The two professors were each presented with a Faculty of Graduate Studies Teaching Award at the the meeting of the Faculty of Graduate Studies Council. In introducing the awardees, Associate Dean Academic Affairs Thomas Loebel said the professors’ students wrote of them “with an appreciation – and affection – otherwise reserved for family.”

From left, Patrick Monahan, VP academic & provost; Allan Hutchinson, dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies; and Professor Joel Katz

Joel Katz, teaches in the Faculties of Health and Graduate Studies. A Canada Research Chair in Health Psychology and affiliated with Toronto General Hospital, he sports a book-length CV of awards, boards, invited lectures and publications in the fields of psychology, anesthesiology and pain management.

In his introduction, Loebel said that Katz’s students were grateful for the his level of care, patience, kindness and enthusiasm. He displays “care for how they think, research, represent themselves and 91ŃÇÉ«, and how they interact– care from the macro to the micro levels, in theory and in practice,” said Loebel.

In their letters of assessment and recommendation, Loebel said that students noted repeatedly that learning from Katz’s published findings made them realize that if they wanted to develop their minds and their approaches to their career fields, and if they wanted to participate truly and significantly in the solution of health problems, then they needed to come study with him.

“When I was informed by my students that they wanted to nominate me, I felt I had already gotten the award” said Katz. Though he has received a number of awards, this one, he says, “is by far the most meaningful. I have students who make it easy and enjoyable for me to do my job.”

Paul Lovejoy, a distinguished research professor and an internationally renowned expert on the African diaspora, teaches in the Faculties of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies and Graduate Studies. Among his accomplishments and credits, he is a Fellow of the Royal Society, Canada Research Chair in African Diaspora History and director of the Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples.

Patrick Monahan congratulates Professor Paul Lovejoy shortly after being presented with the Faculty of Graduate Studies Teaching Award by Allan Hutchinson

A pioneer in the digital humanities, Lovejoy’s work has global significance because it opens access to rare documents and creates online-networked communities. The nomination submissions highlighted how Lovejoy integrates his students in ways that allow them to build skills for their own work. Loebel said that his students expressed great gratitude for his open-access approach to his personal library of volumes and documents that are simply not available elsewhere.

His students repeatedly commented that Lovejoy teaches them to network by example, not only as a career development tool, but more importantly, said Loebel, “as part of the process of learning and discovery, to make community by vibrant communication.”

“It’s the highest honour a professor can receive, based on the ability to share new knowledge and inspire students to achieve their potential,” said Lovejoy, who sees the award as a highlight in his career. “Of the many awards and honours I have been blessed with,” he said, “this one is special – the best.”

Before presenting the awards, Allan Hutchinson, dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies, said that Katz and Lovejoy were recognized by both peers and students. They are “raising the bar with the extent of their commitment to their students." Most remarkably, he said, “their graduate students described these professors as genuinely caring and as active participants in their development as students, as scholars and as individuals.”

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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The study, conducted at the Ontario Science Centre, looked at more than 1,000 children and adolescents from ages eight to 18. While boys and girls reported the same frequency of persistent pain – lasting three months or more – teenage girls experienced more anxiety and tended to catastrophize over pain to a greater degree than their male peers.  

“Boys who experience pain may feel less comfortable expressing their feelings because they are deemed socially inappropriate – or it may be that boys simply experience less anxiety in relation to pain,” says study lead author Samantha Fuss (MA ’10), a PhD student in psychology at 91ŃÇÉ«. “Even teenage girls who haven’t experienced persistent pain showed significantly higher levels of pain anxiety than boys their age.”   

Overall, 27 per cent of participants reported experiencing persistent pain. The study is published in the latest issue of the journal .

Study co-author Joel Katz, a 91ŃÇÉ« psychology professor and , says more research is needed to understand the psychological factors relating to pain in youth. 

Left: Joel Katz

“Persistent pain in children and teenagers isn’t a rare occurrence. There are gaps in our understanding of the time course of pain and the developmental trajectories,” Katz says. “For example, how does the presence of pain in these life stages relate to pain in adulthood?”

Researchers looked at psychological variables including anxiety, anxiety sensitivity and pain catastrophizing – a tendency to worry about pain and feel helpless in the face of it.

