Media Releases
Renowned global thinkers and leaders to receive honorary degrees from U of T
June 5, 2014
TORONTO, ON — Over 12,500 students will graduate from the University of Toronto over the next three weeks, and throughout Convocation, the University will also celebrate the remarkable accomplishments of a diverse range of honorary graduates: Peter Stein; David Brillinger; Ronald Daniels; Indira Samarasekera; Annabel Patterson; and Mychael Danna.
Academy Award-winning film composer Mychael Danna is renowned for his evocative blending of non-western traditions with orchestral and electronic music. His highly awarded works include the Oscar-winning score for Ang Lee’s Life of Pi, and his many Genie ‑winning scores for director, longtime collaborator and fellow U of T alumnus, Atom Egoyan. CEREMONY: FRIDAY, JUNE 13, 2:30PM
One of Canada’s leading Metallurgical Engineers, Indira Samarasekera is now in her second term as president and vice-chancellor of the University of Alberta. She is a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Engineering, the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIMM) and an honorary member of AIME (American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers) and was awarded the Order of Canada in 2002 for her outstanding contributions to steel process engineering. CEREMONY: WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18, 2:30PM
Yale Sterling Professor Annabel Patterson has written 16 books and close to 70 refereed articles on topics as varied as Holinshed’s Chronicles, 18-century libel law, the reception of Virgil’s poetry in Europe, editions of Aesop’s fables, censorship, liberalism, parliamentary history, as well as Shakespeare, Milton, Donne, John Locke, and Andrew Marvell, whose canon she has helped to reshape. Among the awards and recognitions the U of T alumna has received are: a Guggenheim Fellowship, a senior fellowship at the Society of Humanities, Cornell University, the Andrew Mellon Chair of the Humanities at Duke, a Mellon Fellowship, National Humanities Center and a Mellon Emeritus Fellowship at Yale. CEREMONY: TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 2:30 PM
Peter Stein, the critically acclaimed German theatre, film and opera director, is known for his landmark stagings of such productions as Edward Bond’s Saved, Schiller’s Wallenstein and Shakespeare’s King Lear. While in Toronto, Stein will take part in a number of public events, including a symposium on the art of directing, with Egoyan at University College: (http://celebratingpeterstein.weebly.com/events.html) CEREMONY: MONDAY, JUNE 9, 2:30PM
David Brillinger, a world-renowned statistical scientist whose work has contributed to the fields of ecology, forestry, animal and marine biology, neuroscience, seismology and engineering, attended the University of Toronto Schools before enrolling at U of T. During his ceremony, Brillinger will be hooded by his former UTS math teacher and U of T Professor emeritus, Bruce McLean, who is 103 years old. CEREMONY: TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 2:30PM
Ronald Daniels, the president of Johns Hopkins University and a former Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto, is the founder or co-founder of such programs as the Pro Bono Students Canada, Law in Action Within Schools, and the organization International Lawyers and Economists against Poverty. CEREMONY: FRIDAY, JUNE 6, 10:30AM
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For more information:
Media Relations
University of Toronto
416–978-0100
media.relations@utoronto.ca