Leadership Awards

2014 ORION Leadership Award Winners

The ORION Leadership Awards are given out annually to celebrate excellence in Ontario’s research, education and innovation sectors. The award is given in three categories: K-12 education, high education and innovation.

Category: Kindergarten – Grade 12

Winner: Laurie Clement, Grade 8 teacher at St. Rose Catholic Elementary School in Windsor, Ontario

Laurie Clement is a dedicated and innovative teacher at St. Rose Catholic Elementary School in Windsor, Ontario. A Google certified educator, Laurie is piloting a project with her school board that provides each student with a Chromebook to access online apps, learning plans, assignments and store their work in the cloud.

With this technology, Laurie has expanded her student’s learning experiences beyond the four walls of the classroom by connecting them with other students around the world.

In fact, Laurie’s dedication to teaching through technology is so strong that not even the weather can stop her. While heavy snowfalls might prevent her students in remote areas from attending class, Laurie makes sure they don’t miss any learning opportunities – assignments are posted online and students are expected to complete them. Even parents are given remote access to their child’s progress.

For her outstanding efforts to expand the learning opportunities of her students, her colleagues and herself, we are pleased to announce the 2014 ORION Leadership Award in K-12 is Laurie Clement.

Category: Higher Education

Winner: Virginia Roy, Ontario Colleges Library Service

Virginia Roy serves as the Director of Services with the Ontario Colleges Library Service. Her leadership and initiative has modernized college libraries across Ontario, digitally transforming services and encouraging a more collaborative approach for how they are delivered.

Virginia’s efforts have helped over 200 people working in college libraries by simplifying their work flow with ORION’s O3 collaboration tool. These online resources are now accessible from anywhere, at any time, on any device.

Virginia embarked on this project even though she didn’t personally have the IT know-how to make it happen. And instead of burdening IT staff at OCLS and Ontario colleges to make this happen, she worked closely with ORION and a team of library scientists.

Thanks to Virginia’s hard work, OCLS is showing the rest of the world how libraries can maintain a prominent position in the digital age by embracing technology to support today’s teachers, students and researchers. We are please to announce the winner of the 2014 ORION Leadership Award in Higher Education is Virginia Roy.

Category: Innovation

Winner: Dr. Narinder Paul, University Health Network

Dr. Narinder Paul is both a medical imaging expert and a professor with the Toronto General Hospital and the University of Toronto.

Dr. Paul’s efforts to teach new generations and contribute to new research extend well beyond our local community. Using new technology and the ORION network, Dr. Paul is taking Ontario-based research and expertise global by using collaborative teaching models and resources to reach communities around the world.

His work with the Advanced Imaging and Education Centre (AIEC) at Toronto General Hospital, part of the University Health Network, is helping to generate new imaging technologies that will provide rapid, low-dose diagnostic imaging for improved clinical patient care.

For his efforts to improve patient care and share Ontario research with the rest of the world, we are pleased to announce the winner of the 2014 ORION Leadership Award in the category of innovation is Dr. Narinder Paul.