Alumni News

Notes on the milestones and achievements in the lives of our alumni. There are plenty of ways to stay in touch! www.utsconnect.ca alumni@utschools.ca @utschools @utschools / @rosemary_evans @utschools

NEWS AND MOVES

He’s the Mayor of Toronto, and now named the fifth most influential Torontonian by Toronto Life magazine. Congratulations to the Honourable John Tory O Ont ’72.

Congratulations to the Honourable Jill Miriam Copeland ’85, a Judge of the Superior Court of Justice of Ontario in Toronto, for her new appointment as a Justice of Appeal of the Court of Appeal for Ontario. We wish her the best in her new role. School in Bloomfield Hills and Birmingham, Michigan. Founded in 1941, Roeper is the oldest preschool through grade 12 school for gifted students in the U.S.

Oliver Jerschow ’92 took the helm as the Chief Administrative Officer of the Town of Innisfil last fall, building on his previous work as Vice President, Employer and Stakeholder Relations at the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System and multiple roles at the Province of Ontario.

University of British Columbia professor Kai Chan ’93 is newly appointed as a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Re-Wilding and Social-Ecological Transformation. His research seeks to find ways to transform ecosystems so they can survive and thrive amidst climate change.

She’s leading the way! Congrats to UTSAA Treasurer Sara Son Hing ’97 for being named one of the Top 100 Most Powerful Women in Canada for 2021 by the Women’s Executive Network in the emerging leaders category for her work at RBC as Vice President of Retail Delivery Model and Advisor Role Strategy.

Noel Semple ’98 is running as the Ontario Liberal Party candidate in Etobicoke Centre for the provincial election. He is currently a professor at the University of Windsor Faculty of Law.

As an outlet for the challenges of working in medicine during the pandemic, pediatrician Dr . Rachel Barrett ’06 joined Voices Rock Medicine, a choir of women physicians. This spring, she took part in the choir’s incredible

Christopher Federico ’91 is appointed the new Head of School at The Roeper

// The incredible story and antidiscrimination trailblazing of Dr . Irene Cybulsky ’78 were featured in Toronto Life. She was the first woman to head a cardiac surgery division in Canada. Seven years later, when she was dismissed from this role at Hamilton Health Sciences, she filed a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario and represented herself. She left medicine and studied law. Last year the Tribunal ruled that Cybulsky had experienced discrimination based on her gender. Now qualified as a lawyer, Cybulsky hopes her perseverance and success will inspire others to confront implicit biases and expectations that continue to disadvantage female leaders.

// Pandemic pivot to politics: Mount Sinai Hospital geriatrics specialist Dr . Nathan Stall ’04 was acclaimed as the Ontario Liberal Candidate for the riding of Toronto – St. Paul’s and will be running in the provincial election, hoping to reclaim the riding for the Liberals. The pandemic and serving on the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table inspired him to make the leap. “It changed everything for me personally, seeing that I could be out there publicly advocating for something and advising, and trying to exact change and to protect vulnerable individuals,” Stall told QP Briefing. “And that’s something that I see coming out of this, the greatest opportunity for me to further that work as a public office. And that’s why I’ve decided to do this.”

performance of Fight Song on Canada’s Got Talent. In the promo for the show she spoke of her work during the pandemic: “You wake up in the morning scared… But if we don’t do it, who’s going to do it?”

Ballet dancers Cynthia Smithers ’06 and Rebecca Moranis ’16 performed together in Opera Atelier’s Angel, a breathtaking battle between good and evil set to opera that premiered virtually this fall.

Kudos to Heather Tang ’15, who leads Google Canada’s onplatform COVID-19 response initiatives, for joining the prestigious Schwarzman Scholars Class of 2023. Next fall, Heather, who is passionate about accelerating social impact through tech entrepreneurship and public policy, will be off to Schwarzman College at Beijing’s Tsinghua University for her master’s in global affairs.

Anjalee Narenthiren ’20 founded Startup Dojo, an intensive one-year program to help teens build real businesses. It’s backed by Canadian corporations like Kinaxis, EllisDon and Fiix, and offers scholarships.

AWARDS

Dr . John Stone ’85 won a Folger Shakespeare Library fellowship for 202122 for his project, Mapping Englishlanguage Shakespeare in Print in Spain before 1810. Next year he will start another fellowship at Durham University and previously he completed one at Yale’s Lewis Walpole Library.

Nicholas HuneBrowne ’00 received the 2022 Canadian Hillman Prize for Journalism from The Sidney Hillman Foundation for his investigative feature at The Walrus that chronicled the impact of the business of international education on the lives of international students.

Congratulations to Rachel Sava ’18 for wrapping up her undergrad at University College London with the Burnstock Prize for the Best BSc in Neuroscience, and winning the ESOP scholarship for her master’s in biotechnology at ETH Zürich. “This first month in Switzerland has been otherworldly!” she says.

