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Journal of Educational Administration

ISSN : 0957-8234

Article publication date: 25 September 2019

Issue publication date: 16 January 2020

The purpose of this paper is to outline key findings from a contemporary review of the international empirical literature focused upon teacher leadership. It synthesises what is currently known about the nature, practice, conditions and impact of teacher leadership and to outline patterns in the contemporary empirical research base.

Design/methodology/approach

This review is based on an analysis of 150 empirical articles published in Scopus/SSCI-indexed journals between January 2003 and December 2017.

The paper draws upon this contemporary knowledge base to explore: contextual and methodological patterns of teacher leadership research; definitions of teacher leadership; and evidence on the enactment of teacher leadership, factors influencing teacher leadership and impacts of teacher leadership.

Originality/value

This paper highlights the progress and issues of the empirical research on teacher leadership since 2003 and identifies gaps in the knowledge base as well as areas for future scholarly enquiry.

• Educational leadership
• Professional development
• Teacher leadership
• Teacher leader

Nguyen, D. , Harris, A. and Ng, D. (2020), "A review of the empirical research on teacher leadership (2003–2017): Evidence, patterns and implications", Journal of Educational Administration , Vol. 58 No. 1, pp. 60-80. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-02-2018-0023

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There’s Now a Body of Research on What It Means to Be a Teacher Leader

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All teachers have the capacity to be leaders, researchers wrote in a recent comprehensive review of literature on teacher leadership—but not all teachers want to be.

Julianne A. Wenner, of Boise State University, and Todd Campbell, of the University of Connecticut, reviewed 54 reports and studies from the last 12 years to compile a literature review about what exactly it means to be a teacher leader. They define teacher leaders as “teachers who maintain K-12 classroom-based teaching responsibilities, while also taking on leadership responsibilities outside of the classroom.”

The teacher-leadership movement has gotten a boost from the U.S. Department of Education’s recent support , and advocates say the constant shifts in education policy have motivated more teachers to take on leadership roles.

So what does the literature say about teacher leadership? Here are a few important points.

What exactly does a teacher leader do?

Wenner and Campbell condensed the extra workload of teacher leaders into five themes.

• Teacher leadership goes beyond the classroom walls.
• Teacher leaders should support professional learning in their schools.
• Teacher leaders should be involved in policy and/or decision-making at some level.
• The ultimate goal of teacher leadership is improving student learning and success.
• Teacher leaders are working toward improvement and change for the whole school organization.

How do you become a teacher leader?

Teacher leaders are typically prepared in two ways, Wenner and Campbell wrote. Most commonly, teachers develop leadership skills and strategies in professional development, local training, and/or conferences.

Another pathway that surfaced in the literature is university master’s programs, where teachers focus on personal and professional growth, or engage in action research to take steps to improve their practice.

The important part is that teachers need to be empowered in their training and preparation, the researchers concluded. “If teachers are told what to learn, how to learn, and why to learn, their learning is controlled by others and their capacity to lead is stunted,” researcher Monica Taylor once wrote.

Also, Wenner and Campbell wrote, administrative support seems to be critical to foster successful teacher leadership. One way principals can support teacher leadership, they noted, is through additional compensation for their extra responsibilities.

What are the benefits of becoming a teacher leader?

There are some clear and obvious benefits of becoming a teacher leader, according to the research. Teacher leaders reported increased positive feelings and professional growth. They feel more confident, empowered, and professionally satisfied. And many teacher leaders have said that it allows them to improve their practice in the classroom and learn more about pedagogy.

Teacher leaders reported an increased leadership capacity, where they look for even more leadership opportunities in other areas of their work and life. One teacher leader was quoted in the research as saying that as a result of being a leader, “I constantly want to better myself and look forward to the next challenge.”

The researchers also found that teachers taking on added leadership roles resulted in feelings of empowerment for all teachers in the school. Teacher leaders’ colleagues receive relevant support that encourages professional growth, and teacher leadership contributes significantly to school change, the research found.

What are the drawbacks of becoming a teacher leader?

Still, several of the consequences of teacher leadership reported in the literature were negative. Teacher leaders reported being more stressed and experiencing more difficulties at work.

