From: Trevor Young, Vice-President & Provost
Susan McCahan, Vice-Provost, Innovations in Undergraduate Education
Date: April 10, 2025
Re: 2024-25 Recipients of the Cheryl Regehr Early Career Teaching Award (PDAD&C #30)
We are delighted to announce the recipients of the 2024-25 Cheryl Regehr Early Career Teaching Award. In addition to congratulating this year’s recipients, we would like to thank the nominators for their work in preparing submissions. We would also like to thank the members of the selection committee for their dedication to recognizing excellence in teaching at the University of Toronto.
Cheryl Regehr Early Career Teaching Award, 2024-25
This award recognizes faculty members who demonstrate an exceptional commitment to student learning, pedagogical engagement and teaching innovation. This year the committee granted six awards of $3,000.
Lauren McLeod Cramer
Assistant Professor
Cinema Studies Institute, Faculty of Arts & Science
Professor Lauren McLeod Cramer is an Assistant Professor in the Cinema Studies Institute. Researching the aesthetics of blackness and popular culture, her published writing explores a wide variety of “art objects” including WorldStarHipHop.com, the videos from Jay-Z’s 4:44, Peter Eisenman’s architectural designs, and Meghan Markle’s wedding. Professor Cramer brings this eclectic archive into each of her classes, where her approach to content (“She literally changed the way I see images”); her emphasis on methodological and meta-pedagogical dimensions of course work and assignment design (“She taught us how to learn better”); and her gift for calling students and colleagues into the project of making the university a welcoming space (“She has rewarded her students and community with so much”) has already had a significant impact on the pedagogical culture of the Cinema Studies Institute and beyond. Colleagues describe her as singularly gifted and inspiring pedagogue while students call her teaching “transformative.” Professor Cramer’s innovative classes are matched by her critical contributions to pedagogical theory, which include “Spectacles of Anti-Black Violence and Contemporary Black Horror” a dossier on teaching in the face of anti-Black violence and “Parallel Praxes,” a learning experiment awarded funding by the Global Classrooms Initiative. Beyond the classroom, Professor Cramer shares cinema studies with her community by volunteering for the Imani Academic Mentorship Program, mentoring aspiring filmmakers in the REFRAME program, and celebrating Black History Month with the Raptors/Hackergirl. Professor Cramer might be “in a class by herself,” but through her tireless efforts changing what we teach, how we teach, and who we reach, she has proven that excellence is a question of building bridges, fostering conversation and sharing opportunities.
John De Backere
Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream
Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Arts & Science
Professor John De Backere joined the Department of Chemistry as an Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, in 2021. His teaching focuses on enriching students’ laboratory experiences by integrating more authentic and contextualized experiments to engage students in the research process through discovery- and problem-based inquiry. In collaboration with faculty, undergraduates and graduate students, Professor De Backere has developed several innovative experiments reflecting real-world research and fostering collaborative learning.
Professor De Backere is passionate about green and sustainable chemistry education, aspiring to equip students with the skills and mindset beyond the traditional lens of chemistry to address global challenges responsibly. Beyond his own classroom, he has made significant contributions towards advancing and advocating for educational reform, including partnering with the non-profit organization Beyond Benign as a Faculty Fellow to develop open-access resources and support peer communities. Recently, he and his colleagues received a 2024-2025 Green Chemistry Education Challenge Award to create a green chemistry workshop for local high school teachers.
Embracing digital technologies as effective tools to modernize teaching and learning, Professor De Backere developed a free augmented reality (AR) mobile app to visualize molecular symmetry and orbitals, which was featured on the front cover of the Journal of Chemical Education in 2024. His commitment to student success is also reflected in initiatives such as co-developing an interactive online equity, diversity, and inclusivity (EDI) workshop for all first-year chemistry students. In addition to publishing in journals, he’s presented at numerous academic events and conferences, as well as co-organizing several symposia and workshops.
