Alumni News

May 5, 2020

Blake VanBerlo, BESc’17, and his colleagues are developing a machine learning model that classifies chest X-rays of severe cases of COVID-19.

May 1, 2020

Tiff Macklem, MA’84, PhD’89, has been named Governor of the Bank of Canada, succeeding fellow alumnus Stephen Poloz, MA’79, PhD’82.

April 28, 2020

Brent Shea, BA’80 (King’s), Honors Certificate’03 (King’s), MPA’09, and his wife Becky, BA’79 (King’s), met while on campus. His three sons are also proud Mustangs.

April 27, 2020

Global toys and games giant Spin Master – founded and led by three Western alumni – has diverted some of its efforts and materials into assembling protective face shields for health-care workers.

April 27, 2020

Dr. Whitney Dillon, BSc’08, is a family physician in Virgil, Ont. and is currently working on the front lines at her local COVID-19 assessment centres.

April 16, 2020

Lirim Hajrullahu, BA'13, MA'15, recently inked a three-year deal with the Los Angeles Rams.

March 31, 2020

Kevin Vuong, BMOS’11, and Larry Lau, BA’09, MBA’18, have launched TakeCare Supply, producing and selling facemasks to essential, non-health-care workers.

March 26, 2020

Geoff Dillon, BSc’10, and his team have transitioned Dillon’s Small Batch Distillers from producing vodka and gin to hand sanitizer for front-line workers in the battle against COVID-19.

March 16, 2020

Written by Tanya Harrison, PhD’16, and Danny Bednar, PhD’19, For all Humankind tells the story of the Apollo 11 Moon landing through the eyes of eight ‘regular’ observers from around the globe.

March 12, 2020

Karen and Angie Bellehumeur not only share the same faculty, but the mother and daughter now find themselves sharing the same class.

March 2, 2020

Western professor Aaron Fenster and alumnus Dr. Zane Cohen, BA’65, stand among 21 new appointments to the Order of Ontario, Lieutenant Governor Elizabeth Dowdeswell recently announced.

February 24, 2020

Award-winning singer-songwriter Amanda Martinez, BSc’94, recently released her latest album, Libre, a love song to “my African roots; the joy of collaboration with other singers and musicians; and the utter joy of singing freely.”

February 14, 2020

Danielle Alcock, MA’14, PhD’19, has been appointed as the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry’s Indigenous Leader in Residence.

February 13, 2020

Senator Marty Deacon, MA’82, BEd’84, remains passionate about the physical and mental well-being of all Canadians and believes that sport, the arts and education can build better communities.

January 29, 2020

For six years, Craig Saari, BA’01, BEd’02, has been president, coach, manager, troubleshooter and mobilizer at the Forest City Velodrome.

January 21, 2020

Dorothy Ellen Palmer’s, BA’82, recently published ‘Falling For Myself: A Memoir’ that documents her life as an educator, author, disability activist and child of adoption.

January 20, 2020

Cory Jones, P.Eng., BESc’97, has spent his entire career working with Indigenous communities to implement water treatment and distribution systems.

January 9, 2020

BNN Bloomberg journalist Jon Erlichman, BA’99, is one of the top Biz Twitter follows in the country thanks to a unique style of highlighting winners and losers, near-misses and might-have-beens – all in 280 characters or fewer.

January 6, 2020

Six Western alumni are among 120 newly named appointments to the Order of Canada, one of the country’s highest honours.

December 31, 2019

Richard M. Ivey, HBA’47, LLD’79, the renowned philanthropist and education advocate who helped elevate Western and its business school to international prominence, died Saturday, Dec. 28.

December 9, 2019

A software engineer at Snap Inc., Laura Smith, BESc/HBA’14, credits her professors with inspiring her avid pursuit of software engineering

December 9, 2019

Alumnus Rick Konrad, BSc’75, begins his two-year term as Chair of Western’s Board of Governors on Jan. 1, 2020.

December 9, 2019

Cynthia Liao, HBA’14, was recently named a Schwarzman Scholar, one of 145 young leaders to receive this distinguished scholarship to pursue a master’s degree in global affairs at Schwarzman College at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

December 6, 2019

Teacher and Toronto Raptors broadcaster Paul Jones, BEd’82, MA’84, has compressed two careers into one lifetime – and he’s still going.

December 4, 2019

Editor/owner Tara de Ryk, BA’92, has launched a contest seeking a buyer for her Saskatchewan weekly newspaper – the price being $1 and an editorial.

November 27, 2019

Eleven Western alumnae have been named recipients of the 2019 Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 Award, the Women’s Executive Network recently announced.

November 27, 2019

One of only 11 Canadian students honoured this year, Patrick Hickey, HBA’19, becomes the 24th Rhodes Scholar in Western history.

November 18, 2019

Jennifer Robson, BA’92, is the author of the international best-seller The Gown, a novel that tells the story of the creation of then-Princess Elizabeth’s wedding gown.

November 18, 2019

For her latest adventure, Sam Magg, BA'10, is writing a young adult novel featuring Wasp, one of Marvel’s smallest superheroes in terms of size but certainly not in stature.

November 12, 2019

Eternity Martis, BA’14, will release her debut memoir, ‘They Said This Would Be Fun,’ next spring. The book captures her difficulty navigating white spaces as a woman of colour.