Dr. Sarah Copland in the Department of English and Dr. Brian Franczak in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics are the latest MacEwan faculty members to be named Chancellor’s Research Chairs. The Research Chair program, established in 2018, appoints select faculty members each year for their exceptional commitment to their own research, and to assisting fellow faculty with groundbreaking research and creative work.
“It is my privilege and pleasure to recognize Dr. Copland and Dr. Franczak,” said Dr. Anthony Fields, MacEwan’s chancellor. “Their widely varied fields of expertise demonstrate the depth and breadth of the research activity at MacEwan, and I congratulate them on behalf of the entire university community.”
As Chancellor’s Research Chairs, Dr. Copland and Dr. Franczak are granted a reduced teaching load in order to focus on research. Their terms last two years, and this year they are sharing the esteemed position with Dr. Trevor Hamilton and Dr. Melissa Hills, who received chair positions for 2024 through 2026.
About the recipients
Dr. Sarah Copland
Associate professor, Department of English
Since coming to MacEwan in 2012, Dr. Copland has explored a wide range of scholarly research, particularly in the scholarship of teaching and learning. She has created an exceptional plan for student involvement and prioritizes ongoing community engagement. Her research interests include modernism, narrative theory, narrative ethics, the novel and the short story. In 2023, she received a Distinguished Teaching Award for her unique approaches to learning and student engagement.
Dr. Brian Franczak
Associate professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics
Dr. Franczak joined MacEwan in 2016, and during his time on campus has engaged in multiple ongoing national collaborations, including work with a Discovery Grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). He leads an active research program with MacEwan students working on methodological projects in cluster analysis. In his own research, Dr. Franczak has a focus on developing mixtures of multivariate distributions for classifying observations in data sets that have asymmetric features.