Class Notes

joined The Manely Firm P.C. as a managing estate planning attorney.

Read more.

and John Noel, were granted a US patent for "Phase-change Material and Method for Producing Same".

released her fourth work of fiction, Our Forever Place, under her pen name Maren Hill. A retired chiropractor, she now writes women's fiction, romance, and children's literature.

A group of MBA'72 alumni came together in summer 2022 for a 50th reunion celebration. [L to R] Hugh Willis, David Mitten, Gregory Katchin, Mac Benoy and James Hodgins.

was nominated for a Juno Award for "Best Underground Dance Single" in 2024 with his production/DJ duo Smalltown DJs.

Bolu Ogunyemi, BSc’08, and Jennie Coleman, MLIS’98, were named to the 2023 Globe and Mail Changemakers List, honouring emerging business leaders across Canada.

Read more.

passed away peacefully in Toronto, Ontario on February 16, 2025 in her 94th year after a four-year struggle with vascular dementia resulting from stroke.

Read more.

retired from a project management career and is now traveling the continent with the goal of visiting 52 cities, 39 states, and 8 provinces.

began a new role in 2024 as a patient care coordinator for a sexual health clinic. 

passed away on July 20, 2022, after a long teaching career in Petrolia, Ontario. Read more.

was selected as this year’s emerging laureate by the Ontario Arts Council Indigenous Arts Award in 2022.

became a sculptor after almost 30 years in the telecommunications industry. His sculpture of Terry Fox was installed at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto.  

Read more.

won the Pottersfield Prize for Creative Nonfiction for his debut memoir, Hell of a Ride, about a 7,000-kilometre solo bicycle trek across Canada in support of mental health initiatives. The book comes out March 15, 2024.

Read more.

published Cinema's Original Sin: D.W. Griffith, American Racism, and the Rise of Film Culture. The book details the history of Griffith's racist epic The Birth of a Nation from 1915 to the Trump era.

Read more here.

moved into a new home in BC after completing qualitative research on pro-environmental behaviour at Western.

and Amar Gupta, MBA'17, founded brüst protein coffee and were featured on CBC's Dragons' Den in January 2024. They received three offers and closed one deal with Arlene Dickinson to fund their functional coffee business. brüst is now available at Costco, Loblaws, and through retailers across Canada.

Read more.

and Allan Svirsky, BMOS'22, founded Rondah AI and raised $120K from Techstars powered by J.P. Morgan. Rondah AI is used by dental practices across ten states and five provinces.

released her first children's novel Maya Plays the Part, featuring autism representation in a story with musical flair.

Read more.

and Amar Gupta, MBA’17, founded the functional coffee company brüst in 2018 and have recently partnered with Denis Shapovalov. Read more here.

won the Margaret & John Savage First Book Award (Non-Fiction) for Hell of a Ride: Chasing Home and Survival on a Bicycle Voyage Across Canada. The book was also a runner-up for the Evelyn Richardson Award, Nova Scotia's highest honour for non-fiction. 

passed away on January 28, 2025 in Castlegar, British Columbia. He was an instructor at Selkirk College.

released Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives: A Path to Reconciliation in Our Divided Times in September 2024. The book reflects on an epic 13-month, 53-city, 26,403-mile road trip across Canada and the United States. 

Read more.

married Zoey Kapusinski in Toronto, ON, in April 2024.

published a third graphic novel in the original series The Demonhuntress.

Read more.

recently got married.

was inducted into the College of Fellows of the Canadian Institute of Planners, the highest honour of the Institute, in recognition of excellence, exceptional achievements and service to the planning profession in Canada.

won the 2022 Prairie Fire McNally Robinson Booksellers Short Fiction Contest for his story Excavations, which will appear in the summer edition of Prairie Fire.

Read more.

was inducted into the Ontario Golf Hall of Fame in May 2025 as builder of the game in Ontario and across Canada. 

Read more.

published Immigrant to accompany her paintings featured in the 'Immigrant' exhibition. Read more here.  

was hired as an assistant professor of instrumental music education at the University of Saskatchewan.

is the artist and internationally recognized calligrapher behind @peakpaperco. Her guided grief journal titled Forget You Not from Blue Star Press & Penguin Random House releases in February 2024.

