Convocation Awards
Governor General's Gold Medal
Dr. Adam Groh is a cellular neuroscientist who completed his PhD under the supervision of Dr. Jo Anne Stratton at the Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital of 成人VR视频.
Adam鈥檚 doctoral thesis examined how multiciliated ependymal cells鈥攕pecialized glial cells that line the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)-filled ventricles of the brain鈥攁re modified in response to neuroinflammation, and how disruption of this glial epithelium affects periventricular CSF dynamics and the nearby subventricular niche. His work contributes to an emerging field in neuroscience that increasingly recognizes how non-neuronal cells lining the brain鈥檚 borders serve as sentinels orchestrating molecular and cellular trafficking in health and disease. His thesis research has been recognized by the Outstanding Scholars in Neuroscience Award Program at the National Institutes of Health, as well as by a Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship and a Tomlinson Doctoral Fellowship.
Beyond his work at 成人VR视频, Adam actively advocates for the importance of science in society. He has lobbied the Canadian federal government on multiple occasions alongside Multiple Sclerosis Canada, with the goal of modernizing the Canada Disability Benefit and securing dedicated federal funding for research into MS prevention and brain repair. A proponent of the history and philosophy of science, Adam has written on the history of glial neurobiology in Montreal, and aspires to help shape not only what science is conducted but also how science is conducted.
Adam will continue his training as a Human Frontier Science Program postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics at the University of Oxford. His research will explore the impact of cerebrospinal fluid and brain-border aging on adult neurogenesis.
Governor General's Gold Medal and聽D.W Ambridge Prize
Haolun Wu received the Governor General鈥檚 Gold Medal for outstanding graduate achievement at 成人VR视频 in 2025鈥�26. For more than 140 years, the Governor General鈥檚 Academic Medals have recognized the outstanding scholastic achievements of students in Canada. He was also awarded 成人VR视频鈥檚 D. W. Ambridge Prize, which recognizes one of the most outstanding graduating Master鈥檚 or Doctoral students in the Natural Sciences and Engineering division across the university.
Haolun received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from 成人VR视频 in 2026, and was a visiting scholar at Stanford University in 2025. His research focuses on human-centered and data-centric AI, with the goal of developing machine learning methods that learn from human feedback to better understand, represent, and serve human needs. His work spans personalization, information retrieval, recommendation systems, knowledge representation, trustworthy AI, and AI alignment.
During his Ph.D., Haolun interned and collaborated closely with Microsoft Research, Samsung AI Research, Google Research, and Google DeepMind. His research has contributed to both academic advances and real-world AI systems, including Google YouTube Music鈥檚 recommendation engine and Microsoft鈥檚 Alexandria knowledge base construction pipeline. In these projects, he developed methods for multi-interest personalized retrieval, structured knowledge extraction, fairness-aware recommendation, and trustworthy large language models.
Haolun鈥檚 work has led to more than 30 peer-reviewed publications in leading venues such as NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, EMNLP, SIGIR, KDD, WWW, CHI, and CSCW. During his Ph.D., he led or made core contributions to grant and fellowship proposals that helped secure over $484,000 in total funding. His research has been supported by the 成人VR视频 Graduate Excellence Award, Microsoft Research鈥揗ila Research Grants, MITACS Accelerate Fellowship, Borealis AI Fellowship, Samsung Global Research Outreach Grant, Tinker Research Grant, Cohere Labs Catalyst Grant, and the FRQNT PhD Fellowship, where he was ranked first. His academic achievements have also been recognized by over $51,000 in awards, and he has delivered more than 10 invited talks and lectures at institutions including Stanford University, Google Research, Microsoft Research, Mila, Bell Canada, and MBZUAI.
You can read more about his research here:
成人VR视频 Alumni Association Graduate Award -聽Eliane Roy
Gordon A. Maclachlan Prize
Dr. Guy Hajj-Boutros completed his PhD in Experimental Medicine at 成人VR视频, where his research focused on the impact of physical inactivity on muscle metabolism in collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Vanderbilt University and a researcher at the 成人VR视频 Health Centre, where his work focuses on skeletal muscle health.
