2024 Killam Awards recognize outstanding UCalgary researchers

Every year, the Killam Awards celebrate outstanding achievements across the University of Calgary, highlighting the exceptional contributions of faculty and researchers in various fields.

This year’s recipients from UCalgary — 36 in total — cover fields and disciplines ranging from medicine, English and chemistry, to neuroscience, veterinary medicine and engineering. They were honoured at a luncheon on Oct. 24.

Established in 1965 through a substantial endowment of $125 million created by Dorothy Killam, the awards commemorate the legacy of Dorothy and her husband, Izaak Walton Killam.

The awards realize the vision of the late couple, who greatly believed in supporting and promoting excellence in education. This belief has resulted in the provision of more than $1 billion in scholarships, fellowships and prizes awarded to scholars across the country.

For UCalgary, one of only five designated Killam universities in Canada, more than 600 scholars have benefited from these awards to date.

To learn more, please visit the Killam Awards webpage. The full list of this year’s Killam Awards recipients is:

2024 Killam Awards recipients

Killam Annual Professors

• Dr. Jeff Biernaskie, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine
• Dr. Tavis Campbell, Faculty of Arts
• Dr. Myriam Hemberger, Cumming School of Medicine
• Dr. Sasha Tsenkova, School of Architecture
• Dr. Hamidreza Zareipour, Schulich School of Engineering

Killam Emerging Research Leaders

• Dr. Deinera Exner-Cortens, Faculty of Arts
• Dr. Timothy Friesen, Faculty of Science
• Dr. Jennifer Zwicker, Faculty of Kinesiology

Killam Research and Teaching Awards

• Killam Research Excellence Award: Dr. Henry Leung, Schulich School of Engineering
• Killam Graduate Supervision and Mentorship Award: Dr. Gina Dimitropoulos, Faculty of Social Work
• McCaig-Killam Teaching Award: Dr. David Nicholas, Faculty of Social Work
• Killam Undergraduate Mentorship Award: Dr. Jerrod Smith, Faculty of Science

Killam Postdoctoral Laureates

• Dr. Rachel Coon, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine
• Dr. Isabelle Poitras, Cumming School of Medicine

First Year Predoctoral Laureates

• Milad Arabloo, Chemical & Petroleum Engineering
• Elaine Jane Atay, Psychology
• Anees Bahji, Community Health Sciences
• Brendon Besler, Electrical & Computer Engineering
• Melissa Glass, History
• Bruna Nogueira, Educational Research
• Brooke Richtik, Chemistry
• Emma Stanley, Biomedical Engineering
• Amanda Zanco, Communication & Media Studies
• Jenney Zho, Clinical Psychology

Second Year Predoctoral Laureates

• Ruth Alli, Chemical & Petroleum Engineering
• Abdullah Bernier, Educational Psychology
• Rebecca Booth, Physics & Astronomy
• Dylan Guan, Medical Science
• Chetna Khandelwal, Sociology
• Ashley Kolstad, Kinesiology
• Brittany Lee Lindsay, Psychology
• Aloysius Maduforo, Educational Research
• Shazia Ramji, English
• Sandy Rao, Cumming School of Medicine
• Mijail Rojas Carvajal, Neuroscience

2024-2025 Killam Visiting Scholar

• Dr. Leticia Rittner (hosted by the Schulich School of Engineering)