal of the Insolvency Institute of Canada, a member of the editorial advisory boards of the Canadian Business Law Journal and the Annual Review of Insolvency Law, and an Affiliated Researcher with the Desautels Centre for Private Enterprise and the Law. He has consulted on commercial and/or insolvency law matters for the Canadian government, professional associations, and private parties. He has been interviewed by CTV News, CBC Radio One, The Globe and Mail, and Law360 Canada, among other media, regarding significant insolvency and restructuring cases.
Prior to joining Western, Alfonso was a Research Fellow at the University of Florence for the E.U.-funded project “Contractualised Distress Resolution in the Shadow of the Law”, which informed the 2019 European Restructuring Directive. He received his Ph.D. in corporate insolvency law from UCL in 2019, supported by a SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship.
Hyacinth Simpson
Massey Toronto Metropolitan University Fellow
Dr. Simpson is an associate professor in the Department of English and the Yeates School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies at Toronto Metropolitan University, where she also recently served as the Interim Director of the university’s Dimensions Program. Her main areas of research and teaching are Caribbean, Black, and Decolonial Studies. Dr. Simpson’s years-long editorial work on MaComère, a Caribbean-focused scholarly journal, garnered it a major award. She is the Principal Investigator of the multi-tiered social history research program Black Canada and the Great War. Her Massey Fellowship projects – completion of a monograph and an exhibit – fall within this program.
Ilene Sova
Massey OCAD University Fellow
Ilene Sova is an award-winning researcher and Associate Professor in the Faculty of Art at the Ontario College of Art and Design University. As a community arts specialist, Ilene Sova is the founder of Blank Canvases. This in-school visual arts program partners with both Toronto school boards to teach children about contemporary Toronto artists, using the Ontario Ministry of Education’s curriculum in Visual Arts. She also founded the Feminist Art Conference in 2011, which held yearly conferences, residencies and satellite exhibitions throughout the city. She has held a variety of leadership roles in the arts and cultural sector, contributing to the development of decolonial pedagogies and diversity and equity curricula at OCAD U, Harbourfront Centre, the Power Plant, and the AGO. She has an Honours BFA in Painting from the University of Ottawa and an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Windsor. With extensive solo and group exhibitions in Canada and abroad, Sova’s work has been most notably showcased at the Museum of Canadian Contemporary Art, the Department of Canadian Heritage, and Mutuo Centro de Arte in Barcelona. Her work has been featured in various publications, including CBC News, Canada AM, The Toronto Star, MSN News, The Globe and Mail, Canadian Art, the Italian Journal Woman-O-Clock, and the Nigerian arts journal Tabula. Sova is the Chair of the Board of Art in the Park at Trinity Care and on the Advisory Board of Inspirations Studios, a local ceramic studio serving a barrier-free ceramics program for women and gender diverse people who have experienced marginalization.
Derek Sullivan
Massey OCAD University Fellow
Derek Sullivan (b 1976, Richmond Hill Ontario) is an Associate Professor in Sculpture/Installation at OCAD University. His work in drawing, sculpture, book works and installation has the subject of numerous exhibitions in Canada and abroad, most recently the solo exhibition Field Notes at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg Ontario. Major public collections include the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa) and the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto). He holds a BFA from York University and an MFA from the University of Guelph.
Visiting Scholars are invited to Massey College to enrich the community and share their unique perspectives with the Fellowship.
Academics on sabbatical, researchers or distinguished arts professionals, who do not require accommodation, may apply to become Visiting Scholars.
Visiting Scholars may have access to an office or a carrel as well as library privileges.
The appointment is for the maximum duration of an academic year.
Applicants interested in an appointment are invited to send a CV, a letter outlining their anticipated work while at the College, the dates/length of their proposed visit, the emails of two academic references, as well as how they plan to participate in College life.
Applications should be submitted via email or by mail at 4 Devonshire Place, Toronto, M5S 2E1.