And there was also a common refrain of teachers seeing a negative change in the relationship with their peers—the literature revealed that peers often resent teacher leaders because of their increase in power. Their status change disrupts the egalitarian norms of the school, the researchers write.

But this can change over time as everyone adjusts to the new roles—and teacher leaders’ relationship with administrators do become more positive.

Why factors would make a teacher not want to become a leader?

Wenner and Campbell identified four factors that inhibit teacher leadership. One of the most significant factors is, unsurprisingly, a lack of time and an already-overwhelming workload. Teachers expressed concern that they would have to leave their classroom to go to meetings, or the added responsibility would infringe on their personal or family time.

Teachers also stayed away from teacher leadership when they had poor relationships with administrators or colleagues. Unsupportive principals can prevent teacher leaders from doing their duties, and working with resistant or resentful colleagues can make teacher leadership difficult. As Wenner and Campbell wrote, “Obviously, it is difficult to be a leader when others do not wish to follow.”

A negative school climate—like a school for instance, that is resistant to change or doesn’t have a unified vision—was also a prohibiting factor. And of course, personal characteristics play a role. A teacher who doesn’t feel comfortable being a boss is not likely to become a teacher leader.

How diverse are teacher leaders?

That’s a good question, and one that hasn’t been explored in the literature. Only five pieces of the 54 that Wenner and Campbell analyzed touched on issues of diversity and equity.

And it does matter—in 2011, a group of researchers wrote that school leaders must attend to issues of equity and social justice because “a school culture that perpetuates the status quo and turns a blind eye to the social injustices that permeate our schools is not really ‘excellent.’”

Source: Image of a teacher leader conference by US Department of Education on Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons

Looking for More Articles on Teacher Leadership?

• What Question Does ‘Teacher Leadership’ Answer? (Opinion)
• To Tailor PD, D.C. Looks to Groom Teacher Leaders
• Teacher Leadership Makes Inroads, But Strives for Permanency
• School Districts Turn to Teachers to Lead
• A Recipe for Collaborative Teacher Leadership (Opinion)
• Teacher Leadership Movement Gets Boost From Ed. Dept.

A version of this news article first appeared in the Teaching Now blog.

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Understanding “Teacher Leadership” through a Multi-National Research Collaboration

Dr. Charles Webber  served for 16 years as a classroom teacher, curriculum  consultant, and principal in urban and rural schools in Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada before moving into postsecondary education. Prior to his current appointment, Charlie was Dean of Continuing Education and Extension at Mount Royal University. He also served as Dean of Human, Social, and Educational Development at Thompson Rivers University, and as Professor and Associate Dean in the Faculty of Education at the University of Calgary. He has been a Guest Professor at the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, Mérida, Yucatán, México, and at the Fujian Normal University in Fujian Province, P.R. China. He has been a Visiting Scholar at Naresuan University in Phitsanulok, Thailand, and at the Aga Khan University Institute of Educational Development, Eastern Africa, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He also has held an appointment as Adjunct Senior Fellow in the School of Education, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. Charlie currently holds an honorary appointment as  Buitengewone Professor (Extraordinary Professor) at North West University  in Potchefstroom, South Africa. 

Over the past twenty years, the concept of  teacher leadership  gained a lot of traction in Western countries, such as Canada, Australia, Britain, and the U.S., and spread to other countries around the world. While there is no general consensus about the definition of teacher leadership, the idea is that classroom teachers, when empowered and consulted, can have a positive impact on children’s experience and learning in school, and can exercise leadership in their communities in significant ways. Leadership does not have to pertain to a single person but can be shared among the school staff

The research has demonstrated that policy makers across cultures are using teacher leadership criteria to design frameworks for their teacher evaluations, professional development programs, and school reforms (Schott et al., 2020). However, in some contexts, this approach has been ineffective due to a hierarchical leadership structure ingrained within the school system and broader culture. I had heard from collaborators in countries around the world that this shortfall generates guilt among educational leaders and teachers who question what they are doing wrong and believe that there should be space to make sense of teacher leadership locally, without the pressure to apply the concept as it is understood in other cultures. As a result of this disconnection across contexts, there has been a need for a comprehensive study of teacher leadership that includes non-Western contexts (Nguyen at al., 2019), and shares cross-cultural understandings of teacher leadership.

