Celebrating Order of Canada Honourees
Three alumni were named Members of the Order of Canada by the Governor General, recognizing their outstanding achievement and distinguished service to Canada: William Fox (BA 1970 UC, MA 1971), a research fellow and adjunct professor at Trent University; sleight of hand artist David Ben (BA 1983 UC); and Karen Levine (BA 1977 UC), who was named in recognition of her decades-long career at CBC Radio and her novel Hana’s Suitcase.
Kudos to …
Author Lisa Alward (BA 1984 UC) was named to the shortlist for the 2023 Danuta Gleed Literary Award for her short fiction collection, Cocktail.
Tanya Bertler (BSc 2019 UC) has joined the Toronto office of law firm Dickinson Wright as an associate. Her legal practice focuses on insolvency matters and commercial litigation.
Attorney Rachel Bond (BA 1995 UC) was named a judge on the Minnesota Court of Appeals in November 2024 by Gov. Tim Walz.
Financial executive Angela Brown (BA
1981 UC) was named to the board of directors for Deluxe, a payments and data company. She will serve on the audits and finance committee and the corporate governance committee.
In Nov. 2024, Rachel Chernos Lin (BA 1995 UC) was elected to Toronto City Council representing Ward 15 – Don Valley West. Previously, Lin was a trustee and chair of the Toronto District School Board.
Attorney Ola Craft (BA 2007 UC) has joined the Washington, D.C., office of the law firm Lowenstein Sandler as a senior trade advisor.
Adam Dobkin (BSc 2014 UC, MA 2015, JD 2019) joined the Toronto law firm of Corman Feiner LLP in September 2024 as an associate.
Wendy Freedman (BSc 1979 UC, MSc 1989, PhD 1984, Hon. PhD 2013), a professor at the University of Chicago, received a U.S. National Medal of Science in 2024 for her work in cosmology and astronomy and her research on the Hubble Constant. The medal is awarded for “outstanding contributions to knowledge … in service to the Nation.”
Cohere, a startup co-founded by Aidan Gomez (BSc 2018 UC), was named one of the top 10 startups to watch at U of T’s 2025 Entrepreneurship Week.
Alexander Green (BA 2006 UC, PhD 2013), a scholar of Jewish thought and ethics, joined the faculty of the University of Florida’s Hamilton Center for Classical and Civic Education for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Daniel Honciuc Menendez (BSc 2024 UC) became the youngest graduate of University College and the Faculty of Arts & Science since recordkeeping began in 1979.
Susannah Howard (BA 2003 UC, JD 2007) has joined the Palo Alto, Calif., office of the law firm Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati as a partner in the litigation department and employment and trade practice.
In May 2025, Kerri Huffman (BA UC 1993, MEd 2011) published her debut collection of poetry, Juniper, which charts the final months in the arc of a thorny, corrosive, yet transformational, relationship.
Michael Kater (BA 1959 UC, MA 1961) was awarded the 2024 Irving Abella Award in History, one of the annual Canadian Jewish Literary Awards, for his book, After the Nazis: The Story of Culture in West Germany. The late historian Abella (BA 1963 UC, MA 1964, PhD 1969, Hon. LLD 2014) was a graduate of UC.
Geophysicist Alan King (BSc 1976 UC) has been appointed to the advisory board for Benton Resources Inc., a Thunder Bay, Ont., company that engages in the acquisition, exploration, and development of mineral properties.
Barry Kuretzky (BA 1973 UC) was recently recognized in the 2025 edition of The Best Lawyers in Canada. Attorneys on Best Lawyers® lists undergo an authentication process where their colleagues designate a consensus opinion of leading lawyers.
Labour lawyer Rebecca Liu (BSc 2009 UC, JD 2012) became a partner at Hicks Morley where she works in the Toronto office, primarily representing unionized employers.
In November 2024, John Lorinc (BSc 1987 UC) released his new book No Jews Live Here, a deeply personal account of his family’s history in Hungary, surviving in wartime Budapest, and their eventual move to Canada.
Jesse Manna (BSc 2016 UC, MSc 2017) has been appointed to investor relations for Tectonic Metals Inc., a mineral exploration company based in Vancouver, B.C.
Paul McIvor (BA 1996 UC) is the new director of strategic communications and public affairs for Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care in Penetanguishene, Ont.
Novelist and poet Anne Michaels (BA 1980 UC) won the 2024 Giller Prize, Canada’s richest fiction prize, for her novel Held. The novel was also shortlisted for Britain’s prestigious Booker Prize. Michaels' books have been translated into more than forty five languages and have won dozens of international awards, including the Orange Prize, the Guardian Fiction Prize, the Lannan Award for Fiction and the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for the Americas. She is the recipient of honorary degrees, the Guggenheim Fellowship and many other honours. From 2015 to 2019, she was Toronto's Poet Laureate.
