Contacts

Anne-Marie Fannon (she/her) is an internationally recognized leader in work-integrated learning (WIL) and currently serves as the Director of the Work-Learn Institute at the University of Waterloo. Her expertise lies in developing scalable and sustainable WIL ecosystems, which include effective industry engagement, higher education structures, and the vital role of government support.

She has played a pivotal role in advancing WIL program development both nationally and internationally. In Canada, she expanded the mandate of the Canadian Association for Co-operative Education (CAFCE) to encompass all forms of WIL, transforming it into Co-operative Education and Work-Integrated Learning (CEWIL) Canada. Additionally, she was instrumental in launching CEWIL’s Government Relations Committee and co-leading the implementation of the multi-million dollar iHUB initiative. Recently, she also co-led the revision of the national accreditation standards for co-op programs.

On the international front, Anne-Marie has consulted on WIL projects in various countries, including South Africa, Senegal, Peru, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. She is a sought-after keynote speaker and addresses a wide range of topics, from effective industry engagement to preparing students for the future of work.

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David Drewery, PhD (he/him) is the Associate Director of the Work-Learn Institute, where he leverages over a decade of experience in teaching and research to enhance work-integrated learning (WIL) programs. He collaborates with employers, post-secondary institutions, and international scholars to optimize WIL practices, with a focus on creating mutually beneficial experiences for students and industry partners.

David is also an associate editor for the only academic journal dedicated to WIL, furthering his commitment to advancing the field through impactful research and publications. He has received several national and international awards, most recently CEWIL Canada's Dr. Graham Branton award (2024) for impact on scholarly research in WIL. In his teaching and research, David is known for his expertise in social psychology and organizational behaviour, which he uses to provide insights into the complexities of WIL.

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Katie Knapp, PhD (she/her) is a Research Associate at the Work-Learn Institute. She holds a PhD in Psychology from Massey University and has over a decade of experience working in higher education as both an educator and researcher. Katie specializes in quantitative research methods and has published  over 10 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters on a range of topics including memory, brain development, and pedagogical partnerships. Katie's research focuses on understanding the experiences of students and employers participating in work-integrated learning programs. Katie’s research has been supported by a grant from the Cooperative Education and Internship Association (CEIA).

Idris Ademuyiwa, MA, PMP (he/him) is a Research Associate at the Work-Learn Institute. He holds expertise in the labour market and work-integrated learning (WIL), WIL programs impact evaluation and assessments, equity-diversity and inclusion issues in WIL, talent development and the role of WIL stakeholders, topics in the future of work, and data governance.

Idris specializes in qualitative and quantitative research methods, applied econometrics, policy analysis and program impact evaluation methods. He has led research projects on barriers to WIL experienced by students from equity-deserving groups, the Waterloo Experience Accelerate evaluation project, and the WIL and international students retention project. 

Notably, Idris has recently been recognized with the WACE 2024 Best Paper Award, and was awarded the CEWIL Canada Research Grant 2024. He has published over 20 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and policy and working papers. Idris routinely presents his work at events such as WACE, EWO and CEWIL Canada. 

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Judene Pretti is a senior advisor to the Work-Learn Institute and is currently the Director of the Strategic Enablement Team, Co-operative and Experiential Education at the University of Waterloo. Judene was the director of the Work-Learn Institute (previously WatCACE) from 2011-2021.  She is a graduate of the University of Waterloo (BMath '97, MMSc '09, PhD '19) and Queen's University (BEd '97). She is an associate editor for the International Journal of Work-Integrated Learning and the executive chair of the WACE International Research Community, and a 2020 recipient of the Dr. Graham Branton Research Award from Co-operative Education and Work-Integrated Learning Canada (CEWIL Canada).

Nada Basir is an assistant professor of Strategy at the Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business. Her research interests lie at the intersection of entrepreneurship and organizational theory. She’s especially interested in how institutions shape entrepreneurs. Her most recent work with Margaret Dalziel focuses on student started ventures and the enabling role co-operative education plays.

