Media Releases
Below is a selection of recent press releases. For all the latest news please visit www.utoronto.ca/news
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Rotman School associate dean honoured by Executive MBA Council
TORONTO, ON – The associate dean of executive degree programs at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management has been honoured for her contributions to the Executive MBA industry. Prof. Beatrix Dart, who is also the academic director for the One-Year Executive MBA and the Omnium Global Executive MBA programs at the Rotman School, received the 2012 Bud Fackler Service Award from the Executive MBA Council at their annual conference held in Paris last week. The prestigious Bud Fackler…
University of Toronto study demonstrates impact of adversity on early life development
TORONTO, ON – It is time to put the nature versus nurture debate to rest and embrace growing evidence that it is the interaction between biology and environment in early life that influences human development, according to a series of studies recently published in a special edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). “Biologists used to think that our differences are pre-programmed in our genes, while psychologists argued that babies are born with a blank slate…
Toronto’s by-laws fail to address city’s diversity, says U of Toronto study
TORONTO, ON — Diversity is one of the defining qualities of the city of Toronto but you’d never know it by the way we design and enforce municipal by-laws, according to U of T criminology and socio-legal studies professor Mariana Valverde. In fact, some of our most popular mechanisms for civic engagement – such as public meetings – do not support inclusion but actually disadvantage marginalized groups, who are less likely to attend or speak up, and who often encounter prejudice at…
U of T launches research centre for motor control
TORONTO, ON – The University of Toronto has established a new centre for the multidisciplinary study of human movement that aims to better understand the complex communication between brain and body in situations as varied as pulling a pen across the page to running at high speed around a track. The Centre for Motor Control (CMC), hosted by the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education, will bring together researchers from across the university – and ultimately Ontario and beyond – in disciplines ranging…
International science ranking puts U of T at 7th in the world
TORONTO, ON – The University of Toronto’s academic and research performance ranks 7th in the world – and the best in Canada – in a prestigious international ranking released this week that measures strength in science disciplines. The National Taiwan University (NTU) ranking (formerly the Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan -- HEEACT ranking) assesses the research productivity, impact and excellence of published scientific papers of 500 universities around the world. NTU included four other Canadian universities among…
U of T and ROM researchers publish new theory on origin of flightless birds
TORONTO, ON — New DNA studies by University of Toronto (U of T) researchers indicate that two opposing views on the origin of ratites, large flightless birds originating on the southern supercontinent Gondwana, might both be correct. Dr. Allan J. Baker, U of T ecology and evolutionary biology professor and Head of the ROM’s Department of Natural History and Oliver Haddrath, U of T PhD candidate and Research Technician with the Ornithology Division, Department of Natural History at the ROM, studied the…
Rotman School Dean to step down. Led period of dramatic growth at the School
TORONTO, ON - The Dean of University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management has announced that he will be ending his third term as Dean on June 30, 2013, one year earlier than the formal conclusion of his third term. Roger Martin, who joined the Rotman School as Dean in May 1998, will remain at the School's Martin Prosperity Institute in a leadership position, focusing his work on the future of democratic capitalism. "There are two reasons I am taking…
Rotman School research on pension plans honoured by the Toronto CFA Society
TORONTO, ON – A research paper by two professors at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management was honoured last week with the 2011 Canadian Investment Research Award presented by the Toronto CFA Society and Hillsdale Investment Management. The paper, "Is Bigger Better? Size and Performance in Pension Plan Management," was co-written by Profs. Alexander Dyck and Lukasz Pomorski, with the support of the Rotman International Centre for Pension Management. The Toronto CFA Society and Hillsdale Canadian Investment Research…
Human’s oldest ancestor found in Burgess Shale
Researchers from the University of Toronto, the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) and the University of Cambridge have confirmed that a 505 million-year-old creature, found only in the Burgess Shale fossil beds in Canada’s Yoho National Park, is the most primitive known vertebrate and therefore the ancestor of all descendant vertebrates, including humans. The research team’s analysis proves the extinct Pikaia gracilens is the most primitive member of the chordate family, the group of animals that today includes fish, amphibians, birds,…
Upper class more likely to be scofflaws says new research from UC Berkeley and UofT’s Rotman
TORONTO, ON –The upper class has a higher propensity for unethical behavior, being more likely to believe – as did Gordon Gekko in the movie "Wall Street" – that "greed is good," according to a new study from researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. "The increased unethical tendencies of upper-class individuals are driven, in part, by their more favorable attitudes toward greed," said Paul Piff, a doctoral student in psychology…