Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellows

About the Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellowship

The University of Toronto Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellowship program provides funding to increase opportunities for hiring postdoctoral fellows from underrepresented groups, specifically Indigenous and/or Black researchers. These fellowships will enable postdoctoral researchers to grow their scholarly profiles, undertake academic work at the University of Toronto, and strengthen the research environment at the University with diverse perspectives.

“This Fellowship is important for persons, like myself, engaging in critical decolonial and anti-imperial work as we continue to emphasize the deeply complicated relationships that Black Indigenous and People of Colour communities share with our worlds across time, place and space.”

Nikoli Attai
2019 Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellowship recipient

Full profile ⇨

Fellows in the News

New U of T professor Nadège Compaoré on being Black in academia and why representation matters

Next July, Nadège Compaoré will start as an assistant professor of political science at the University of Toronto Mississauga. She describes the position as her “dream job” – the culmination of an obstacle-filled academic journey that began 19 years ago when she arrived in Canada from Burkina Faso on a full scholarship.

Read more ⇨

‘Where are all the Black men in higher education?’

Ahmed Ali Ilmi, anti-racist educator and scholar asked this throughout his post-secondary experience.

Over the next two years, Ilmi will tackle this question as the first Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellow at OISE.

Read more ⇨

News Links

New U of T professor Nadège Compaoré on being Black in academia and why representation matters (U of T News, July 2019)

‘We need to find the voices of Black males’: Ahmed Ali Ilmi joins OISE as Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellow (OISE News, November 2019)

‘Earned, not given’: New Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellowship recognizes research excellence of Black and Indigenous scholars (SGS News, November 2019)

Announcing the 2019 Fellows

Cycle 1 Fellows (Spring 2019)

Cycle 2 Fellows (Fall 2019)

  • Abdallatif Abdalrhman, Department of Civil & Mineral Engineering
  • Abdikarim Abdullahi , Department of Physiology
  • Gerald Bareebe, Department of Political Science (UTSC)
  • Kristen Bos, Women & Gender Studies Institute (A&S)
  • Lori Chambers, Factor Inwentash School of Social Work
  • Nicole Marie  Muir, Department of Public Health Sciences
  • Mary Rambaran-Olm, Department of English and Drama (UTM)
  • Ian Tobias, Department of Cell and Systems Biology

Cycle 3 Fellows (2020)

  • Justin Beland, University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (FASE)       
  • David Green, Department of Applied Psychology & Human Development (OISE)
  • Meagan Hamilton, Department of Geography & Planning (A&S)
  • Samantha Jackson, Department of Language Studies (UTM)
  • Kalonde Malama, Factor Inwentash School of Social Work
  • Notisha Massaquoi, Factor Inwentash School of Social Work
  • Lisa Ndejuru, Faculty of Information
  • Ikenna Okeke, Department of Civil & Mineral Engineering (FASE)
  • Safia Omer, Department of Biological Sciences (UTSC)

“This program is invaluable because it gives me an opportunity to work with leading experts in my field and provide me with the necessary support to commence my new research study.”
— Nemoy Lewis

Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellowship recipients at the Faculty Club luncheon, October 2019. (L to R: Nadège Compaoré, Debby Danard, Ahmed Ilmi, and Nikoli Attai). Other recipients include Nemoy Lewis (FAS, Geography, supervisor Prof. Deborah Cowen), Jorge Luis Fabra-Zamora (Faculty of Law, supervisor Prof. Jutta Brunnée), and Kilian Nasung Atuoye (UTM, Geography, supervisor Prof. Vincent Z. Kuuire).

Additional Information

Learn more about Postdoctoral Awards