Current literature links teacher leadership to the four broad areas of formal and informal leadership, school culture, professional development, and school improvement. (See Figure 1).

Within the four broad topic areas, several attributes and indicators of teacher leadership appear. Interestingly, the attributes and indicators in Table 1 align closely with the Alberta Education (2018) Teaching Quality Standard. That is, teachers in Alberta, Canada, are expected to provide inclusive learning environments, work closely with colleagues, apply foundational knowledge of Indigenous community members, and demonstrate consistent professionalism. They are held accountable for engaging in career-long learning, applying meaningful student assessment and evaluation practices, responding to change, and inviting community members and cultural advisors into schools and classrooms. These teaching quality standards are similar in form and focus to the Australian Professional Standards (2011), and those of the Department of Education (2011) in England and still others identified by the South African Council for Educators (2018). It is apparent that researchers’ understandings of teacher leadership and policy makers standards for teaching quality have strong reciprocal connections.

Attributes and Indicators of Teacher Leadership

To respond to the need for cross-cultural analyses of teacher leadership, I formed a  team of researchers  from 10 countries around the world to work on the “ International Study of Teacher Leadership ”, which seeks to contribute to the wider understanding of teacher leadership and of how professional and university programs might contribute to teacher leadership knowledge and skill development. 

The group initially came together for an educational conference at the Guangxi Normal University in Guilin, China in 2018. I had collaborated productively with many of the researchers in the group previously through other partnerships abroad and cross-national studies in South Africa, South Africa, Tanzania, Colombia, Mexico, and many other countries. Many of my co-researchers had pursued graduate studies or Fulbright research fellowships in the U.S. so they understood North American concepts, reasoning, and assumptions, but they also had a rich understanding of their local contexts. 

We set up a  multi-stage design  for the research. The first stage was to look at ourselves. Two of our members, Dr. Catherine Arden and Dr. Janet Okoko, took on the task of mapping our diverse understandings of teacher leadership by interviewing research team members to explore how we relate and ascribe meaning to the construct of teacher leadership.

Figure 2. Referential and structural components (Arden & Okoko, in press)

The second stage was the document analysis that was designed to understand how teacher leadership is described in each of our settings by educational stakeholders. We reviewed key documents in different cultural contexts, including school policies, accreditation requirements, standards documents, position descriptions, department of education policies, teacher education curricula, union position statements, and government and organizational web materials. We used the following lenses for our analysis: conceptualizations of teacher leadership, values, beliefs, commonalities, contradictions, guiding principles, and accountabilities. The third stage involved interviews and questionnaires with stakeholders, including teachers, parents, principals, ministry officials, etc., to juxtapose with our document analyses. Our fourth step, which has been on pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is to use ethnographic strategies to do case studies in schools to observe what happens in the context of the schools, while keeping in mind what we learned through the document analyses, interviews, and questionnaires. Finally, the fifth stage is about reflection. We have been interviewing and conducting oral histories with retired teacher leaders or mid-to-late career teacher leaders who have had a big impact on their communities in order to understand their views about leadership.

Reflecting on the work we have done so far, I have started to wonder if there might actually be no single definition of “teacher leadership,” but perhaps the utility of the concept is that it is a malleable term that can be used within various settings to involve teachers in processes and decision making in schools. 

The need for flexibility and adaptability of teachers and schools has been heightened by recent social and political events that have triggered significant levels of general anxiety and stress in many countries. For example, the large number of children and their families who have migrated internationally to seek refuge from violence, political turmoil, and economic uncertainty underscores the key role that ongoing improvements to teaching and learning have in the development and sustenance of functioning democracies. Teacher leaders are needed now more than ever before.

We are interested in the implications of our study for teacher and principal preparation. A big challenge is that a lot of principals around the world struggle to understand and support shared governance, which makes it difficult to facilitate collaboration.  Philip Haillinger  from  Mahidol University has written some great articles on the role of context in leadership.  Through our research, we have observed that context is indeed everything; teacher leadership in Bogota should not look the same as it does Calgary or Dar es Salaam.  

Research team members have presented early reports of research findings at conferences in Canada, Turkey, Morocco, Kenya, China, Mexico, and South Africa. The presentations led to a forthcoming special issue of  Research in Educational Administration and Leadership  (REAL) that will include  international reports  of the first two stages of the ISTL, the phenomenographic and document analysis components. 

