Professor Aimée Morrison named Trudeau Foundation Fellow

The Faculty of Arts is proud to share the news that Aimée Morrison, associate professor in the Department of English Language and Literature, has been awarded one of five 2019 Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Fellowships. Morrison is the second Trudeau Foundation Fellow from Waterloo Arts in the past four years — political science professor Bessma Momani received a Fellowship in 2015.

Morrison is a scholar of new media studies with expertise in social media behaviours and cultures. Her research, teaching, and public engagement have addressed contemporary issues such as viral academic media, hashtag social justice activism, how social media constructs and enables new interpersonal and political interactions, and how minoritized identity groups contest stigmatized representation through media.

Providing up to 50 media interviews per year, and with a robust social media following of her own, Morrison is well established in Canada as a go-to expert on impacts of social media and computer technologies. Her appearances include long-form interviews with CBC’s national radio program Spark; and she recently appeared as a commentator in a Hot Doc’s feature film by director John Walker called Assholes: A Theory—speaking about strategies to counter ‘assholery’ online.

“The take-up of my work by journalists, activists, and public audiences indicates a strong hunger for public-facing expertise on these issues, right now, and every day,” said Morrison.

The Trudeau Foundation Fellowships are awarded to accomplished scholars in the humanities and social sciences whose work offers “reflection and action in human rights and dignity, responsible citizenship, Canada in the world, and people and their natural environment.” Over a three-year term, Fellows will receive up to $50,000 per year, plus travel funds, to support their research and promote scholarly engagement and collaboration within the Trudeau Foundation community of Scholars, Fellows, and Mentors.