The Senate Committee on Awards has selected Professor Joel Katz, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health, and Professor Jonathan Edmondson, Department of History and Program in Classical Studies in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, as the 2017 recipients of the Distinguished Research Professorship.
A Distinguished Research Professor is a member of the faculty who has made outstanding contributions to the University through research and is one of the highest accolades accorded to a faculty member at York University.
Katz received the title of Distinguished Research Professor at Faculty of Health convocation ceremonies on Friday, June 16. Edmondson was awarded his title at LA&PS convocation ceremonies on Wednesday, June 21.
In nominating Katz for the Distinguished Research Professorship, Faculty of Health Professor Rebecca Pillai Riddell states: “Dr. Katz is widely acknowledged to be one of the most powerful international voices in establishing the scientific basis of how the phenomenon of pain is constructed in the mind.”
Faculty who supported the nomination wrote about how unusual it is for a psychologist to be considered an authority in clinical anesthesiology research. Katz is regarded as one of the best authorities in clinical research on postoperative pain.
His exceptional accomplishments have been widely recognized in Canada and internationally and he has received a number of major awards, including the twice-renewed Tier 1 CIHR Canada Research Chair in Health Psychology, the Distinguished Career Award from the Canadian Pain Society, the Canadian Psychological Association Donald O. Hebb Award for Distinguished Contributions to Science, and career scientist appointments from CIHR.
The nomination for Edmondson offers high praise for the international impact of his prolific, original scholarly research, his contributions to the development of young scholars and his reputation as a good citizen of the University.
In their nomination for Edmondson, York history Professors Benjamin Kelly and Jeremey Trevett state that Edmonson “is a historian of Ancient Rome whose career has been distinguished by major contributions to multiple fields within this broad area of specialization. He is an expert of international renown on Roman Spain, on Roman epigraphy (i.e. inscriptions on stone and metal), on Roman social history, especially family history, and on Roman spectacle. Mastery of so many different areas of Roman history is highly unusual and Professor Edmondson has a strong claim to be the most distinguished Roman historian currently working in Canada.”
Edmondson is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (U.K.) since 2009 and the corresponding member of the Real Academia de la Historia (Royal Academy of History, Spain).