Registration is now open for the annual Alumni Awards of Excellence ceremony, 5:30 p.m. Thursday, April 10, in the Alumni Auditorium, CAW Student Centre.

The evening will recognize the accomplishments of 2025 awards recipients.

Alumni Award of Merit for distinguished accomplishments which have brought honour to the University of Windsor.

• Irene Moore Davis (BA 1993), assistant curator at the Amherstburg Freedom Museum, is an educator, historian, writer, podcaster, and community advocate who speaks and writes frequently about equity, diversity, inclusion, and African Canadian history. She is a retired college administrator who continues to teach courses in Black history and equity, diversity, and inclusion. President of the Essex County Black Historical Research Society and a member of the University of Windsor Board of Governors, she has greatly contributed to the recording of the history of the Windsor-Essex area. Her documentary producer credits include the award-winning The North Was Our Canaan and Across the River to Freedom.
• Bukola Salami (BScN 2004) is a professor and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Black and Racialized Peoples Health in the Department of Community Health Sciences, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary. Dr. Salami’s research program focuses on policies and practices shaping migrant health as well as Black people’s health. She founded and led the African Child and Youth Migration Network, a network of 42 scholars from four continents, and co-led the establishment of the Institute for Intersectional Studies at the University of Alberta. In 2020, she founded the Black Youth Mentorship and Leadership Program.

Alumni Ambassador Award for significant achievements in professional, community, and volunteer work.

• Lisa Voakes (BHK 1999, B.Ed 2000) has been secondary school teacher and coach at the Greater Essex County District School Board since 2001, currently, serving as department head of physical education at North Star High School.  She is the chair of the non-profit organization Leadership Advancement for Women and Sport (LAWS), which promotes gender equity in sports and physical activities. Her work with LAWS often involves collaboration with the University of Windsor: Girls in Motion is held at the Toldo Lancer Centre and the  Girls Organizing and Leading Sport program is organized with support of teacher candidates enrolled in the education service-learning course.
• Lisa Williams (BA 1991) recently retired as a radio personality on AM800 CKLW after 38 years behind the microphone in morning news/talk radio, becoming a trusted and familiar voice in the Windsor-Essex community. As co-host of The Morning Drive, Williams kept listeners informed and entertained for decades. The bond she shares with the community has earned her recognition and awards over the years, most recently the Windsor Police Services Citizen Award, the Multicultural Council of Windsor and Essex County Community Legend Award, a Lifetime Achievement award from the Windsor-Essex Chamber of Commerce, and an additional Lifetime Achievement Award from the Radio Television Digital News Association.

Alumni Odyssey Award for those in the early years of their career path, having distinguished themselves through successes in career endeavours, notable achievements in their local community or the University of Windsor, or through a significant or innovative achievement in their professional or personal life.

• Jordan Goure (BA 2014), a co-founder and CEO of Picsume, has been an entrepreneur throughout his career, launching his first business at just 19 years old. Recently, he has expanded into software development, focusing on solving workforce challenges he has encountered across various industries. With a track record of successfully launching over 10 startups in fields such as hospitality, beverage manufacturing, real estate, marketing, and technology, Goure is now ready to embrace the exciting challenge of developing ethical artificial intelligence.
• Mathew Zaia (BA 2016, MA 2018) is a lawyer in the litigation group at McCarthy Tétrault LLP, maintaining a diverse trial and appellate practice. Prior to joining the firm, he clerked at the Supreme Court of Canada and the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and practised criminal defence at Henein Hutchison Robitaille LLP. Zaia has published articles in such journals as the Canadian Criminal Law Review, the Canadian Bar Review, and the Canadian Journal of Law and Technology.

Learn more about the Alumni Awards of Excellence, awards categories, and recipients on the event website.

The $50 admission includes a cocktail reception, dinner, and the awards presentation. Purchase tickets here.

Physics professor Jeffrey Rau’s research into a new type of magnetism has caught the attention of the pre-eminent journal Physical Review Letters. One of his latest publications was not only featured in the journal, but was selected for its “Collection of the Year 2024” list.

“Out of the 2,000 to 2,500 published papers, which are already the best in all of physics, they pick about 60 or so to be the best of the best, and Professor Rau’s was one of those,” says Steven Rehse, head of the Department of Physics.

