Induction ceremony to take place Nov. 24
On Sept. 12, three University of Guelph professors received the honour of being named to the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists. The College was created in 2014 by the Royal Society of Canada to recognize academics whose work has made exceptional contributions to their fields within 15 years of completing their doctoral degrees.
Out of 242 nominees, and 70 chosen candidates, professors Carla Rice, Andrew MacDougall, and Nigel Raine were named to the College.
Chosen candidates are to be officially inducted on Nov. 24 at a ceremony in Winnipeg, Man. In the words of Malcolm Campbell, vice-president of research, “Professors MacDougall, Raine, and Rice epitomize University of Guelph’s strengths as a research-intensive university.”
Professor Carla Rice
Carla Rice is a faculty member of the College of Social and Applied Human Sciences and the founding director of the newly established ReVision: The Centre for Art and Social Justice. The centre is focused on the use of arts-informed and community-engaged research methods to foster inclusive communities, well-being, equity, and justice.
Rice’s work is centered on the transformation of professional care encounters for people with disabilities and differences as well as the representation of indigenous voices and perspectives in educational and artistic processes and practices. She has also worked to develop feminist and disability-focused creative research practices. In the past five years, Rice has also founded the Revisioning Differences Media Arts Laboratory (REDLAB), which seeks to explore how communities use arts-informed research to advance social inclusion and justice. During this period, Rice has also published three books, 32 papers in refereed journals, produced an archive of over 300 films, and has delivered more than 100 presentations. Rice still regards herself as “a modest witness,” emphasizing that her work is about centering the voices of people who have been neither seen nor heard.
Rice told The Ontarion that she chose the University of Guelph because of “its focus on inclusivity, diversity, and interdisciplinarity,” all qualities she believes are key to advancing research with long-term societal impacts. Presently, Rice is working on two projects that will generate a great deal of collaborative research over the next seven years, granting exciting opportunities to engage with different artistic media for research.
Rice told The Ontarion via email correspondence that she hopes that through her field of work she will continue to “reach new audiences, make new connections that help to build a more inclusive world, and generate research that shifts the paradigms and lenses we use to view difference.”
Professor Andrew MacDougall
Andrew MacDougall is a faculty member of the department of integrative biology. MacDougall’s work is focused on how global environmental change transforms fundamental processes in relation to diversity maintenance and ecosystem function in plant, insect, and fish communities. In his lab, he also works on a wide range of global change issues. His work includes testing key drivers of plant invasions in North America as well as how habitat loss and nutrient pollution interact to drive species loss in plant and insect communities. Additionally, MacDougall has worked on the question of how land management on farms affects ecosystem services, such as soil and carbon storage and pollination. MacDougall told The Ontarion that what appealed to him the most about the University of Guelph was a “great department with one of the largest concentration of ecologists and evolutionary biologists in Canada.” In the future, MacDougall made it clear that the focus of his research would not be changing. Along with his colleagues, he was excited about a new collaborative research opportunity with farmers of southern Ontario (ALUS Canada), which would allow for the detailed examination of the provision of ecosystem services on conventional farms.
Professor Nigel Raine
Nigel Raine, who immigrated to Canada from the U.K. just three years ago, is a professor of environmental sciences at the University of Guelph. He is also the holder of the Rebanks Family Chair in Pollinator Conservation, studying pollinator behaviour, ecology, and conservation research.
He told the University of Guelph that “Around a third of the food we eat depends on the activity of pollinators,” adding, “It is imperative we understand the interacting factors driving global pollinator declines.”
Raine did not provide a comment to The Ontarion at the time of publishing.
Image edited by Alora Griffiths/The Ontarion
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