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Addressing anti-Blackness in education, empowering trans life, and enhancing STEM education are just some of the enterprising topics brought to the fore by 91����’s winners of the Connaught New Researcher Award.

The award, part of the University of Toronto , helps new tenure-stream faculty establish competitive research programs, thereby increasing their competitiveness for external funding. The program celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2022 and is Canada’s largest internal university research funding program.

Assistant Professors Linda Iwenofu, Feng Ji, Eric Lavigne, Michelle Lui, and Qui Alexander – this year’s winners – are breaking new ground by asking profound questions and bringing attention to complex topics.

“Professors Iwenofu, Ji, Lavigne, Lui, and Alexander are pursuing research programs that will generate impact in our local and global communities,” said Professor Michele Peterson-Badali, 91����’s Associate Dean, Research, International and Innovation.

“On behalf of the 91���� community, I congratulate these excellent 91���� scholars on securing Connaught New Researcher Awards.”

U of T recognized 51 faculty members across its three campuses with this award in 2024. Approximately $1.25 million was allocated to this year’s competition, supporting funding up to $25,000.

Learn more about our winners and their areas of focus below.

Linda Iwenofu

Department of Applied Psychology & Human Development

Project: Anti-Black Racism and the Health of Black Children and Youth: A Mixed Method Systematic Review & Meta-Analysis

Prof. Iwenofu's scholarship focuses on understanding the ways in which individual differences such as race, ethnicity, poverty, immigration and exposure to adverse events impact child and youth trajectories toward health and wellness. She teaches courses in psychoeducational assessment, clinical child and adolescent psychology and clinical assessment and intervention with culturally and linguistically diverse children, youth and families.

What is your primary research question, and how do you plan  to explore it?

For a long time, I’ve been engaged with research exploring how aspects of cultural diversity and exposure to adverse events impact child and youth development. Relatedly, as a clinical child psychologist, I have worked for many years with underserved communities of youth with intersecting minoritized identities (e.g., racial and gender minorities) facing multiple adversities. As a result of my scholarly and clinical experiences, my research focus is currently centered on understanding the role of racial identity in influencing mental health and wellbeing.

I am especially interested in Black young people, who remain disproportionately underserved in the mental health sector, and for whom systemic anti-Black racism (ABR) is a critical social determinant of health. My primary research questions is: What are the mechanisms through which ABR impacts the mental health of Black children, youth and families? The Connaught New Researcher award will allow my lab to engage a large-scale mixed method systematic review and meta-analysis that will help us obtain an integrated understanding of current evidence documenting the relationship between ABR and a variety of health outcomes among children, adolescents and emerging adults. This will be the first study of this kind, both in Canada and internationally, with a focus on the outcomes of Black young people specifically.

What does this award mean to you in your journey as an 91���� researcher?

Given the rising mental health needs of Black children and youth, and the recent proliferation of related research, funding from the Connaught New Researcher Award represents a timely resource that will enable my team to: 1) more comprehensively identify gaps in the current research, establishing a solid foundation for future studies, and 2) inform evidence-based approaches for addressing ABR and mitigating its health impacts across a variety of applied contexts (e.g., schools, community, health service) through varying modalities of impact (e.g., policy, clinical training).

As I embark on this emerging area of scholarship within the Canadian context, this Connaught-funded research will help my research team to continue to attract external funding support to achieve the objectives of my research program at 91����. It will set the stage for the much-needed expansion of high-quality research addressing Black child and youth mental health and the systemic barriers that they face when they seek access to appropriate, culturally responsive care.

Feng Ji
Department of Applied Psychology & Human Development
Project: AI-assisted Research Methods? An Evaluation of Large Language Models (LLMs) on Assisting in Meta Analysis

Dr. Feng Ji began a tenure stream appointment at the rank of Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development. Dr. Ji received a PhD in Biostatistics from the University of California, Berkeley with previous training and degrees in psychology and education. He has extensive expertise in applying, evaluating, and developing quantitative and statistical methods in behavioral, educational, and social sciences research. His peer-reviewed articles have appeared in methodology journals such as Psychometrika, Psychological Methods, and Multivariate Behavioral Research, as well as substantive research journals such as Child Development and Applied Linguistics. Dr. Ji’s academic expertise is complemented by considerable industry experience: he has worked at Google as a research data scientist and at American College Testing (ACT) as a research psychometrician.

What is your primary research question, and how do you plan to explore it?

A key research question for this project I am investigating is how to automate aspects of systematic reviews and meta-analyses, which are crucial for synthesizing evidence but often time-consuming. I plan to explore how recent advancements in generative AI can be utilized to streamline this process, identifying effective methods that maintain accuracy while reducing manual effort.

What does this award mean to you in your journey as an 91���� researcher?

This award marks an important milestone in my research journey. It provides both recognition and a strong support for my work.

