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The Founding College of the University of Toronto
UC Students celebrate with Principal's Donald Ainslie and Markus Stock at the 2019 Alumni of Influence Awards Gala

Alumni of Influence

University College Alumni of Influence Award
The University College Alumni of Influence Award recognizes our diverse alumni and the exceptional ways in which they impact the College, the University of Toronto and our communities. 
 

2022

Ellie Lafferty
BA 1896 UC

Effie Lafferty belonged to a Black family who settled in Ontario in 1830 after escaping slavery in the United States. Following in the footsteps of her father – fellow UC Alumni of Influence recipient Alfred Lafferty – Lafferty graduated from UC and went on to become a teacher. Returning to her hometown of Chatham after graduation, Lafferty taught at the Chatham Collegiate Institute. In 1912, Lafferty was on her way to Detroit for a holiday when her train derailed. Although she survived, Lafferty was left permanently paralyzed. She spent the next 35 years in the hospital but maintained a positive outlook, frequently meeting with local writers who sought her advice. She also developed a passion for nature and was an avid birdwatcher, documenting 82 species of birds outside her hospital window over the years. Lafferty published a number of nature-related articles before her death in 1947.

Malcolm David Lester
BA 1959 UC

After falling ill with a bout with mononucleosis, Malcolm David Lester (BA 1959 UC) took a break from rabbinical school and decided to change the course of his career. That decision led to him becoming a seminal figure in the expansion of the Canadian publishing industry and an advocate for writers across the country. Lester ended up becoming the owner and president of Lester & Orpen Dennys, one of Canada’s most significant publishing houses in the 1970s and ‘80s. Prior to that he worked with several other companies, including as general manager of Coles Publishing and managing editor of the educational publisher Holt, Rinehart & Winston. With Lester & Orpen Dennys, Lester was fearless with a strong sense of political and social justice, publishing many books that had been rejected by other publishers. Lester was thrice named Publisher of the Year by Canadian Booksellers and served as president of the Canadian Publishers Association in the mid-1980s. Humourous and humble, Lester was adamant about the importance of publishing Canadian writing for Canadian audiences.  

Frank Pickersgill
MA 1938 UC

After completing his education in Canada, Frank Pickersgill (MA 1938 UC) moved to France with dreams of becoming a journalist. Those dreams were quickly dashed, however, when he was captured near the beginning of World War II and sent to the Saint-Denis Internment Camp as an enemy alien. After two years, Pickersgill escaped the camp and made his way to Britain where he joined the Canadian Intelligence Corps. Fluent in German, Latin, Greek and French, Pickersgill worked closely with the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and was parachuted into occupied France on June 20, 1943. While working with the French Resistance, Pickersgill was captured once again. Following a foiled escape attempt, he was shipped to the Buchenwald concentration camp where he was executed along with 35 other SOE agents on Sep 14, 1944, at the age of 29. Posthumously, Pickersgill received several honours, including the Legion of Honour from the French government. The U of T also designated a Pickersgill-Macalister Garden on the west side of the Soliders’ Tower monument.

William (Bill) Sinclair
BA 1985 UC

William (Bill) Sinclair has dedicated his career to the social services sector in Toronto, improving countless lives with his innovative solutions to complex problems. Sinclair is currently the president and CEO of The Neighbourhood Group Community Services (TNGCS), having previously served in key roles with several other social welfare agencies. He is well-known for his tireless work to develop partnerships and rapidly address growing community challenges, including opening an overdose prevention site to address the opioid crisis, advocating for fully-funded youth centres, bringing together social entrepreneurs with funding agencies, and creating a Peer Leadership Centre that values the lived experiences of vulnerable populations. Sinclair has also served on the boards of numerous agencies, including the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI), Toronto Neighbourhood Centres (TNC), and the Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration and Settlement (CERIS).

Professor Marla B. Sokolowski
BSc 1977 UC

Marla Sokolowski (BSc 1977 UC) is an internationally renowned geneticist whose multidisciplinary analyses of gene-environment interactions have refuted longstanding ideas around genetic determinism. Sokolowski has contributed to a major paradigm shift through the appreciation that genomes of organisms and their gene expression is dynamic, thereby refuting centuries-old determinist thinking that DNA acts solely as a generic blueprint. Sokolowski has received several accolades for her groundbreaking work: Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (1998), Royal Society of Canada Flavelle Medal for Biological Sciences (2020), Genetics Society of Canada’s Award of Excellence (2007), Senior Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (2013), JJ Berry Smith Doctoral Supervision Award from the U of T (2022), amongst many others.

2021

Dr. Alvyn Austin
BA 1968 UC

Alvyn Austin is a longtime teacher and professor of Chinese history whose work has helped significantly enhance Canada-China relations. Born to missionary parents who fled China during the Japanese War, Austin was born in India and then moved with his family back to China where he witnessed the Chinese civil war. His family moved to Toronto in 1951 and Austin was enrolled in East Asian Studies at UC by the age of 17. He would go on to become one of our nation’s foremost scholars in Canada-China relations, writing influential publications and contributing to several cultural initiatives. One such post included working as interpretation planner for the Norman Bethune House in Gravenhurst, which is visited by nearly all Chinese delegations. Amongst Austin’s many publications is the book Saving China: Canadian Missionaries in the Middle Kingdom 1888-1959, which created a new field of scholarship and is required reading for Canadian diplomats to China. Austin retired from Brock University and his distinguished academic career in 2007.