Professor Amelia Clarke is the co-creator and principal investigator of the Youth & Innovation Project, associate dean of research for the Faculty of Environment and an associate professor at the University of Waterloo. At the age of 23, Amelia founded the Sierra Youth Coalition, a national youth environmental group. She holds a PhD in Management from McGill University, has an active research program on youth engagement with over 25 publications and has made hundreds of presentations to academic and non-academic audiences.

Margaret Dalziel is an associate professor with the Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business and VP Research, The Evidence Network, an evaluation consultancy. She has served on expert panels related to the evaluation of innovation support for the Treasury Board Secretariat, the Ontario Ministry of Finance, the Council of Canadian Academies, the Canadian Prime Minister’s Advisory Council on Science and Technology and Statistics Canada. Her research with Nada Basir explores the relationship between co-operative education and successful entrepreneurial ventures.

Ilona is the co-creator and managing director of the Youth & Innovation Project at the University of Waterloo. She is an award winning social innovator and a regular voice in the Canadian media advising business, civil society and government on how they can tap into the value and unique abilities of young people. She has extensive leadership and governance experience having co-founded several successful organizations. In 2004, she co-founded Apathy is Boring, a non-partisan social enterprise that educates Canadian youth about democracy and encourages them to vote. Ilona was named an Ashoka Fellow in 2009, was a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012 and one of the Top 100 Most Powerful Women in Canada by the Women’s Executive Network in 2015. 

Lukasz Golab is an associate professor in the department of Management Sciences and a Canada Research Chair in Data for Good. He holds a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Toronto (2001; with High Distinction) and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo (2006; with Alumni Gold Medal for top PhD graduate). His research spans various areas in data management systems and data analysis.

Carolyn Lee is an Educational Developer for the Work-Learn Institute. In this role she works with the WxL research team to design and develop WIL education curriculum, content, and resources to support the enhancement of work-integrated learning at Waterloo, nationally and internationally. Carolyn previously worked in Co-operative Education at the University of Waterloo, developing employer engagement strategy. Carolyn is a graduate of Queen’s University (BSc ’00), University of Calgary (MSc ’04) and is pursuing a BA in Social Development Studies at the University of Waterloo.

Katherine Lithgow is the senior educational developer, Integrative and Experiential Learning for the Centre for Teaching Excellence at the University of Waterloo. She is particularly interested in how to best help students connect classroom learning to that which occurs outside the classroom in workplace, community, and social environments, and how to facilitate transfer of knowledge, skills and values across contexts.

She coordinates the Integrative and Experiential Education series, a series devoted to strategies for fostering experiential learning, and the Waterloo High Impact Practices Group, a collective of Waterloo faculty and staff who support the use of High Impact Practices in teaching and learning, and meet a few times a year to share their successes, challenges and tips for High Impact teaching and learning. She has worked on a number of Learning Innovation and Teaching Enhancement (LITE) funded grant projects including ePortfolios for Career, Reflection and Competency Integration and Bridging the Articulation of Skills Gap through WatCV: Career and Competency ePortfolios and is currently working with a team on “Evaluating a New Student-Centric Learning Approach: The Impact of SLICCs (Student-Led Individually-Created Courses) on Student Learning Outcomes.”

Christine Logel is an associate professor in the Department of Social Development Studies at Renison University College, affiliated with the University of Waterloo. Her research seeks to understand the negative effects of stigma on well-being, health and success, defined in different ways, in order to design and test social psychological interventions to reduce these negative effects. For example, a 30-minute social-belonging intervention, in the form of an online reading-and-writing task, helps students frame challenges in the transition into university as normal and temporary. As a principal investigator with the College Transition Collaborative, she and her collaborators at Indiana, UT Austin and Stanford University have partnered with colleges across North America to design, customize and evaluate these interventions at large scale. Dr. Logel’s research has been featured in media including The Atlantic, The Huffington Post and the CBC, and is published in top-tier journals in social psychology and in education. Dr. Logel earned her PhD in social psychology from University of Waterloo and held postdoctoral fellowships at University of Colorado and Stanford University.