Finally, the research team’s proposal for an edited book called  Teacher Leadership in International Contexts  is under review by a major international publisher with potential publication in 2021. Additional cross-national reports are in progress and will be submitted in 2021 to various academic journals for review and possible publication. Meanwhile, interviews and oral histories continue online, and case studies will be conducted when pandemic restrictions allow. 

Please see the  study website  for more information or contact me at  [email protected] .

Alberta Education (2018).  Teaching Quality Standard .  https://education.alberta.ca/media/3739620/standardsdoc-tqs-_fa-web-2018-01-17.pdf

Arden, C., & Okoko, J. (in press).  Exploring cross-cultural perspectives of teacher leadership among the members of an international research team: A phenomenographic study.   Research in Educational Administration and Leadership.

Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership. (2011).  Australian professional standards for teachers.  https://www.aitsl.edu.au/docs/default-source/national-policy-framework/2020/final-australian-professional-standards-for-teachers-(web).pdf?sfvrsn=816d53c_2

Bauman, C. (2014)  An Exploration of the Interconnectedness between elementary teacher job satisfaction, school culture and student achievement: A study in two Canadian elementary schools  (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Queensland.

Bauman, C. (2015). A refreshing perspective on teacher leadership: How teacher leaders effectively combine the use of autonomy and collaboration to enhance school improvement.  Leading and Managing, 21 (2), 46-59.

Bond, N. (2015). Teacher leaders as professional developers. In N. Bond (Ed.),  The power of teacher leaders: Their roles, influence, and impact  (pp. 57-69). New York: Kappa Delta Pi and Routledge.

Bone, S.C. (2015). Teacher leaders as school reformers. In N. Bond (Ed.),  The power of teacher leaders: Their roles, influence, and impact  (pp. 105-119). New York: Kappa Delta Pi and Routledge.

Carr, M.L. (2015). Teacher leaders and the art of self-mentoring.   In N. Bond (Ed.),  The power of teacher leaders: Their roles, influence, and impact  (31-42). New York: Kappa Delta Pi and Routledge.

Conway, J.M. (2015). Sustainable leadership for sustainable school outcomes: Focusing on the capacity building of school leadership.  Leading and Managing, 21 (2), 29-45.

Davis, B.H., Gilles, C., McGlamery, S., Shillingstad, S.L., Cearley-Key, T., Wang, Y., Smith, J., & Stegall, J. (2015). Mentors as teacher leaders in school/university induction   In N. Bond (Ed.),  The power of teacher leaders: Their roles, influence, and impact  (pp. 70-81). New York: Kappa Delta Pi and Routledge.

Department for Education. (2011).  Teachers’ standards: Guidance for school leaders, school staff and governing bodies.  https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/665520/Teachers__Standards.pdf

Hallinger, P. (2018). Bringing context out of the shadows of leadership.  Educational Management, Administration and Leadership, 46 (1), 5-24. 

Jackson, T., Burrus, J., Bassett, K., & Roberts, R.D. (2010).  Teacher leadership: An assessment framework for an emerging area of professional practice . Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Services

Lambert, L. (2003).  Leadership capacity for lasting school improvement . Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Nguyen, D., Harris, A., & Ng, D. (2020). A review of the empirical research on teacher leadership (2003-2017).  Research in Educational Administration, 58 (1), 60-80.

Nieto, S. (2015). Leading as a moral imperative.  In N. Bond (Ed.),  The power of teacher leaders: Their roles, influence, and impact  (pp. 183-195). New York: Kappa Delta Pi and Routledge.

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Pangan, C.H., & Lupton, A.  (2015). First-year teachers: New and ready to lead! In N. Bond (Ed.),  The power of teacher leaders: Their roles, influence, and impact  (pp. 120-131). New York: Kappa Delta Pi and Routledge.

Schott, C., van Roekel, H., & Tummers, L. (2020). Teacher leadership: A systematic review, methodological quality assessment and conceptual framework.  Educational Research Review.  (forthcoming).

