Office of Research & Innovation

Friday, August 14, 2020

Dr. Cathy Bruce Appointed Acting Vice-President Research and Innovation

On August 14, 2020 Dr. Leo Groarke announced the appointment of Dr. Cathy Bruce as the acting Vice-president Research and Innovation at Trent University.  Dr. Bruce brings 17 years of proven leadership and dedication to collaborative research to key role.  Professor Bruce, dean of Education, Teaching and Learning at Trent University since 2016, has been an integral member of the Trent community. A founding faculty member of the School of Education, Dean Bruce currently oversees all education programs, online learning initiatives and the Centre for Teaching and Learning at the University.

Prof. Bruce is a full professor in the Trent School of Education, where she has been conducting and publishing federally-funded research for nearly two decades. Her research focus is mathematics learning and the role of spatial reasoning and self-efficacy in that learning. In 2011, she launched “Math for Young Children”, a SSHRC-funded research program involving over 170 educators and 1200 students, designed to investigate children's spatial and mathematics capabilities. Guiding a diverse and collaborative research team, Prof. Bruce acts as lead researcher for the Trent Math Education Research Collaborative (TMERC), an innovative research hub that leverages strong partner connections with teachers, mathematics educators, early childhood educators, and school boards.

Prof. Bruce’s career spans both academic and administrative leadership in which she has served as the president of the Association of Canadian Deans of Education, the vice-chair of the Ontario Association of Deans of Education, and the director of the Centre for Teaching and Learning at Trent University. A co-author of two math professional texts based on her research program, with a third in progress, Prof. Bruce has been recognized as a leading educator and researcher. She was named one of Ontario’s most outstanding university teachers by the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) in 2012 and was a recipient of the Eduardo Flores International Leadership Award in 2015 for her leadership in action research.

Prof. Bruce holds a Ph.D. in Curriculum: Mathematics, Science, Technology from the University of Toronto; an M.A. from the University of Toronto in Curriculum, Teaching and Learning; and a B.A. and B.Ed. from York University. She will oversee the Research portfolio at Trent while the University conducts a search for a new Vice-President.

Trent University Thanks Dr. Neil Emery for his Leadership and Impact as Vice-President, Research and Innovation

Despite being a smaller university, Trent consistently produces high quality research. This ambition is frequently validated by external assessment and reviews, such as Macleans, Re$earch Infosource Inc. and Higher Education Strategy Associates(HESA). In their most recent national survey, HESA ranked Trent’s research 12th among 55 Canadian universities in impact for Sciences, Social Sciences and Humanities, noting that we have “by far the best publication record of any small‐ish school in the country across all disciplines.” In this index Trent ranked higher than 8 members of the U‐15 research universities in Canada. Trent's size has allowed our researchers to strategically select a small number of research areas in which, through interdisciplinary approaches drawing from the sciences, social sciences and humanities, has allowed the University to become recognized both nationally and internationally.

The Office of Research & Innovation supports the university community in its mission to "advance learning through the creative interaction of teaching and research of the highest quality." Responsible for achievement of Trent's research goals and objectives, the Office of Research & Innovation works in cooperation with other departments to implement the University's strategic research plan.

In particular, the Office of Research & Innovation works with local, regional, national and international members of the research community to promote and steward:

• Excellence in research (peer-reviewed, high caliber, with national and international recognition); 
• A diversity of research (across a full range of scholarly disciplines at Trent, and of either a basic or applied nature); 
• An emphasis on interdisciplinary research (with cooperation between a number of departments/programs/disciplines/centres/institutions); 
• Responsible for provision of resources to researchers (infrastructure, staff, space etc.); 
• The involvement of students in research
• Training of highly qualified personnel; and
• Open accountable research practices (honest, ethical and open to public scrutiny)