The Special Honorary Degree Event will be held on Nov. 17 at the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts, where five honorary degrees will be conferred.

The conferring of these honorary degrees has been delayed as in-person convocation ceremonies were not held in 2020 and 2021 to help limit the spread of COVID-19.

The special ceremony will be livestreamed.

Honorary degree recipients are selected by Queen’s community members for their contributions to the local community, Canadian society, or the world.

The honorary degree recipients are:

Daniel Bader - Doctor of Laws

Daniel Bader, President and CEO of Bader Philanthropies, is a respected corporate leader, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, whose leadership of the Bader Foundation has transformed the lives of some of society’s most vulnerable. A philanthropic force, Bader’s efforts have provided more than US$377 million in funding to more than 8,500 causes around the world. An active and engaged member of the Queen’s Board of Trustees, including serving as the vice-chair of its advancement committee, he has expanded and deepened the philanthropic legacy of his parents, Drs. Alfred and Isabel Bader, to Queen’s with the 2019 donation of Rembrandt van Rijn’s Head of an Old Man with Curly Hair – the fourth painting of the Dutch master donated to the university. He has also supported the revitalization of the Agnes Etherington Art Centre with a generous gift of $54 million, establishing the Bader Collection, the greatest university collection of European Art in Canada. Bader played a key role on securing the resources needed to complete the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts.

Heather Ross - Doctor of Science

Heather Ross is the Head of the Division of Cardiology at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre at Universities Health Network (UHN) and Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto. She is the Site Lead for the Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research, and holds the Loretta A. Rogers Chair in Heart Function and the Pfizer Chair in Cardiovascular Research. She received her BSc (Honours Biology) from Queen’s University before receiving her MD from the University of British Columbia. Dr. Ross has held numerous leadership roles including President of the Canadian Society of Transplantation in 2005 and executive of the International Society for Heart & Lung Transplantation. She has served 11 years on the Canadian Cardiovascular Society (CCS) Council, and is a CCS past president. She served four years on the executive of the Heart Failure Society of America. Dr. Ross is the founder of TestYourLimits.ca dedicated to improving heart health and research in heart failure.

Terrence Sullivan - Doctor of Science

Terrence Sullivan is a behavioral scientist, Professor and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Health Policy, Management & Evaluation, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto and adjunct professor in the Department of Oncology at McGill University. His research interests span cancer control, quality and performance strategies and disability policy. Governance roles include chair of the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health, and chair of the Quality and Safety committee of the Hospital for Sick Children board. From 2001 to 2011 he occupied leadership positions at Cancer Care Ontario (CCO), the final seven years as president and CEO. During this time Dr. Sullivan played formative roles in the creation, design and governance of Public Health Ontario and Health Quality Ontario. He was also the founding president of the Institute for Work & Health. Dr. Sullivan continues to provide a range of consulting and advisory services to governments, health care, and cancer organizations in Canada and internationally, contributing most recently to an evaluation of the pCPA (pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance) and the recently-released WHO 2020 Report on Cancer. 

Brenda Trenowden - Doctor of Laws

Brenda Trenowden CBE, Global co-chair of the 30% Club, is a partner in PwC UK within the Workforce Strategy and Culture consulting practice. Trenowden helps clients improve business performance with a particular focus on diversity, inclusive culture and purpose. She is a strong advocate for women’s economic empowerment and has been recognised with several awards for her global campaigning for greater gender balance across organisations as a voluntary, business-led imperative. She is also an advisor to the UK Government’s Hampton-Alexander Review for increasing the representation of women in the executive level of the FTSE 350. She  was listed as one of the ‘100 Most Influential Women in Finance’ in 2016, 2017 and 2018, was No. 1 in the FT HERoes list 2018, and was awarded a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List 2018 for services to the financial sector and gender equality. Trenowden graduated with an honours Bachelor of Commerce degree from the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University, and who continues to be active in the Queen’s community through her membership of the Smith Global Council Board, ongoing support for the Commerce ’89 Entrance Award, as well as past activity as the London, UK Alumni Branch President, and service on the boards of Herstmonceaux Castle Enterprises and the Bader International Study Centre.

Neil Turok - Doctor of Science

Director Emeritus and Mike and Ophelia Lazaridis Niels Bohr Chair, Neil Turok is also Director of the Centre for the Universe at Perimeter and inaugural Higgs Chair at the University of Edinburgh. Previously Dr. Turok was Professor of Physics at Princeton University and Chair of Mathematical Physics at the University of Cambridge. He is a leader in developing and testing theories of the universe and pioneered investigations of many theoretical proposals, including cosmic strings, and “single-bubble” inflationary universes – the basis of the multiverse paradigm. Recently, he and his collaborators developed a new approach to path integrals, with applications and also proposed a new picture of the cosmos – the CPT-invariant universe – giving the simplest yet explanation for cosmic dark matter. Dr. Turok founded the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, a network of centres of excellence for math and science training, research and public outreach across the continent.

In addition to conferring these five honorary degrees, the ceremony will also highlight the honorary degree recently conferred on Raymond Mason (Doctor of Laws) at his home in Peguis First Nation, Manitoba. A survivor of the residential school system, Mason is being recognized for his efforts in seeking justice and compensation for residential school survivors from the federal government. He founded Spirit Wind Inc., an organization which gathered testimonies and started the process that led to the largest class action settlement in Canadian history and the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Learn more about Raymond Mason and his ceremony in this Queen’s Gazette article.