“This is a huge accomplishment for an early career researcher, as this paper has the potential to be a seminal work in the field of magnetism and is already being recognized as such.”

Dr. Rau says there are two main dominant forms of magnetism. Ferromagnets — the kind that stick to your fridge — and antiferromagnets which, while magnetic, are arranged oppositely at the atomic level, and so their magnetic fields cancel out and they do not stick to things.

In the last few years, physicists have proposed a new kind of magnetism called altermagnetism. Altermagnets do not stick to your fridge, but they do share some of the positive properties of both ferromagnets and antiferromagnets.

The article, “Landau Theory of Altermagnetism,” which was written by Rau and his France-based collaborator Paul McClarty, explores how this new topic fits into the broader field of magnetism. Altermagnets, Rau says, have attracted interest because this mix of properties may have technological applications in a field called spintronics.

“Currently most information technology is based on electrical currents moving through devices such as transistors, diodes, or other integrated circuits, but these necessarily come with dissipation, or loss of energy. Resistance to the flow of that current generates heat limiting their efficiency and often how fast you can run these things. Spin currents, which manipulate the electron’s spin instead, suffer significantly less from this kind of dissipation,” he says.

“The hope would be, if you could design and build devices using these materials — if you could somehow figure out how to manipulate spin currents and use them to process information instead — then you could build devices that use significantly less power, making them much more efficient.”

The field of spintronics is still in the basic research stage, but Rau says it definitely has potential. His research was driven by the need to shine a light on the complicated topic.

“We tried to clarify it to ourselves and came up with a simpler description of it based on the symmetries of the problem,” says Rau.

“We essentially wrote this paper to show how many of the properties of this new kind of magnet are connected, and people seem to find it useful, so we’re pretty happy about it.”

The Student Awards and Financial Aid office invites nominations for the 2025 President’s Medal.

One medal and a $1,000 scholarship will be awarded to a graduating student who has made an outstanding contribution to campus activities while maintaining a superior academic record. Find eligibility criteria here.

Faculty and staff are encouraged to recognize a deserving graduand by completing the President’s Medal nomination form by April 17. For more information, contact Student Awards.

The Office of Open Learning is introducing a retention policy for the YuJa video platform system to maintain storage quotas.

Any file that has not been viewed in 750 days (a little over two years) will be sent to the owner’s recycle bin. Users will receive an email from noreply@YuJa.com notifying them when content has been moved to the recycle bin.

They will have 30 days to access the recycle bin and restore it before it is deleted. Seven days before that deadline, owners will receive a second email warning that the content will be permanently deleted.

This retention policy will go into effect May 1.

Submit any questions or concerns as a YuJa Team Dynamix ticket.

Exceptional students with big aspirations in the world should review the opportunities of the Rhodes Scholarship, says Tim Brunet, who manages its University of Windsor endorsement process.

The scholarship is a fully funded, full-time, postgraduate award which enables young people from around the world to study at the University of Oxford. The University of Windsor has produced one Rhodes Scholar and a recent finalist.

“This scholarship is highly competitive and requires a multi-year strategy for success,” Dr. Brunet.

An online presentation reviewing the application process is scheduled for 4 p.m. Wednesday, March 26. Register here to attend.

After helping thousands of instructors get their courses online over 23 years of service, Teresa Collins has decided to retire.

Collins, the online learning systems administrator of Brightspace, was an administrator of UWindsor’s first learning management system, ViCKi.

“Terri has provided unwavering support to instructors with dedication and expertise,” says Jessica Raffoul, director of the Centre for Teaching and Learning. “From providing guidance and resources to ensuring instructors felt confident and prepared in using the LMS, her contributions have made a lasting impact. We will truly miss her and wish her all the best in this new chapter.”

An open house reception for Collins will take place on Wednesday, March 26, from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Centre for Teaching and Learning in room 1232/1233, 700 California Ave.

The University has declared office furniture and shop tools for sale by bid as Disposal File 2111.

Included are:

• A heavy duty grey U-shaped desk
• A black and brown U-shaped desk
• A three-piece set of desk, bookcase, and cupboard in mahogany and cherry finish
• Two black bookshelves
• A two-tier grey cabinet
• A large Knaack jobsite box
• A Makita wall panel saw

Click here for item photographs and details on submitting bids.