Created 1 March 2023 15:03

For Immediate Release – Port Moody, BC, March 1, 2023 – The Confederation of University Faculty Associations of British Columbia (CUFA BC) is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2023 CUFA BC Distinguished Academics Awards:

• Early in Career Award: Katya Rhodes (University of Victoria)
• Ehor Boyanowsky Academic of the Year Award: Catherine Nolin (University of Northern British Columbia)
• Paz Buttedahl Career Achievement Award: Jonathan Moore (Simon Fraser University)

Every year since 1995, the CUFA BC Distinguished Academics Awards series has honoured faculty whose ideas contribute to the community beyond the university and whose scholarship demonstrates the necessity and vitality of university-based research in the public interest. Research universities play a crucial role in the social, intellectual, and economic innovation of British Columbians.

“Faculty engage in outstanding scholarship that contributes to new discoveries and creates new understandings of our experiences in the world,” says President Dr. Ken Christie. “The Distinguished Academics Awards give us the opportunity to recognize how much faculty research contributes to our communities.”

Dr. Katya Rhodes is the recipient of the Early in Career Award. Dr. Rhodes is Assistant Professor in the School of Public Administration and a researcher with the Institute for Integrated Energy Systems at the University of Victoria. Drawing on knowledge from economics, political science, social psychology, and engineering, she investigates how different policy tools can contribute to successful climate change mitigation. She seeks to improve climate policies to achieve climate targes in an economically efficient, politically acceptable, and equitable manner. Dr. Rhodes’s work is informed by evidence-based policies that will help make communities sustainable and healthy over the long-term.

Dr. Catherine Nolin is the recipient of the Ehor Boyanowsky Academic of the Year Award. Dr. Nolin is Professor and Chair of the Department of Geography, Earth & Environmental Sciences at the University of Northern British Columbia. As a social geographer, Dr. Nolin’s research explores the gendered, political, and social aspects of state-sponsored violence, forced migration, and life in exile. Her work has explored these interests in the Guatemala-Canada transnational context and more broadly in examinations of the connections/disconnections between the Global North and South. Dr. Nolin’s co-authored book “Testimonio: Canadian Mining in the Aftermath of Genocides in Guatemala” with her long-time research partner Grahame Russell of Rights Action draws on over thirty years of community-based research and Rights Action’s direct community support work in Guatemala to expose the ruthless state machinery that benefits the Canadian mining industry.

Dr. Jonathan Moore is the recipient of the Paz Buttedahl Career Achievement Award. Dr. Moore is Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and School of Resource of Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University. He is an international leader in the ecology and conservation of aquatic ecosystems, and a champion for salmon, rivers, and estuaries. His work advances the science underpinning key environmental laws and policies. His activities have contributed to significant legislative reform and public policy outcomes with tangible impacts for the conservation of wild salmon and their ecosystems, including on contentious energy development that affect aquatic environments. Dr. Moore fosters an exceptional approach to connecting management and policy-relevant science with collaboration, communication, and engagement.

Congratulations to the winners and all the nominees for these awards. The awards will be presented at a gala reception on May 1 at the Fairmont Empress in Victoria, BC. For more information on the award winners and nominees, please visit www.cufa.bc.ca/awards.

For further information or comment please contact CUFA BC Executive Director Annabree Fairweather at 604-367-5856 or [email protected].

DOWNLOAD CUFA BC 2023 Distinguished Academics Awards Announcement

CUFA BC represents over 5,500 faculty members, professional librarians, lecturers, instructors, and other academics at the five research-intensive universities in British Columbia, which include University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, University of Victoria, Royal Roads University and University of Northern British Columbia.

CUFA BC celebrates fifty years of working closely with the member Faculty Associations at each institution. Our purposes are to support high-quality post-secondary education and research in British Columbia and to advocate for the interests of our members.