Robert Haché, York Vice-President Research & Innovation, is pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Ananya Mukherjee-Reed as Associate Vice-President Research, effective November 1.
“I am delighted that Ananya has accepted the position to join our senior leadership team,” said Haché. “Ananya will work with current Associate Vice-President Research Walter Tholen and myself as we continue to implement Building on Strength, our strategic research plan which provides a vision for accelerating the growth and development of research, scholarship and creativity at the University,” said Haché.
In her new role, Mukherjee-Reed will provide leadership in promoting strategic research development at York, providing leadership and advice on the strategic development of the Organized Research Units (ORUs) and lead the development of research policy that bridges the needs of researchers and the institution. She will work with Haché and Tholen to intensify the services available for all researchers, to profile York’s research performance more effectively and enlarge the University’s collaborative role with external stakeholders and communities.
Mukherjee-Reed is professor and the immediate past chair of the Department of Political Science. The broad themes of her teaching and research concern development and inequality in the Global South, with a special emphasis on India. Her most recent publications include Business Regulation and Non-state actors: Whose Standards? Whose Development? (Routledge Series in Development Economics (2012), a co-edited work in collaboration with the UN Research Institute for Social Development); Human Development and Social Power: Perspectives from South Asia (Routledge, 2008), book chapters and scholarly articles in a number of international journals. Recently, her research has focused on the theme of gender justice, which includes, among others, her work on one of the largest women’s networks in Kerala, India.
More recently, she has begun work on the questions of global justice that have surfaced in the aftermath of the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh. Mukherjee-Reed has also directed many collaborative projects with organizations/networks such as Universitas, a network of several UN Agencies, the International Labour Organization (ILO); the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the Center for Multidisciplinary Studies (CEBEM), Bolivia, the Centre for Development Studies (CDS) in Kerala and others. She holds an MA in Economics from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India and a PhD (Political Economy and Public Policy) from the University of Southern California. Mukherjee-Reed also appears frequently in the media and was recently invited by the Standing Committee on Human Rights of the Senate of Canada to present on the issue of garment workers’ rights in the developing world.
“York is home to some of the world’s best scholarly and creative activity. I hope to use this opportunity to serve these endeavors in every way I can. I also hope to advance the development of collaborative, interdisciplinary research at York. Collaboration and interdisciplinarity are intrinsic to York’s ethos and can help foster an inclusive research milieu where students, emerging scholars, leading scholars and the broader community can come together. This will even further consolidate York’s position as a top research university where key social and intellectual challenges of our time are collectively addressed,” said Mukherjee-Reed.
Effective immediately until Oct. 31, Associate Dean Research William Gage and Associate Professor in the School of Kinesiology & Health Science, in the Faculty of Health will serve as acting Associate Vice-President Research in the Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation.
Gage also holds an appointment at Toronto Rehabilitation Institute as a member of the Mobility Team. His research expertise is in the areas of biomechanics and neuromuscular control, and his research interests are associated with mobility and factors related to aging, injury, and disease which impair mobility among older adults.
Haché added, “I am pleased that Associate Dean Research William Gage has agreed to assist the VPRI during this time of transition by acting as Associate Vice-President Research, as we continue to support the University’s strategic research initiatives.”