Focus: Beginning to address historic under-representation in the academy
In 2021, Waterloo announced cluster hiring initiatives as one step to address historic under-representation by committing a minimum of 12 positions for Black faculty and 12 for Indigenous faculty. Eight faculty have been hired through the Black Excellence cluster and three through the Indigenous Excellence cluster.
The Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Anti-Racism (EDI-R) Office and Office of Indigenous Relations developed a Black and Indigenous Faculty Mentorship Program to create a mutually beneficial learning environment to support retention and learning. A monitoring program will ensure that program meets key objectives. Two recent examples of the Black and Indigenous excellence cluster hires are highlighted here.
Zelalem Negeri: Dr. Negeri joined the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science as an Assistant Professor. His research interests are developing and validating statistical methods for applications in public health research, with an emphasis on aggregate data and individual participant data meta-analyses of diagnostic and screening test accuracy studies.
David Fortin: Dr. Fortin joined the School of Architecture as a professor. He is a member of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, a LEED accredited professional, and a registered architect in four provinces. Dr. Fortin developed and taught a building science course emphasizing the impact of climate change on architectural thinking and maintains research interests in speculative thinking in design.
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