Photo of John Braithwaite
BA 1951 UC

A longtime city councilor and social worker in North Vancouver, John Braithwaite forged a distinguished career connecting with vulnerable individuals and breaking down barriers in his community. After earning his MA degree in Social Work at the U of T (1956) and moving to the west coast, Braithwaite was appointed executive director of The North Shore Neighbourhood House in 1957, a position he held for 23 years. When he was elected to North Vancouver city council for the first time in 1972, Braithwaite was one of only three Black politicians in British Columbia. Altogether, Braithwaite spent 23 years in elected office and his passion for human rights and social welfare won him various awards, including the National Black Award (1973), Canada 125 Medal (1992) and Freedom of the City award from the City of North Vancouver (2003). In 2004, North Vancouver opened the John Braithwaite Community Centre, honouring the popular politician and social worker who had helped so many in the community.

Professor Thomas Fleming
BA 1974 UC

A professor of Criminology and Contemporary Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University Brantford (2003-present), Thomas Fleming is an award-winning teacher who is recognized for pioneering work in the areas of serial and mass murder. Having taught at several universities across Canada, Fleming is a prolific author who has published 11 books and dozens of academic articles. In 1993, Fleming organized the world’s first conference on mass murder, and he has also provided expert academic information to several high-profile investigations, including the Paul Bernardo case. His excellent work as a teacher and mentor has also been recognized with several awards, including being the inaugural recipient of Ontario's Leadership in Faculty and Teaching (LIFT) Award (2007), being named to Wilfrid Laurier University’s Teaching Hall of Fame, and being designated a Best Professor at the University of Windsor by Maclean’s magazine.

Sheldon Godfrey
BA 1960 UC

A longtime lawyer, businessman and philanthropist, Sheldon Godfrey is a former chair of the Heritage Canada Foundation who has written extensively on Canadian history and been instrumental in numerous heritage preservation projects throughout the country. Sheldon and his wife, Judy, have led a wide range of award-winning projects over several decades, many of which concern the preservation of Canada’s architectural heritage. They have also co-authored several books and articles, including Search Out the Land: The Jews and the Growth of Equality in British Colonial America, 1740-1867, which won several awards. The couple have also been involved in several charitable, environmental and civic initiatives that have led to stronger government policies around heritage preservation. In 1998, Sheldon was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada.

Dr. Joseph Halpern
BSc 1975 UC

Joseph Halpern is a prolific and award-winning computer scientist and mathematician who is currently the Joseph C. Ford Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Cornell University (tenured since 1996). After receiving his PhD from Harvard University in 1981, Halpern joined IBM’s Almaden Research Centre (1982-96) before moving to Cornell. His research interests are in the areas of reasoning about knowledge and uncertainty, security, distributed computation, decision theory and game theory. He has co-authored five patents, three books and hundreds of technical publications, winning a wide range of honours for contributions to his field. Some of his more recent honours include being elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering (2019), being named the Moore Distinguished Scholar at Caltech (2018-19), winning the Kampe de Feriet Award (2016), being elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2015), and being appointed the Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Natural Sciences and Engineering at Hebrew University (2009-10).  

Dr. Anne Innis Dagg
BA 1955 UC

A pioneering wildlife biologist and advocate for women in science, Anne Innis Dagg is recognized as the first person to study wild giraffes. Formerly an assistant professor in the Department of Zoology at the University of Guelph (1968-72) and senior academic advisor for the Independent Studies Program at the University of Waterloo (1989-2013), Innis Dagg has published 25 books, including the world’s first monograph on giraffe biology. Her groundbreaking work has led to a wide range of awards, including being appointed Fellow of the Zoological Society of Ontario (1967), receiving an Honorary Doctorate in Science from the University of Waterloo (2019) and the University of Toronto (2020), and being appointed to the Order of Canada (2019). Her life and work were the subject of an award-winning documentary, The Woman Who Loves Giraffes (2018).

Professor Sharona Kanofsky
BSc 1992 UC

Sharona Kanofsky has been a national leader in the development of the physician assistant (PA) profession in Canada. She is currently an associate professor, Teaching Stream, Department of Family & Community Medicine, the Consortium of Physician Assistant Education Program, at the U of T. Kanofsky has also worked as a PA in a variety of clinical settings and served as the founding academic coordinator of the PA program, currently serving as Research & Scholarship Lead for the program. PAs help provide medical care in collaboration with physicians and improve access to healthcare for rural, remote and otherwise underserved communities. A natural leader, Kanofsky’s outstanding work as an advocate has helped make PAs increasingly common across Canada, significantly improving health care for Canadians. Her pioneering work has led to several awards, including the Tom Ashman Physician Assistant of the Year award from the Canadian Association of Physician Assistants (2013).