UBC Sauder announces winners of Research and Teaching Awards for 2024/2025

The UBC Sauder School of Business has recognized five faculty members for their outstanding achievements and efforts in teaching and research for the 2024/2025 academic year.

Killam Teaching Award for excellence in undergraduate teaching

Sima Sajjadiani is the recipient of the UBC Killam Teaching Award for excellence in undergraduate teaching. Sima demonstrates excellence in the classroom by making complex topics accessible, fostering inclusive learning environments, and creating meaningful learning experiences. She integrates academic research with applied learning, helping students bridge theory and practice while building essential skills. She has developed and successfully launched COMM 324 a new course in HR Analytics that has expanded UBC Sauder’s HR curriculum. In addition, she served as a course coordinator in COMM 203 and has led major revisions to course materials, assignments, and exams. She embodies the highest standards of teaching through her interactive approach, commitment to student learning, and dedication to student success.

The Arne Olsen Teaching Prize for part-time instructors

Richard Wong is the recipient of The Arne Olsen Teaching Prize for part-time instructors. As a continuing sessional lecturer in the accounting and information systems division and the Diploma in Accounting (DAP) program. Richard demonstrates exceptional versatility and effectiveness in teaching a broad range of courses at multiple levels, including Introductory Accounting, Taxation, Intermediate Accounting and Financial Statement Analysis. Rather than delivering conventional lectures, he creates interactive learning environments with hands-on exercises and gamification techniques. Richard regularly makes himself available to students and generously shares his time and resources with colleagues to support their teaching.

CPA Teaching Award for excellence in graduate teaching

Yann Cornil is the recipient of The CPA Teaching Award for excellence in graduate teaching. Yann has established a record of excellence in graduate teaching, curriculum development, and mentorship. Yann’s most significant achievement in graduate teaching at UBC Sauder is his creation of the Experiments and Causal Inference for the MBAN Program. The course is about the fundamentals of the experimental method, and helps students acquire the expertise to design, conduct, analyze, and report experiments in a business context. Yann also revamped the MBA Consumer Behaviour course, developing an innovative project in which students test a consumer behavior theory using Facebook A/B testing. Yann was recognized as one of the top 40 MBA business professors under 40 by MBA information website Poets and Quants. 

Talking Stick Award

Glen Donaldson is the recipient of The UBC Sauder Alumni Talking Stick Award. Glen has played a pivotal role in revitalizing graduate finance education at UBC Sauder, particularly through his leadership in restructuring the MBA Finance Track. In 2021, Glen was appointed as MBA Finance Track Coordinator and entrusted with rebuilding and modernizing the program. Glen executed a comprehensive renewal plan, where he sought to understand both student aspirations and industry expectations. Glen then led a full-scale redesign of the Finance Track, introducing cutting-edge courses and recruiting industry-savvy instructors. His efforts resulted in a curriculum that blends academic depth with real-world application, ensuring that graduates are well-prepared for the evolving finance landscape. Glen’s leadership has led to a dramatic transformation in MBA Finance Track. Finance is now the largest MBA track in terms of enrolment, and student learning outcomes have improved, with many students securing stronger job placements post-MBA.

Research Excellence Award, Junior Category

(For candidates at most 10 years post-Ph.D.).

Joseph Paat is the recipient of the UBC Sauder School of Business Research Excellence Award in the Junior category. Joe asks and answers deep, challenging and often fundamental questions in operations research. His research uses various tools from discrete mathematics that include discrete geometry, the geometry of numbers, and matroid theory; and he has made significant contributions to integer programming theory. Joe also explores ways to translate his theoretical findings into practice by improving optimization software packages. Since completing his PhD in 2017, Joe has published 20 articles, 12 of which appear in OpLog’s top-tier “A” journals. Joe has also been an excellent teacher both at the graduate and undergraduate level. He is an active contributor to all aspects of the Operations and Logistics division and the UBC Sauder School, and is developing a reputation as one of the leading scholars in discrete optimization.

“Please join me in congratulating these outstanding faculty members,” said Joey Hoegg, Senior Associate Dean, Faculty. “I would also like to recognize those who were nominated but did not win this year. We are fortunate to have exceptional faculty, and hence we had numerous strong nominations. I am grateful to the nominators who wrote letters of support—thank you for taking the time to honour your colleagues’ accomplishments. Finally, a huge thank you to the members of the APAC Committee for their work soliciting and reviewing nominations: Harish Krishnan (Chair), Karl Aquino, Perry Atwal, Markus Baldauf, Jenna D’Adduzio, Michael Daniels, Tom Davidoff, Steven Minns, Mi Zhou.”