IN THE MEDIA

Noah Shopsowitz ’72, P ’07, Chief Executive and Founder of packaging and accessories brand Clikbo Labs, was featured in the Financial Post for his collaborative plunge into non-fungible tokens with artist David Krovblit, creating the Bomb Squad NFT. Part of the sales will support an anti-violence campaign.

When Krystyne Rusek ’93 was charged a $50 wire transfer fee by TD Bank for donating to the Ukrainian government war efforts, she spoke out and was featured on CBC News for her efforts. Now the bank and others are waiving these fees on transfers to Ukraine.

Epidemics like COVID-19 and HIV tend to move along fault lines in our society, Dr . Darrell Tan ’94, an infectious diseases physician and clinicianscientist, told TVO’s The Agenda in the fall on World AIDS Day as he discussed HIV treatment breakthroughs.

UTSAA Director and entomologist and evolutionary biologist Dr . Jessica Ware ’95 shared her bug expertise on the new Netflix show with podcast host and activist Jonathan Van Ness, Getting Curious.

LITERARY

The biography of the late Dr . John Reid ’31, The Captain Was a Doctor, authored by his son Jonathan Reid,

// What a non-stop trajectory for Shang-Chi superstar Simu Liu ’07! The question is not what did he do, but what didn’t he do? He won the 2021 People’s Choice Award for Action Movie Star, and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings won best Action Movie. He broke stereotypes and spoke out against racism. He appeared on Sesame Street and hosted Saturday Night Live. He came eleventh on the Toronto Life 2021 list of most influential Torontonians. In March, he presented at the Oscars. This May, he hosted the Juno Awards, Canada’s biggest night in music, and released his memoir, We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people of 2022, and he was featured on one of five covers for the issue. So many amazing accomplishments, all because he found the courage to pursue his dreams. Through it all, he has kept up friendships from his UTS days.

describes John’s heroism as a physician during World War II, supporting Canadian prisoners of war in Japanese labour camps, and his search for peace of mind once the war was over. It was released this year by Dundurn Press.

Geza Tatrallyay ’67 released his new book on Amazon in the fall, an environmental thriller for our times called Arctic Meltdown, where nations vie for jurisdiction over seabed resources and the threat of war looms.

W E WA N T TO HE A R A BOUT… you!

Share your news with The Root by emailing alumni@utschools.ca. (P.S. Also, please email us if your address or contact info has changed).

Award-winning author Lawrence Hill C .M . ’75 made his first foray into children’s books with his new novel, Beatrice and Croc Harry, the adventure of a brave and resilient Black girl’s search for identity.

Lily Quan ’87 said: “When I was younger, I was worried that there was some kind of deadline to succeed but there isn’t.” She started writing in her forties, and wrote the middle grade book adaptation of the acclaimed Disney/Pixar movie Turning Red.

Mark MacDonald ’91 wrote Love & Genetics: A true story of adoption, surrogacy, and the meaning of family, with his long-lost biological sister Rachel Elliott. This is their incredible story: how Mark, who was adopted at birth, reunited with his biological mother and siblings, and how he and his wife Tina had their own biological children with gestational surrogacy and the help of his new sister Rachel. Their story was featured on BBC’s Outlook Podcast.

BABY NEWS

Congratulations to new parents, Lauren Sham ’06 and Justin Besant ’06, who welcomed their baby boy, Julian Besant, on June 8, 2021.

Principal Rosemary Evans delivered 85th birthday greetings to retired principal Al Fleming ’54 in September at his home. Many of Al’s former classmates, students and colleagues came together to honour Al’s milestone birthday and his seven-decade legacy of leadership and support with a donation to our Building Fund. In recognition of these gifts, the refinished trophy case in our renewed building is dedicated in Al’s honour.

UTS Board Chair Jim Fleck C .C . ’49, P ’72 and the Class of 1949 kicked off the first week of November with a virtual reunion full of UTS memories. Even though many years have passed, their UTS spirit is amazing!

It was 65 years strong for the Class of 1956. Thirteen class members gathered for a luncheon at the York Club in October, and another eight joined on Zoom after lunch. To thank the Class of 1956 for donating a classroom to the Building the Future campaign, UTS honoured them with a customized video including photos of the group and construction footage.

UTS Principal Rosemary Evans was on hand for the annual Class of 1967 luncheon in December, sharing their holiday cheer.

The Class of 1970 enjoyed the opportunity to reconnect virtually with their former principal Al Fleming ’54, who was the guest of honour at their December reunion. Forty members came online to kick off the festive season in style with old friends! They gathered again in March to honour classmates who, with the support of UTS, led an initiative to sponsor a Syrian family. Rosemary and Martha Drake, Executive Director of Advancement, came out to help celebrate class members who played an instrumental role in the success of the Building the Future campaign.

A strong showing for the Class of 1981 at their 40th anniversary reunion – about half the class came out on a September Saturday for an outdoor event. In October, Rosemary joined the

TOP: Al Fleming '54 with his spouse, Judy. BOTTOM: The Class of 1970 kicked off the festive season in virtual style with old friends. At the Class of 1956 hybrid reunion, David Flint (left) was honored by his classmates with an award presented by Steve Lowden (right).