Boulou Ebanda de B’béri

Founding director of the Audiovisual Media Lab for the Study of Cultures and Societies as well as professor of media studies and intercultural communication, Boulou Ebanda de B’béri joined the Department of Communication in 2004.

Professor de B'béri is an internationally recognized expert in media and cultural studies. As principal researcher of a Community-University Research Alliance project, he studied Canadians’ historical amnesia with respect to the contribution of Black pioneers in the Dawn Settlement of Chatham-Kent, Ontario, in the early 19th century. For this project, he focused on the implementation of strategies to combat slavery and to promote civil rights across Canada, the United States of America and elsewhere in the world. Today, Professor de B'béri studies the transatlantic relationship of Canada's black presses in the 19th and 20th centuries.

For Professor de B'béri, the Faculty of Arts' Professor of the Year Award represents more than an individual award but a prize for the entire African community, for which he has an ethical responsibility and is compelled to be a role model. He adds that "for all these Africans, I will forever remain the first professor of African origin – a figure with whom they can identify – to have been Professor of the Year of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ottawa, and that means something, it is more than the Award!” Congratulations!

Beverly Baker

Beverly Baker is an Associate Professor and Director of Language Assessment at the Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute and is Director of the Institute’s Language Assessment Research Group. An internationally known applied linguist, she is widely published in the areas of language assessment and teacher development and has presented her work at dozens of practitioner and researcher conferences in more than 10 countries. Beverly is also recognized internationally for her service with the International Language Testing Association, and was a founding member of the Canadian Association of Language Assessment (CALA). Beverly’s current funded programs of research involve team collaboration with researchers as well as practitioners, focusing on three areas: Novice ESL and FSL language teacher identity formation; Indigenous language revitalization and assessment in a Mi’kmaq community; and language assessment and teacher development in Haiti.  She is highly successful in securing external research funds. In the past 7 years, she has received as Principal and Co-Investigator nearly $1M from SSHRC, government agencies, and international applied linguistics and language assessment organizations. Beverly was also the recipient of the 2019 Young Researcher of the Year Award of the University of Ottawa.