Faculty of Environment students and alumni come from all over the world, study in different programs and pursue careers in varying fields but there’s a common thread that unites them and ties them to their ENV roots – a passion for sustainability.
Established in 2008, Environment’s alumni awards honour and recognize the impact and accomplishments of graduates who stand out amongst the rest; individuals who are making a difference in the world, demonstrating just how far an environment degree, a heart full of passion and a lot of hard work can take you.
We are proud of everyone who was nominated this year and thrilled to introduce our three newest Environment Alumni Award winners!
Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award
The Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award is given out annually to an alumnus who has demonstrated outstanding professional or academic achievement, proven community impact and significant contributions to the natural or built environment.
This year's recipient is an environmental scholar, researcher and consultant who has married her passions for education, gender equity and the environment to establish herself as a leading expert in gender and development.
Dr. Wanjiku Chiuri (PhD ’96) grew up at the foot of Mt. Kenya where she developed a kinship with nature and also witnessed the gender inequality that would fuel her desire to create change.
It was also a childhood experience meeting a group of university graduates that sparked her imagination and planted the seed to become an educator herself.
Today, she is deputy vice chancellor of Academic, Research and Student Affairs and associate professor of Environmental Science in the Department of Earth Sciences at Laikipia University in Kenya where she led the charge to create the first daycare for female students and staff.
Chiuri also applies her expertise and knowledge to an impressive scope of consultancy projects, serving as a gender mainstreaming expert and a gender trainer in various sectors including environment, agriculture, and education.
Combining community development and academia has been a hallmark of her many successful initiatives, which include leading a tree nursery initiative, providing gender expertise to Roots, Tubers and Bananas, a food-security research collaborative, and supervising one of the most successful, nearly 100 per cent female, cooperatives in Kenya.
Friend of the Faculty Award
The Faculty of Environment Friend of the Faculty Award was established in 2019 to recognize individuals, companies or organizations who have supported the Faculty’s mission and goals through volunteerism, promotion, philanthropic leadership, collaboration or active participation.
With 23 years working in insurance, Barbara (Barb) Turley-McIntyre (MEB ’14) knew a thing or two about flooding before she began the Masters of Environment Business program.
Through her course work, she got the chance to create a solution putting flood resiliency for Canadians at the center with stakeholders collaborating around it. This was the genesis of Partners for Action (P4A).
Now in its fifth year, P4A is an established research network bringing together all three levels of government as well as business, academia and NGOs, to address flood resiliency.
The program has raised public awareness and education and has informed government and other stakeholders on policy and flood management.
Even before creating P4A, Barb had established herself as a leader in corporate sustainability. Recently retired from her role as Vice President, Sustainability and Citizenship at The Co-operators Group Limited, Barb led the organization to embed sustainability in all areas of the business, endorsing all 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and integrating nine of them into its official long-term goals.
Thanks in large part to Barb’s courageous and unremitting leadership, the company has been recognized as one of Canada’s Greenest Employers and has achieved Top 10 rankings on Corporate Knights’ “50 Best Corporate Citizens” every year since 2010, with two first place rankings, most recently in 2019.
Young Alumni Inspiration Award
Created in 2012, Young Alumni Inspiration Award recognizes the efforts and accomplishments of inspiring graduates who finished their studies within the last 10 years yet, while early in their careers, have created positive change through their work or volunteer activities.
For Eryn Stewart (BES ’15), the seed that would bloom into her outstanding career leading an award-winner Indigenous clean energy program was planted during her first co-op term.
Learning how energy projects affect Indigenous communities, Stewart saw an opportunity to create a more interactive model that both involved and benefited local Indigenous communities.
Later, on her second to last coop term, she read Aboriginal Power, by Chris Henderson and got a chance to meet the author. Eventually he would become her boss and empower her to create 20/20 Catalysts Program — an award-winning, interactive Indigenous clean energy capacity-building program designed to support communities embarking on clean energy projects.
Today, Stewart is vice president of Lumos Energy and director for Indigenous Clean Energy.
The Catalyst 20/20 program has grown to support more than 100 Indigenous communities across Canada, creating a network of Indigenous leaders and allies and establishing Stewart as a respected Indigenous ally. It’s a role she works on daily and doesn’t take for granted.
“It is important that I play a role in looking at our systems, our culture, our every day and think about how those systems are oppressive and continue to disadvantage communities, and what I am doing to perpetuate that or prevent that. I strongly encourage other people to do that.”
