From documentary screenings to cybersecurity competitions, the MacEwan community has had a busy few months. Celebrate some of the recent accomplishments of our faculty, staff, students and alumni.

Awards and nominations

Not to toot our own horns, but members of the MacEwan community are widely celebrated in the music scene. Sessional instructor and bassist Aretha Tillotson was nominated for a Juno in the category of Jazz Album of the Year for her album Kinda Out West. The album – which features Dave Laing, an assistant professor of music – was produced and recorded by associate professor in the Department of Music Padraig Buttner-Schnirer at MacEwan’s Bent River Records.

Secondhand Dreamcar was also nominated for a Juno in the category of Blues Album of the Year. The group features MacEwan faculty member Jamie Cooper, along with several alumni, including Distinguished Alumni Award honoree Dave Babcock, Music ’82; David Aide, Music ’92; Peter Filice, Bachelor of Music in Jazz & Contemporary Pop Music ’22; and Kyle Mosiuk, Music ’09.

MacEwan is also making waves in the Edmonton art scene. A number of our own have been nominated for 2026 Edmonton Art Prizes. AJA Louden, alum (Design Studies ’12, Design Foundations ’10) and Distinguished Alumni Award honoree, and Kiona Callihoo Ligtvoet, Fine Art ’17, have been shortlisted for The Eldon + Anne Foote Edmonton Visual Arts Prize. Alum Simon Glassman (Design Studies ’10, Design Foundations ’08), has been shortlisted for the City of Edmonton Film Prize, as has sessional instructor in design and 2025 Sessional Instructor Teaching Excellence Award recipient, Colin Waugh.

You can read more about Waugh in this compilation story, where he and his fellow 2025 Teaching Awards recipients invite us to visit their spaces for “Office Hours.” Watch for our 2026 Teaching Awards announcement coming soon!

This March, seven faculty members were named inaugural Chancellor Research Chairs, in recognition of their sustained, high-quality scholarship and potential for exceptional scholarly distinction within the institution and beyond.

Speaking of scholarly distinction, Dr. Emily Milne was named MacEwan’s 2026 Distinguished Researcher Award recipient for her work to identify education inequities and address knowledge gaps to improve education decision-making, practices and policies in Alberta, for which she also has a SSHRC Partnership Grant.

Dr. Joshua Miller was named the inaugural Emerging Scholar Award recipient, which recognizes  early-career researchers and provides funding to engage with MacEwan students through research assistantships and develop external funding proposals to further strengthen their research program.

Our professors are not the only ones winning awards. School of Business students Suliman Ahadi, Joehn Torres, Ashton McBride and Alec Little, supported by faculty advisor Dr. Natalia Khinkanina, were awarded the Social Media Engagement Award at the Alberta Not-For-Profit External Case Competition (AECC), where universities from all around the world came together to develop and present solutions addressing key challenges faced by not-for-profit organizations in the Edmonton region. 

Students in MacEwan’s cybersecurity club, club.eh, are getting noticed – at home and away. The many awards the club has earned in its three years of existence include placing second at the National Cybersecurity Consortium West Regional Conference at the beginning of 2026, allowing them to compete nationally in Quebec this June. The group members – Masha Antoshkina, Andrew Numrich, Tenzin Pyurveev, Edzna Castillo, Dmytro Gorkun, Zoubere Yusuf, Akmal Jeelani, Allan Jacob Neufeld, Graham Irvine, Lira Wu, Rodney Nsubutga, Charles Christianson – also placed second at The Great Canadian Capture The Flag, by HTB Hack The Box (HTB) in February. 

Hailey Robertson, Massage Therapy ’25, received the Peter Martin Award for her research on the usages of proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation with MS patients. This same work also won her a silver award at the International Massage Therapy Foundation. 

Papers and publications  

 The Bolo Tie Collective released its annual anthology on January 30. Volume IX features MacEwan University student and alumni creative writers.

FOE (Freedom of Expression) – a student-run literary magazine created by students in Arts and Cultural Management prof Rayanne Haine’s literary arts management class – launched “The Humanity Issue: Ode d’1954” in March. Dedicated to amplifying silenced voices from Alberta and sharing works that challenge convention, censorship and complacency, the inaugural issue featured dozens of Alberta writers who sent in submissions expressing their existences and challenging the status quo.

Screenings, talks and residencies

April 11 was the world premiere of The Perfect Match at the NorthWest Film Fest. Sheena Rossiter, assistant professor in communications, co-wrote, produced and edited the film, which follows the story of a Ghanaian-Canadian father whose young son died of cancer while awaiting a compatible stem-cell donor. The film highlights how non-Caucasian communities remain under-represented in Canada’s stem cell donor registry and features survivors of sickle-cell disease whose siblings became their life-saving matches. 

Kyra Droog, Bachelor of Communication Studies ’19 and Alumni Advisory Council member, was asked to present at the University of Münster (Münster, DE) conference, Thinking of the Children: Book Bans, Censorship and Literature for Young People.

Cheyenne Rain LeGrande, Fine Art ’16 and 2024 Emerging Leader Award honoree, served as McGill University’s artist in residence for the Faculty of Arts Institute for Indigenous Research and Knowledges from March 9-20.