Read more.

recently was married.

was awarded the King Charles III Coronation Medal recognizing many years of community involvement in the arts and in conservation issues in Uxbridge, ON. Wynn was cartoonist for the Western Gazette in the 1950's.

started working as a clinical research coordinator for Axiom Real Time Metrics.

was named on the 100 Top Women to Watch of 2024 from Canada International Black Women Excellence at the Black Pearls Gala.

and classmates celebrated a Medway Hall reunion in August 2024. 

published Culture Clubs: The Real Fate of Societies in July 2022.

Read more.

passed away in May 2021 after a successful 55-year law career.

Read more.

passed away December 19, 2022, at his home in Durham, North Carolina. A partner to his wife of 58 years and father to eight children, Winston was a distinguished professor of Mathematics and Statistics at Penn State University.

Read more.

published her first book, Eight Bears: Mythic Past and Imperiled Future, in July 2023 through W.W. Norton. The book is a global exploration of the eight remaining species of bears and the dangers they face, from polar bears in the Arctic to the spectacled bear of the Andes.

Read more.

published a book on the crisis of meaning in society amid several chaotic world issues.

Read more.

and family welcomed their first child, a baby boy on February 9, 2024.

has been elected as the rector of the University of Chile.

retired as a marine geoscientist from the Geological Survey of Canada in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. His career in geophysics took him to many remote parts of onshore and offshore Canada, always in the company of outstanding colleagues.

passed away unexpectedly on August 10, 2022. Will's close friends from King's University College are establishing a memorial lecture in his honour.

joined the Department of Justice Canada as counsel.

passed away peacefully from acute Lymphoma on December 2, 2021 in Ottawa. 

Read more.

was promoted to Assistant Principal at Corvallis High School in Corvallis, OR,USA and was selected as scholar in the prestigious Fulbright Teachers for Global Classrooms program. 

launched Fonds pour la démocratie Matthew R. Scanlan Democracy Fund Inc., a private foundation based in Ottawa that donates grants to charities.

and fellow grads John Sprowl, Ed Zaborski and Bryan Rothery celebrated their annual golf reunion in July 2025, a tradition that began in 1981.  

and wife Jette Thomas (nee Petersen), BA’64, celebrated their 60th anniversary on August 24, 2024.

passed away on May 8, 2025 in Arizona. He received his PhD in 1996 from Indiana University Bloomington and made significant contributions in Instructional Design, problem-based learning, constructivism, and fostering student ownership. 

was named one of 25 people to watch in 2025 from the Global Gaming Business magazine for leading the first North American research center focusing on sports wagering and gambling.

Read more.

has been nominated for a Theater Library Association of New York City’s annual award for his book, Al Christie: Hollywood’s Forgotten Film Pioneer. The award recognizes performing arts scholarship that demonstrates exemplary use and interpretation of library and archival collections.

passed away on February 23, 2025, at the age of 77. He will be remembered fondly for his ability to captivate those around him with his stories, his love of reality TV, current events, history, and the stock market, as well as his unyielding dedication to his work, and his ever-present sly sense of humor and dry wit.

Read more.

launched The Ultimate Entrepreneur's Handbook in June 2024, a how-to guide on starting and growing a business.

Read more.

was appointed as the Finance Committee Chair/Secretary/Treasurer for Head Injury Rehabilitation Ontario. In 2023, George has also been appointed Chairman of Specialty Risk and Intelligence Services Inc., a consulting agency.

self-published a novel called Closer to Indigo in September 2022. Set in Victoria, BC, the story takes us through the months that lead to the lead character’s pilgrimage in Spain.

Read more.

was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Toronto Arts Foundation in September 2022. 

joined the Board of Directors of Wesley,—a non-profit offering support ranging from child care, homeless support, supportive housing, employment services and refugee settlement within Hamilton, Brantford and Halton.

returned to London after two years and started a new job at Western in University Advancement in 2023.

passed away on April 1, 2024 at age 94. After Western, Bill attended the University of Chicago, ending with a Ph.D. in New Testament and Early Christian studies. He had a successful career as a university professor. Bill was an avid reader of all subjects, particularly music and nature.

is the president of SXULTRASONIC Group, an innovative research and development enterprise based in Shenzhen, China. In 2023, the company was named Top Drug Discovery and Solutions Provider in Asia-Pacific, awarded by Pharma Tech Outlook magazine.