D.W Ambridge Prize
Dr. Cory Ruchlin completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry at 成人VR视频 in 2025 under the supervision of Prof. Dima Perepichka, supported by a Doctoral Research Fellowship from the Fonds de recherche du Qu茅bec 鈥� Nature et Technologies. His research focused on the luminescence properties of organic optoelectronic materials, and how they can be modulated by intermolecular interactions in the solid state.
During his studies at 成人VR视频, Cory was involved in several independent and collaborative studies centered around using a wide range of spectroscopic techniques to elucidate electronic and photophysical characteristics of organic materials in different phases 鈥� including solutions, host-guest matrices, ordered and amorphous polymers, and crystalline solids. In the process, he also engaged in methodological development, creating new and optimizing existing techniques in spectroscopic experimentation. His thesis, 鈥淐haracterization and control of exotic excited state luminescence in organic materials鈥� details the use of supramolecular chemistry strategies to influence crystal growth and manipulate the contributing and competing processes that make up the Room Temperature Phosphorescence phenomenon.
Cory is now working as a Post-Doctoral Researcher for the 成人VR视频 Chemistry Department, expanding his research interests to the luminescent properties of organic radicals, diradicals, and co-crystals.
K.B. Jenckes Prize
Oluwagbemiga Oyinlola completed his Ph.D. in Social Work at 成人VR视频 under the supervision of Professor Tamara Sussman. His doctoral research explored how Yoruba families in Nigeria care for people living with dementia through faith, kinship, community, and healthcare systems. Grounded in phenomenological and Afrocentric approaches, his work challenges dominant Eurocentric framings of dementia caregiving that often reduce care to burden, burnout, and crisis. Instead, his scholarship repositions caregiving as a deeply relational, moral, spiritual, and communal practice. He argued that many African philosophies of care have yet to find adequate expression within mainstream academic literature; hence, drawing from Yoruba worldviews, Dr. Oyinlola foregrounds concepts such as 辞尘辞濒煤脿产铆, a philosophy of moral character, dignity, and relational responsibility and the ethic of ubuntu to show how personhood, memory, and care are sustained through relationships and shared humanity rather than through individual autonomy alone. Through conversations with caregivers and families, his research demonstrates how dementia care in Yoruba communities is sustained by reciprocity, spirituality, cultural continuity, and collective resilience. His dissertation contributes to a growing global movement calling for culturally grounded and decolonizing approaches to health and social care research with older adults. Dr. Oyinlola's work pushes the field to rethink whose knowledge counts in global health research and how African ways of knowing can reshape conversations about aging, disability, and care.
His scholarship has received recognitions, including the Vanier Canada Graduate Doctoral Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Alzheimer's Association International Conference, and awards from the Centre for Research and Expertise in Social Gerontology (CREGES). He was also a finalist with the Global Brain Health Institute at the University of California, San Francisco.
Beyond his research, Dr. Oyinlola made significant contributions to academic and community life at 成人VR视频 School of Social Work through his involvement in Black access initiatives, field education, and simulation-based learning programs. He also contributed to pioneering empirical studies examining the experiences of Black families supporting people living with dementia in Canada. His interdisciplinary scholarship bridges Afrocentric theory, community-engaged research, and methodologies to amplify the voices of those historically marginalized in health and social care scholarship.
Building on this work, Dr. Oyinlola will join the Laurentian University School of Social Work as an Assistant Professor beginning in July, where he will continue advancing research on dementia, aging, Black health, caregiving, and culturally grounded approaches to social work practice and education.
Travel Awards
Delta Upsilon Memorial Scholarship
Cassidy Keira Siobhan Sutherland, Geography
Anne-Sophie聽Guernon, Anthropology
Annika Pavlin, International Development
John Williamson Frederick Peacock Memorial Scholarship
Owen Tang, Neuroscience
Philip F. Vineberg Travelling Fellowship
Emily Zheng, Commerce
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