John (Jay) Michela is an associate professor of Industrial/Organizational Psychology at the University of Waterloo. Since the 1990s, Jay has led the Waterloo Organizational Research and Consulting Group (WORC Group) as its founding director. His research in organizations involves management issues connected with leadership and teams, including teamwork that seeks entrepreneurial product innovation. His research with university students has examined (a) identity-based motivation toward career choice and (b) cognitive-motivational and experiential learning processes in development of employability skills or professional competencies. His interests in these topics has led to his collaborations with the Work-Learn Institute (formerly Waterloo Centre for the Advancement of Co-operative Education) on research around these issues for co-op students.

Nancy Waite is the associate director, Clinical Education with the School of Pharmacy. Through various academic and clinical positions in Canada and the United States, she has experience providing clinical pharmacy services in primary and acute care settings, teaching professional and student audiences and conducting pharmacy practice and education research. She has led many initiatives to create, implement and measure innovative educational programming to meet changing health care needs and advancing pharmacy practice. She is particularly interested in how a mixed work-integrated learning model contributes to student’s educational outcomes.

Shivangi Chopra is a graduate student in the Department of Management Sciences at the Faculty of Engineering in the University of Waterloo. After graduating on the Dean’s Honours List and receiving a B.A.Sc. in Computer Engineering from the University of Waterloo, she joined the Information Systems paradigm of the Management Sciences department where she specializes in big data analytics. She is interested in issues related to the dissemination, quality, applicability and retention of education and she employs various data mining tools to get a deeper understanding of the same. Her research has contributed in revealing striking attributes about student entrepreneurs and how they benefit the University ecosystem. Her current research uses data science to examine whether a gap exists between what co-op employers expect from students versus what students desire from their co-op jobs.

Maureen Drysdale is a professor, Department of Psychology, St. Jerome's University/University of Waterloo. She specializes in developmental and education psychology. As part of her work with the Waterloo Centre for the Advancement of Co-operative Education (now Work-Learn Institute), Maureen designed a comprehensive Research Methods Workshop for individuals or organizations entering into co-op research for the first time.

Bruce Lumsden served as the director of the Co-operative Education and Career Services department (CECS, now Co-operative Education and Career Action) at the University of Waterloo for eleven years. He believes that in order to understand the learning process in the classroom and the workplace, and to connect the two into a comprehensive learning experience requires relevant and substantive research. As the former director of CECS, he oversaw the growth of co-op student enrolment and the construction of the Tatham Centre, a building dedicated solely to the CECS activity. Currently (and in continuing discussion with Dr. Patricia Rowe), he is particularly interested in the quality of co-op programs and how to manage the expectations of the various partners, employers, students, and institutions in the co-op program.

Patricia Rowe is a professor emerita in the Department of Psychology and the former Dean of Graduate Studies at the University of Waterloo. She began to investigate co-operative education as an extension of her work in Industrial/Organizational Psychology, rooted in her belief in the importance of work in our lives. Along with her graduate students, Dr. Rowe has published a number of articles on various aspects of co-operative education, which have been recognized by the awarding of the Don Maclaren Award, the James W. Wilson Award, and the Tyler Award. She is currently studying work experience including its nature and effects on the young worker, and the various characteristics of work that are related to those effects.

Gary Waller is a professor emeritus in the Department of Psychology and the former director of the Waterloo Centre for the Advancement of Co-operative Education (WatCACE, now Work-Learn Institute). He chose to study co-operative education due to its clear positive impacts upon students at the University of Waterloo. As one of the co-founders of WatCACE, he has examined training for work, teamwork in the workplace, training development and evaluation. He has co-authored and co-edited nine books examining the various aspects of human performance. While not currently researching co-operative education, he remains interested in the research activities of the Work-Learn Institute and the development of co-operative education programs.