South African Council for Educators. (2018).  SACE draft professional teaching standards.  https://www.sace.org.za/assets/documents/uploads/sace_36738-2019-03-06-SACE%20Draft%20PTS%20for%20Gazette%2028082018%20(00000003).pdf

Steffy, B. E., Wolfe, M. P., Pasch, S. H., & Enz, B. J. (2000),  The model and its application , in Steffy, B.E., Wolfe, M.P., Pasch, S.H., & Enz, B.J. (Eds),  Life cycle of the career teacher  (pp. 1-25), Kappa Delta Pi and Corwin Press, Thousand Oaks CA.

Webber, C.F. (in press).  The need for cross-cultural exploration of teacher leadership .  Research in Educational Administration and Leadership.

Webber, C.F, & Scott, S. (2012). Student assessment in a Canadian civil society.  Journal of Management Development, 31 (1), 34-47.

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March 18, 2024 | Mike Enright '88 (CLAS), University Communications

Six From UConn Named Presidential Management Fellows

The program is the federal government's flagship leadership development program for advanced degree holders across all academic disciplines

Aerial image of the University of Connecticut. (UConn Photo)

Six University of Connecticut graduates or current graduate/doctoral students have been named to the latest class of Presidential Management Fellows (PMF), which is administered by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

The program is the federal government’s flagship leadership development program for advanced degree holders across all academic disciplines. It was established 45 years ago and has gone through changes over the years, but the essential mission remains the same: to recruit and develop future government leaders from all segments of society. Alumni of the program occupy positions throughout the legislative and executive branches of the federal government, and serve as leaders in both corporate and nonprofit organizations.

Those chosen for the fellowship have 12 months to secure an appointment as a fellow, which is a two-year, full-time, paid fellowship at a federal agency.

Among the UConn recipients are:

Nikole Corella ’22 MS,  who earned her master’s in accounting from UConn and then went to work as an auditor for a Fortune 500 company. She is now the finance manager for a start-up.

“Earning this fellowship is a reminder to me, and others, that it is never too late in life to go after what you want,” says Corella. “I have a non-traditional background with various degrees and careers – each of which has taught me something and enriched my life. I have prior experience in non-profit and local government work, and after years of working in varied corporate environments, I longed to get back to the non-profit and government world.

“While there was every chance I might not get the fellowship, the application process helped me realize how much I wanted to work in the federal government. I am very happy that I am now able to pursue my ambition through the PMF program.”

Benjamin North ’14 (CLAS), ’23 MBA , who is currently working as a research analyst in the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection’s Bureau of Energy and Technology Policy.

“ Becoming a PMF awardee is deeply meaningful to me and something I never would have imagined before starting at UConn,” says North, a native of Woodbury. “After applying to the PMF program the previous year and not getting selected, applying again this year to become a finalist is extremely exciting and shows that persistence pays off. I hope this selection inspires other UConn students to apply to the program and further reinforces the fact that UConn graduates can compete against the very best talent across the country.”

Clarisa Rodrigues ’23 Ph.D , who earned her doctorate in educational psychology with a concentration in special education.

“My experience interning with the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) in 2023 allowed me to gain a greater appreciation for the important and impactful work being done by the U.S. Department of Education,” says Rodrigues. “After this experience, I wanted to continue pursing government work opportunities and after learning about the potential for professional growth, mentorship, and networking through the PMF program, I was excited to apply. I am thrilled about the prospect of contributing meaningfully as a fellow within the PMF program while broadening my knowledge and expertise in federal work.”

Grace Vaziri , a sixth-year doctoral student in ecology and evolutionary biology, who will earn her degree this spring.

“Earning this fellowship is an exciting opportunity that opens doors to a career in the federal government,” says Vaziri. “It provides extra training in management, which is not something that is always available on a formal basis in the academic career trajectory. The process of earning this fellowship has opened my eyes to new opportunities and has piqued my interest in a federal government job.”

Elizabeth Zagata , a fourth-year doctoral student in educational psychology (special education), who will earn her degree this spring.

“As a former intern with OSEP at the Department of Education, I was able to see firsthand the impact of federal agency work, particularly for students with disabilities,” says Zagata, a native of Avon. “I was fortunate to work on a wide range of projects, and I was consistently impressed by the dedication of OSEP team members. I knew that I wanted to explore potential career opportunities in this area, and the PMF program is a unique opportunity to find leadership roles within the federal government.”