Boys 12 to 18 years of age were significantly more likely to experience persistent pain than younger boys, while there was no difference between age groups for girls.

Fuss points out that girls more frequently seek medical attention for illness and pain than do boys – which makes their findings all the more intriguing.

“Our sample wasn’t drawn from a clinical setting – such as interviewing patients at a walk-in clinic,” she says. “This is a fairly representative sample of Toronto children and adolescents who happened to be visiting the Science Centre with their parents.”

Katz notes that the greater prevalence of chronic pain in women versus men may be tied to psychological factors that appear in childhood.

“Anxiety sensitivity is thought to be a vulnerability factor for the development of chronic pain. The finding that girls had higher levels of anxiety sensitivity than boys may partly explain why the prevalence of chronic pain is greater in women than men,” he says.

“It’s a complex web to untangle in terms of physical versus psychological,” says Fuss. “Is it that the psychological experience of pain differs between the sexes – or even age groups – or is it differences in the physical experience of pain? How are they linked? These are certainly important questions in terms of diagnosis and pain management.”

Fuss’ research is supervised by Katz. Their work is funded by a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Canada Graduate Scholarship to Fuss, and a Canada Research Chair in Health Psychology to Katz.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Boys shrug off pain, girls 'catastrophize': 91ŃÇÉ« U study appeared first on UAP 2026-30.

The Canadian Knowledge Mobilization 100, a survey run by , asked respondents to rank the biggest influences of their knowledge mobilization practice. Phipps, who leads 91ŃÇɫ’s Knowledge Mobilization Unit and , Canada’s knowledge mobilization network, topped the list.

Left: David Phipps

Also mentioned among the top influencers in Canada were Peter Levesque (Knowledge Mobilization Works), Melanie Barwick (Hospital for Sick Children), Ben Levin (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education) and Gary Myers (KMbeing.com).  The survey collected responses from Jan. 5 to June 15, and results were released by Knowledge Mobilization Works on Monday.

“Knowledge mobilization is a key element of 91ŃÇɫ’s research outreach strategy,” said Robert HachĂ©, 91ŃÇɫ’s vice-president research & innovation. “Through David’s efforts and leadership, 91ŃÇɫ’s excellent reputation as a leading knowledge mobilization university in Canada continues to be strengthened. This recognition by his peers is well deserved.”

91ŃÇÉ« piloted institutional knowledge mobilization in 2005 under a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Since then, 91ŃÇÉ« has grown its knowledge mobilization collaboration with the University of Victoria to include the other four ¸é±đ˛ő±đ˛ą°ůł¦łó±őłľ±č˛ął¦łŮ-¸éĂ©˛ő±đ˛ąłÜ±őłľ±č˛ął¦łŮ¸é±đł¦łó±đ°ůł¦łó±đ universities: Memorial University of Newfoundland & Labrador, UniversitĂ© du QuĂ©bec Ă  MontrĂ©al, University of Guelph and University of Saskatchewan. 91ŃÇÉ« also works closely with the United Way of 91ŃÇÉ« Region to deliver knowledge mobilization services to the 91ŃÇÉ« Region community, municipal and regional agencies.

Knowledge mobilization is a suite of services that connect university research and expertise to government and community agencies so that research can help these organizations make better informed decisions about public policy and social services. Knowledge mobilization is a process that results in social innovation.

“Knowledge mobilization has become very important for Canada,” said Steven Gaetz, professor in the Faculty of Education who leads both the and the . “David’s work and that of the knowledge mobilization unit is very helpful to those of us seeking to make research accessible to policy makers.”

Levesque, president and CEO of Knowledge Mobilization Works, undertook the survey to obtain a snapshot of who people see as influential in their knowledge mobilization practice in Canada.

“We think that knowledge mobilization as a concept and as a practice is growing. We think that we have barely scratched the surface of understanding what influences knowledge mobilization practice,” said Levesque.

Founded in January 2007, Knowledge Mobilization Works supports individuals and organizations to create incentives and infrastructure for knowledge mobilization.

For more information on 91ŃÇɫ’s Knowledge Mobilization Unit contact , manager, Knowledge Mobilization at ext. 88876.

To view the results of the survey, visit .

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