Professor of the Year Award 2007
Every year, since 1995, the Faculty of Arts recognizes a professor who excels in the three areas of teaching, research and service to the University community. This year the award goes to professor Ruby Heap of the Department of History.
Professor Heap has built and sustained an impressive program of research in the interdisciplinary field of women’s studies, with an emphasis on the history of women’s education in technology and engineering. She is the author of two books, a textbook, multiple chapters and articles, and the co-editor of three volumes, one of which was awarded the Founders’ Prize of the Canadian History of Education Association. Her forthcoming book (2007), Women Engineers in North America is published in the Engineers, Technology and Society Series of Morgan & Claypool Publishers (Colorado). She has a strong record of externally-funded research, both as principal investigator on standard SSHRC grants from 1999-2002, and 2004-07, and as co-investigator (1995-98, 2005-07, and 2006-07). This level of activity distinguishes Professor Heap as one of our most active researchers in the humanities.
The academic service record of Professor Heap is outstanding: she is currently Associate Dean for Interdisciplinary Studies at the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies; from 1993-2000, she directed the Women’s Studies Program and raised its status to that of an Institute; she has helped to define interdisciplinary studies at the University of Ottawa; and she has served the external community through committee work in her field, at SSHRC, and in international conference organization.
Professor Heap’s teaching record at the University of Ottawa has been equally remarkable, particularly at the graduate level, which is the level at which interdisciplinary studies really become solidified in a student’s career. It is important to note that she has supervised 15 master’s students and 10 Ph.D. students, and is currently supervising four graduate students. This is a truly significant contribution to the graduate studies program at the University of Ottawa.