Eric Lavigne
Department of Leadership, Higher & Adult Education
Project: The Challenge of Change in Higher Education: A Pilot Study of Northern Ontario Colleges and Universities

Dr. Lavigne’s research interests include: higher education administration, management, and leadership; organizational change; decision-making; political behaviour; and administrators’ careers, recruitment, and performance evaluations.

What is your primary research question, and how do you plan to explore it?

I want to understand how higher education administration works (and fails to work), and how administrators enact their roles. The primary research question guiding this project is how administrators experience and make sense of change, as well as the absence of change, in their units. The study focuses on colleges and universities in Northern Ontario.

What does this award mean to you in your journey as an 91���� researcher? 

The award allows me to launch a new line of research—organizational change in higher education—that broadens my scholarship. It increases my perceived legitimacy and experience, which in turn helps me secure future grants, foster collaborations, and provide meaningful research experiences for students.

Michelle Lui
Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning
Project: Unlocking the future of immersive learning through inclusive design: Enhancing STEM education with collaborative virtual reality simulations

Dr. Lui’s research centers on designing and evaluating digital learning technologies for developing deep understandings and collaborative scientific practices, with a focus on immersive technologies such as virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR). Her interdisciplinary design and research work draws from over 12 years of industry and academic experience in digital media design, education, computing, and media studies. Dr. Lui’s published academic work appears in numerous refereed journal articles and refereed conference proceedings. In addition, she has received awards and contributed to research projects funded by SSHRC, NSF, and CIHR.

What is your primary research question, and how do you plan to explore it?

The project explores the primary research question: How can collaborative VR simulations be effectively designed for implementation in undergraduate STEM courses to enhance learning outcomes while prioritizing inclusivity and diverse needs? This will be explored through a participatory design approach involving multiple co-design sessions with small teams of STEM educators and undergraduates. Several topics will be addressed to highlight unique design considerations for context-specific requirements.

What does this award mean to you in your journey as an 91���� researcher?

As an interdisciplinary scholar, my practice is driven by a core participatory design philosophy to develop technology solutions with stakeholders to address real-world challenges. This award signifies recognition that innovative educational technology cannot be created in silos and that research on how to create inclusive and pedagogically sound experiences drawing from the experiences of many is needed to advance our understanding. As an 91���� researcher, the project on designing collaborative VR experiences is one step in my quest to leverage emerging technologies for designing captivating and engaging learning experiences that can be adopted widely—however long the trajectory may be.

What questions/research interests/past work or experiences informed the project?

Some of my past work has involved designing collaborative room-sized immersive experiences as well as solo VR learning experiences. I have seen firsthand the richness that peer interactions and group discussions can add to learning complex topics and the need for guidance in open-ended simulations designed to address interconnected relationships within systems and different levels of thinking. At the same time, we are envisioning ways to reach more students with immersive experiences, such as in large-enrolment undergraduate science classes. This project looks at the various ways in which students can engage with VR simulations—together in the same physical space, remotely, and even when only some are wearing VR headsets while others may be using tablets or laptops to access the environment.

This project represents a concrete step in understanding how to design collaborative VR experiences that best support learning, considering pedagogical considerations, diverse student needs, and practical challenges—to dissolve the boundaries of physical classrooms.

Qui Alexander
Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning
Project: Giving Black Trans Life: Creating Spaces for Radical Study In and Beyond the University

Dr. Alexander’s current research explores pedagogies of abolitionist praxis in the lived experience of Black trans individuals. Their research and teaching interests include Black trans studies, abolition and transformative justice, Black feminist thought, Black radical tradition, queer Black feminist praxis, critical pedagogies, and queer/trans youth of colour.

Dr. Alexander’s academic work is complemented by extensive community organizing experience, building advocacy, programming, health education and community for LGBTQ2S+ individuals through service roles at the University of Minnesota, Haverford College, the Attic Youth Center and the Mazzoni Centre in Philadelphia.

What is your primary research question, and how do you plan to explore it?

My primary research questions include:

1. If Black trans life is pedagogical, what can be learned from creating spaces that are grounded in the values and commitments of Black trans liberation?
2. What becomes possible through the collective experiences of these spaces and what does that teach us about the nature of teaching and learning?

I intend to study how non-classroom spaces at universities are mobilizing Black trans ways of knowing. This project will hopefully provide background research to develop a Black trans praxis lab here at 91����, where students and community members will be able to study how to enact abolitionist praxis in their community work. Ultimately, my research aims to encourage education researchers to think about teaching and learning in more expansive ways beyond schools.

What does this award mean to you in your journey as an 91���� researcher?

This award will be instrumental in developing my research program at 91����. It will allow me to collaborate with other queer/trans faculty, students and community members to create new interventions that trouble traditional notions of education as both a process and a discipline.