Executive producer Lorne Michaels (BA 1966 UC, Hon. LLD 2002) celebrated 50 years of Saturday Night Live at a star-studded weekend in February 2025. Michaels got his start writing and directing comedy and satire with the UC Follies while studying literature. He began his professional career as a writer and producer for the CBC. He has been the executive producer of TV shows that include Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and 30 Rock and has produced
films that include Mean Girls, Wayne’s World and Three Amigos. He has won 13 Emmy awards. Michaels was
honoured with the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for lifetime artistic achievement and was inducted into the Order of Canada in 2002.
In January 2025, Mary Ng, federal minister of export promotion, international trade and economic development, named Alison Nankivell (BA 1986 UC) as the president and chief executive officer of Export
Development Canada.
Sarika Navanathan (BCom 2020 UC) was awarded the University of Windsor’s 2024 Rosalie Silberman Abella Prize as the graduate most likely to positively influence equity and social justice in Canada or globally upon graduation. Abella (BA 1967 UC, LLB 1970, Hon. LLD 1990), a former justice with the Supreme Court of Canada, is also a UC alumna. Navanathan, valedictorian of her University of Windsor Faculty of Law graduating class, has received numerous awards for her international law, social justice, and leadership work within and outside school. She is also a singer who is passionate about the arts and community-building.
In 2024, the Hon. Andrea Ormiston (BA 1997 UC) was appointed a judge of the British Columbia Supreme Court in Abbotsford. She had been a judge for the provincial court since 2017.
Dr. Jeffrey Perl (BSc 1999 UC, MD 2003), an associate professor of medicine at U of T and staff nephrologist at St. Michael’s Unity Health in Toronto, is the 2025 recipient of the National Kidney Foundation’s J. Michael Lazarus Distinguished Award for best exemplifying the foundation’s efforts to enhance the lives of patients.
Dr. Nav Persaud (BSc 2002 UC, MD 2009) was named chair of the Government of Canada's National Pharmacare Committee of Experts in November 2024. Persaud is an associate professor of family and community medicine at U of T and physician and Canada Research Chair in Health Justice at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto.
Lynn Posluns (BCom 1981 UC, MBA 1983) was named a 2024 recipient of one of the Top 25 Women of Influence® Awards, an annual award that recognizes women’s contributions to their respective fields. Posluns is the founder, president and chief executive of Women’s Brain Health Initiative, a charity established in 2012.
The Scarborough Walk of Fame now
includes Dr. Vivian Rambihar (BSc 1972 UC), a renowned cardiologist with the Scarborough Health Network, an adjunct professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, and health co-chair for the Global Organization for People of Indian Origin. Rambihar began practising at SHN’s General Hospital in 1980, and over the past 40+ years, has made contributions to the medical, scientific, and humanitarian fields.
Sara Seager (BSc 1994 UC, Hon. PhD 2023) was recently awarded the 2024 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics from the Norwegian Academy of Science.
Nuha Siddiqui (BSc 2018 UC) was recently awarded a 2024 Governor General's Innovation Award for her startup erthos®, which she co-founded with fellow U of T alum Kritika Tyagi (BSc 2019 VIC).
Christine Szustaczek (BA 1992 UC), vice-president, communications for the University of Toronto, was inducted into the College of Fellows of the Canadian Public Relations Society in December 2024.
Mining executive and geologist Nick Tintor (BSc 1980 UC) was named a director of Puranium Energy Ltd., a uranium exploration company, in August 2024.
Professor Jacob Tsimerman (BSc 2006 UC), a mathematician at the University of Toronto, received the Royal Society of Canada’s 2024 John L. Synge Award for outstanding research in the mathematical sciences.
Journalist Richard Verrier (BA 1987 UC, MA 1989) became the business editor of the Los Angeles Times in March 2024. After stints at the St. Petersburg Times and the Orlando Sentinel in Florida, Verrier joined the paper as a reporter in 2001 and covered all aspects of the entertainment industry for many years before becoming an editor, where he previously guided and edited investigative and enterprise reporting across the entertainment team.
Alumna Myna Wallin (BA 1995 UC, MA 1997) recently published a collection of poetry, The Suicide Tourist (Ekstasis Editions, 2024).
Cecilia Wichmann (BA 2007 UC), a PhD candidate at the University of Maryland, became the curator of contemporary art for the Baltimore Museum of Art in October 2024.
In 2024, Catherine Yiu (BCom 1992 UC) became executive director and a member of the executive committee of Reliance Global Holdings Ltd., a Hong Kong-based investment holding company.