Naomi Levy-Strumpf
Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream
Human Biology Program, Faculty of Arts & Science
Since joining the Human Biology Program in 2019, Professor Levy-Strumpf has developed a multifaceted biotechnology curriculum that integrates experiential and academic learning to foster leadership, innovation, and resourcefulness. She collaborates with community and industry partners to create scaffolded experiential learning opportunities and promotes interdisciplinary education tailored to the current landscape of the fast-evolving biotechnology sector. In collaboration with colleagues from the Department of Computer Science and students, and in consultation with industry partners, she is developing e-learning modules that bridge the two disciplines. These modules introduce life science students to fundamental concepts in artificial intelligence, data science and software design for health applications. Committed to providing innovative and unique learning experiences, Professor Levy-Strumpf has adopted digital technology to introduce active learning in large courses and has further developed the platform to facilitate broad-based use across disciplines. She employs a nurturing pedagogy of relationship and care and implements a human-centred design approach where student choice is integral to course design. Her digital pedagogy enables students to explore different approaches to learning, encourages peer-to-peer learning, and creates an active learning cycle that integrates in-class and out-of-class learning spaces to foster a sense of community, curiosity and a love of learning. She implements data-driven design by leveraging Quercus analytics to evaluate the effectiveness of resources and pedagogical strategies and is deeply involved in mentoring faculty and students. Professor Levy-Strumpf is also the recipient of Ranjini (Rini) Ghosh Excellence in Teaching Award and the Faculty of Arts & Science Early Career Outstanding Teaching Award.
Aditi Mehta
Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream
Urban Studies Program and Department of Geography & Planning, Faculty of Arts & Science
Professor Aditi Mehta has been an Assistant Professor of Urban Studies at the University of Toronto since 2018. Her research sits at the intersection of community development, environmental justice and media studies. She designs courses and research projects in collaboration with non-profit organizations for the purpose of social change.
Professor Mehta’s teaching philosophy centers on broadening knowledge production and fostering critical engagement with urban inequality and justice. Her goal is to instill civic values in students, moving them to use their skills, talents and knowledge for societal benefit. This goal is reflected in her innovative curricular and co-curricular practices that foster on-going, meaningful and ethical relationships between the teaching of urban studies and the city-building work happening in communities locally and farther afield.
Professor Mehta was awarded the SSHRC Partnership Engagement Grant for her participatory action research course in which university students, members of the non-profit FOCUS Media Arts, and neighbourhood residents collaborated to conduct research and produce media about Regent Park’s rapid revitalization/gentrification. She leads the Multidisciplinary Urban Capstone Project in India, travelling to Pune and Mumbai, India for site visits and field research with students each year.
Professor Mehta’s commitment to teaching excellence extends far beyond the classroom through significant contributions to institutional initiatives and broader pedagogical leadership and mentorship. She was a Senior Community Engaged Faculty Fellow at the Centre for Community Partnerships, re-designed the Activating Community Leadership course at the Toronto Centre for Learning and Development, and co-developed the annual international School of Cities Mixed-Methods Doctoral Workshop.
Shelby Riskin
Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream
Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Faculty of Arts & Science
Professor Shelby Riskin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology where she teaches a broad range of courses ranging from ecosystem ecology to conservation biology to plants and society. Professor Riskin is largely interested in the impact of global change on organisms and ecosystems as well as how we teach and talk about issues of environmental challenge and the risk of environmental catastrophe. She brings a commitment to fostering thoughtful conversation and authentic learning experiences in her courses including facilitating field trips, flipped classroom approaches, and immersing students in research. She has mentored over 30 undergraduate research projects focused on both pedagogical and ecological questions. Outside of the classroom Professor Riskin is an author of Biology: Exploring the Diversity of Life, one of Canada’s leading first year biology textbooks. She is also passionate about outreach and community engaged learning, helping to develop a school program for students in grades 4 to 6 on waste literacy and the ecological consequences of plastic pollution that is taught by U of T students throughout Toronto.
Lisa Zhang
Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream
Department of Mathematical & Computational Science, University of Toronto Mississauga
Professor Lisa Zhang is an Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, in the Department of Mathematical & Computational Sciences at the University of Toronto Mississauga. She holds non-budgetary cross-appointments at the Institute for the Study of University Pedagogy and the Institute for Management & Innovation. Her teaching and research interests span writing education and artificial intelligence education within computer science, with an emphasis on undergraduate engagement and mentorship. She regularly supervises and publishes with undergraduate students in computing education. In recognition of her outstanding contributions, she received UTM’s Teaching Excellence Award for Junior Faculty in 2024. Professor Zhang has offered leadership in launching the Computer Science Writing Development Initiative at UTM, a large-scale, collaborative effort that embeds authentic writing instruction across the Computer Science curriculum. The initiative impacts over 1,400 students annually in more than six courses, involving the coordination of 1,000+ TA hours and collaboration with faculty members across multiple departments. This work was recognized with a Best Paper award at SIGCSE, the largest international conference in computing education. Additionally, Professor Zhang is an emerging leader in machine learning education. She was recognized by the artificial intelligence education community with the EAAI New and Future AI Educator Award in 2020. She consistently receives excellent teaching evaluations in rigorous and highly sought-after machine learning courses, and her innovative resources have been adopted by educators at and beyond the University of Toronto.