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The typology of school leaders and teachers’ outcomes: a latent profile analysis of paternalistic leadership

• Published: 19 March 2024

Cite this article

• Shenghua Huang   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0891-8441 1 ,
• Hongbiao Yin   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5424-587X 2 &
• Xiaodan Li   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9436-5988 3  

Benevolence, morality, and authoritarianism are the three critical dimensions of paternalistic leadership rooted in Chinese cultures and may represent the relation-oriented, values-oriented, and task-oriented leadership styles under the western research framework. Using the person-centered latent profile analysis, this study investigated the profiles of paternalistic school leaders as perceived by teachers in order to determine whether these profiles in educational setting align with theories and evidence obtained from other settings. A total of 653 primary school teachers from Beijing and 731 primary school teachers from Jilin province participated in this study. The Beijing sample was used in initial profile identification, while the Jilin sample and the integrated sample were used in profile confirmation. The final results generally supported a 5-profile model, with the five profiles labelled as dictatorial paternalistic leaders, semi-ideological paternalistic leaders, semi-benefactor paternalistic leaders, selfless benefactor paternalistic leaders, and authentic paternalistic leaders, respectively. The automatic BCH approach was then used to estimate and compare the means of distal continuous outcomes across the five latent profiles. The results indicated that when teachers perceived leadership profiles as high in benevolence and morality, they also reported greater work engagement and teacher efficacy. When teachers perceived leadership profiles as high in authoritarianism, they also reported greater emotional exhaustion and turnover intention. Teachers under the leadership of authentic paternalistic leaders reported the highest levels of work engagement and teacher efficacy, as well as the highest levels of emotional exhaustion and turnover intention.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Shenghua Huang

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Huang, S., Yin, H. & Li, X. The typology of school leaders and teachers’ outcomes: a latent profile analysis of paternalistic leadership. Curr Psychol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-024-05835-7

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Five UBC engineering experts named Canada Research Chairs

March 13, 2024

Five UBC Applied Science researchers have been appointed as new and renewed Canada Research Chairs, among 19 chairs at UBC .

The Canada Research Chairs Program invests up to $311 million per year to attract and retain some of the world’s most accomplished and promising researchers in engineering and the natural sciences, health sciences, humanities and social sciences.

Dr. Anna Blakney , an assistant professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering and the Michael Smith Laboratories at UBC Vancouver campus, was awarded a new Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Nucleic Acid Bioengineering. The Blakney Lab is “a multidisciplinary group of engineers, immunologists and molecular biologists investigating the interactions between RNA, biomaterials and the immune system to prevent and treat disease.”

Dr. Ali Ghoreishi Madiseh , an assistant professor in the Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering at UBC Vancouver, was renewed as a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Advanced Mine Energy Systems. His research focuses on developing novel solutions for maximizing energy efficiency and improving system performance, to ultimately help mining and petroleum industries to improve their processes, cut operating costs and reduce their environmental footprint.

Dr. Amanda Giang , an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, is a new Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Environmental Modelling for Policy . Her research addresses challenges at the interface of environmental modelling and policy through an interdisciplinary lens, with a focus on air pollution and toxics .

Dr. Will Hughes , director of the School of Engineering at UBC Okanagan campus, was named a new Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in DNA Engineering . His research involves designing DNA for material, memory, machine and medical applications. 

He is also receiving $360,000 in support for this chair from the  Canada Foundation for Innovation’s John R. Evans Leaders Fund .

Dr. Carolina Tropini , an assistant professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, was awarded a new Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Quantitative Microbiota Biology for Health Applications. Her expertise is in engineering new microbes and tools to treat the chronic diseases, allergies and immune disorders that have resulted from lifestyle changes over the past 100 years.

Tier 1 Chairs are awarded to “outstanding researchers acknowledged by their peers as world leaders in their fields.” For each Tier 1 Chair, the institution receives $200,000 annually for seven years.

Tier 2 Chairs are given to “exceptional emerging researchers, acknowledged by their peers as having the potential to lead in their field.” For each Tier 2 Chair, the institution receives $100,000 annually for five years, with an additional $20,000 annual research stipend for first-term Tier 2 Chairs.

This year, 40 new and renewed Canada Research Chairs were appointed at 22 institutions across Canada.

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