From January 2025 onward. For the summary of entries from September to December 2024, see the 2024 December Roundup DSR Newsletter.
April 2025
Amira Mittermaier has been awarded a SSHRC Connections Grant, along with affiliate DSR faculty member Anver Emon and Schirin Amir-Moazami (Free University, Berlin), to support an international, interdisciplinary workshop titled "Islamophobia after October 7: Transatlantic Perspectives." The workshop will be held at U of T in October 2025. → More
Papers by PhD student Shashank Rao and Religion Major undergraduate Aneri Patel were award winners at the EIR-AAR conferene held in April 2025 at St Lawrence University. Shashank won the Graduate Student Paper Award with “Hindu Studies in the Time of Hindu Nationalism” and Aneri won the Undergraduate Student Paper Award with her paper, “Reimagining Sacred Space: The Kashi Vishwanath Corridor and the Mediation of Pilgrimage.” → More
Currently a postdoctoral fellow in U of T’s Department of Philosophy, DSR alumna Amber Moore (PhD 2024) received the Britain-Nepal Academic Council's PhD Dissertation Prize 2025 and a Buddhist Education Foundation of Canada Annual Article Award. → Read the news article
March 2025
On July 1, 2025, Jennifer Bright, DSR alumna (PhD 2017, supervised by Frances Garrett), will take up her appointment as the inaugural Wutai Shan Venerable Dayi Professor in Buddhist Spiritual Care at Victoria University's Emmanuel College, where she has been assistant professor of Buddhist spiritual care and counselling since 2023. She will also mentor students in the Master of Psychospiritual Studies program.
PhD 2024 alumna Amber Moore has been awarded a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship in Buddhist philosophy, in the Department of Philosophy here at the University of Toronto.
DSR alumna Mona Tokarek LaFosse has been appointed by Victoria and Emmanuel Colleges to the new position of Assistant Professor of New Testament and Sacred Literature Studies. Supervised by John Kloppenborg, she received her PhD in 2011. Her research focused on age, aging and intergenerational relationships in early Christian communities.
January 2025
Postdoctoral fellow Chris Miller is profiled in the JHI Circle of Fellows Spotlight feature for his work on green burial.
Congratulations to undergraduate student and Mediaeval Studies Specialist James Nowak, who won the Canadian Society for the Study of Religion Undergraduate Student Essay Prize, with “Regarding Creation: Praise, Visual Perception, and Double
Movement in John Scottus Eriugena’s Periphyseon,” a paper he wrote in Professor Alexander J.B. Hampton’s course. Our interview with James takes a look at his path to the study of religion as he reflects on the intellectual freedom he found in his classes. This is the second year running that a DSR student of Hampton’s has been awarded this prize – in 2023 it was Religion Specialist Audrey Miatello. Read our feature interview with James
PhD student Poulami Das received the 2024 Canadian Friends of Sufi Arts, Culture, and Knowledge Research Award, for a project to share Sufi arts and culture with a broader audience, with a focus on the embodiment and material culture of shrines in Bengal.