Read more.

married Harjot Bhandal, BMOS'16, in May 2022 in Hamilton, On. 

won the New Quarterly's 2024 Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest for The Isabel Letters, an essay about his correspondence with Canadian writer, Isabel Huggan, BA'65. Both Geoff and Isabel will appear together at the Wild Writers Festival in Waterloo, November 1-3, 2024.

was selected by The Women Leaders magazine as one of 20 Most Inspiring Women Leaders of 2022.  

passed away in December 2022. Cherished by his family, William had a successful 37-year career with Toronto Dominion Bank.

Read more.

passed away in March 2023. John had a long career in engineering and worked in Milwaukee, Toledo and Baltimore before returning to London, Ontario. He enjoyed tennis, golfing, skiing, trap-shooting, hunting and telling stories.

Read more.

received the 2023 Civic Accessibility Award from the City of Pickering for significant contributions to the well-being and advancement of people with accessibility requirements.

purchased their childhood home in Ontario in 2024.

published The Lost Tradition of Dvořák’s Operas: Myth, Music, and Nationalism in October 2023. The book examines Antonín Dvořák’s operas and vindicates and validates him as an often-overlooked opera composer. This research began at Western.

Read more.

passed away in London on February 9, 2024. Betty taught in the Department of Secretarial Sciences and was an executive assistant for two Western presidents. She retired from Western in 1988, receiving the designation Professor Emerita. Betty had a reputation as a perpetual optimist, always looking on the bright side, as evidenced by her ever-present smile. She will be missed by her loved ones.

published The Anguish of War, a two-volume set about the war dead of Windsor and Essex County. 

is pleased to be working with Grand River Hospital as a business analyst and as a part-time system analyst at St. Joseph’s Health Care London.

got into a master's program for physiotherapy in 2024.

married the love of her life in August 2022.

is hosting a 40th class reunion on Homecoming weekend, Sept. 27 to 29, 2024. Please contact ldferland@comcast.net and linda.sinnaeve@hotmail.com for more information.

has been appointed as the 14th president at Olds College of Agriculture & Technology, effective January 2023.

Read more here.

operates four businesses in science and health-care fields, as well as manufacturing industries in China.

became a Canadian citizen in April 2024 after six years in Canada and three years with Western University.

purchased their first home in Glen Cairn, London, ON.

passed away on July 10, 2024, after more than 40 years as a practicing clinical psychologist. 

Read more.

won a Cannes Lions award for the second year in a row with OLG. The program celebrates creative campaigns in the lottery and gaming sector.

published A Philosopher's Guide to Natural Capitalism: A Sustainable Future Within Reach in July 2023 by Routledge. The book posits that a sustainable future is possible without abandoning capitalism.

Read more.

received the Government of Ontario's David C. Onley Award for Leadership in Accessibility, a Women Empowerment Award for Diversity, Equality & Inclusivity, and was included on Diversability’s Disability Impact List. These prestigious awards recognize her decades-long commitment to accessibility and inclusivity.

released the English version of their third book of fiction, Illusion of Power. The story takes place in Montreal’s city hall about a mayor who confronts administrative and political pitfalls while navigating his personal life.

Joel, his wife Kim, and their son Samuel welcomed baby Isla Jade to their family in May 2022.

published his first book The Book of Benjamin from Palimpsest Press in October 2023. This literary essay on names, birth and grief is the testament of both a son and a father, contrasting genealogy with larger communal narratives. 

Read more.

was purple and proud in Antarctica this past December, completing her goal of travelling to all seven continents.

won the Canadian Screen Awards 'Best Local Reporter 2022'. 

celebrated working at the London Free Press for 25 years.

won the prestigious MusiCounts Teacher of the Year Award in 2022. Read more here.

began Somewhat Grumpy Press Inc. in the spring of 2021. At that time, the company had published one book. The company now has 10 non-fiction titles from six authors, and more coming soon.

accepted a new position with the University of New Brunswick as associate professor and chair of applied research in sales.

retired as supervisor from the Hydro Services group at Southern Company-Georgia Power in Atlanta, Georgia in March 2021. 

published her first work of fiction, HR Can Be Murder. The novel explores interpersonal relationships, the complexities of navigating work expectations, and the importance of personal growth - all in the context of a murder mystery.

Read more.

released his latest album of original folk-rock music, Free Times.

Listen here.

welcomed baby Carlos in May 2024. Carols shares a birthday with Sami. 

passed away on January 30, 2025 at the age of 50. She was a passionate early childhood educator and will be missed by her friends and family. 

Read more.

was selected by canfitpro as Canada’s Top Fitness Professional for 2022.