The Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies is proud to announce the appointment of four Distinguished Fellows: York University President emerita Lorna Marsden and President of the Institute for 21st Century Questions Irvin Studin are reappointed and joined by former diplomat and Director of the School for Public and International Studies at Glendon, Annie Dimerjian, and Canadian journalist Jai Parasram. The profile of each Distinguished Fellow can be found here: https://robarts.info.yorku.ca/about-us/distinguished-fellows/
Prominent members of the community, Distinguished Fellows are selected based on their past contributions to the Centre, the field of Canadian Studies or Canadian society. Working closely with the Director and the Executive Committee, they will offer advice on ongoing and future initiatives and priorities for the Centre.
The Robarts Centre team will greatly benefit from these Fellows’ insights in supporting our activities, and in finding ways to make the scholarship conducted through the Centre more visible, connected, and part of the public conversation.
We are very pleased to welcome this cohort of Distinguished Fellows and to working with them in the coming years.
Jean Michel Montsion
Director, Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies
Jai Parasram
Jai Parasram is a journalist, author, and communications and media specialist, who worked at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) until his retirement in 2013. He was the Line-up Editor on the pioneering team that inaugurated the CBC’s 24-hour cable news service in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1989, and was privileged to edit the first newscast to air on the service. Jai’s career began in his native Trinidad and Tobago in 1972 and spanned more than four decades, mostly in television, during which he worked as a reporter, editor, producer, interviewer, news anchor, news director and executive producer. He has worked with clients in Trinidad and Tobago, Canada and the United States in program development for radio and television, corporate communications, event management and political communication. He has also trained journalists in Trinidad and Tobago and Canada. He has also served as a political and communication adviser to two Prime Ministers of Trinidad and Tobago. Jai has won several prestigious awards for excellence in journalism. He holds a Master of Journalism degree (MJ) from Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. Jai is the author of Far from the Mountain (2013), a series of notes and commentaries on the politics of Trinidad and Tobago between 2007and 2012, and Beyond Survival: Indians in Trinidad and Tobago 1845-2017 (2017), a narrative about a people who blended the best of East and West to preserve for themselves and future generations, some of India.