OISE welcomes five new faculty in 2025
OISE is pleased to announce that all five of our 2024-2025 faculty searches have successfully concluded. The Institute is fortunate to have secured five highly accomplished colleagues to join us in pursuit of our mission in education. We look forward to welcoming the following talented individuals into their new roles, including:
Associate Professor - School and Clinical Child Psychology
Dr. Brendan Andrade begins a tenure steam appointment at the rank of Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development, effective August 1, 2025. Dr. Andrade received a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the Department of Psychology and Neurosciences at Dalhousie University in 2006. He is currently a Senior Scientist with the Margaret and Wallace McCain Centre for Child Youth and Family Mental Health at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and holds a status only appointment as Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine. Dr. Andrade’s applied program of clinical research aims to personalize clinic and community-based psychosocial intervention for children with disruptive behaviour disorders and neurodevelopmental disorders as well as their parents. His research has been funded by CIHR, the American Psychological Foundation, and the Ontario Mental Health Foundation, and has been published in nearly 100 peer-reviewed articles. Dr. Andrade’s research leadership roles have included service as Associate Editor of the Canadian Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Research Lead on the Department of Psychiatry’s Division of Child and Youth Mental Health Executive Committee, and Chair/Co-Chair of a number of selection committees geared toward training the next generation of child health scientific leaders in Canada. In 2017, Dr. Andrade received the Excellence in Leadership in Psychology Award from CAMH. He has supervised numerous psychology residents, practicum students, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students, many of them in APHD. In 2019, Dr. Andrade received the Excellence in Education in Psychology Award from CAMH.
Assistant Professor - Digital Technologies in Education
Dr. Lydia Cao begins a tenure-stream appointment at the rank of Assistant Professor in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning, effective July 1, 2025. Dr. Cao received a PhD in Education from the University of Cambridge in 2022. She has since held postdoctoral fellowships at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and at CTL’s Institute for Knowledge Innovation and Technology (IKIT). Her doctoral and postdoctoral work has focused on developing collaborative AI systems and learning analytics, transforming Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) with digital technologies, and investigating AI-powered immersive technologies for complex skill development and assessment. Dr. Cao’s publication record includes 4 peer-reviewed journal articles, 6 published conference proceedings, and 7 research reports. Her work on cross-community knowledge building and sustainability education has won the “Outstanding Long Paper Award” at the International Society of Learning Sciences Annual Conference in 2025. She has delivered numerous invited talks and guest lectures on a variety of AI and sustainability topics to audiences in Australia, Canada, China, India, Singapore, the UK, and the US. As a Postdoctoral Fellow at IKIT, she co-taught graduate courses in Knowledge Building and Digital Media and Practices for a Knowledge Society. Dr. Cao also has previous experience as a classroom teacher with the Calgary Board of Education.
Assistant Professor - Indigenous Studies in Education
Angela Easby begins a tenure stream appointment at the rank of Assistant Professor (Conditional) in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning, effective July 1, 2025. Angela holds an MA in Environmental Studies from the University of Victoria and is currently a PhD candidate in Social Practice and Transformational Change at the College of Social and Applied Human Sciences, University of Guelph. She is a Métis and Anishinaabe scholar with research interests in urban Indigenous communities, Indigenous education, Anishinaabemowin revitalization, and community-based research design. Her doctoral research examines how adult Anishinaabemowin learners and speakers navigate short-term and long-term mobility to learn, carry, and share Anishinaabemowin. Angela’s publication record includes one refereed journal article and three book chapters, and she has presented her work at a several academic and community-based conferences. She also has extensive leadership experience in Indigenous community settings, including the co-management of community-driven research projects for the Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres and the development of Anishinaabemowin language programming. In addition to her work in community-based educational programs, she has guest lectured or assisted in a wide range of university courses.
Associate Professor - Queer Studies and Social Justice Education
Dr. Lore/tta LeMaster (she/they) begins a tenure stream appointment at the rank of Associate Professor in the Department of Social Justice Education, effective August 1, 2025. Dr. LeMaster received a PhD in Communication Studies from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale in 2016. She is currently an Associate Professor at the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University, where she has held a tenure stream appointment since 2018. Dr. LeMaster’s research focuses on critical and liberatory pedagogies, queer and trans cultural performance and survival, queer and trans of colour criticism, critical qualitative research methods, performance methods, rhetorical criticism, arts-based inquiry, critical ethnography, autoethnography, and narrative inquiry. She is the author of Pedagogies of the Enfleshed: Critical Communication Pedagogy, Otherwise (Rowan & Littlefield, 2025), co-editor (with Amber Johnson) of Gender Futurity, Intersectional Autoethnography: Embodied Theorizing from the Margins (Routledge, 2020), and her work has also been published in 22 peer-reviewed journal articles and 19 book chapters. Dr. LeMaster’s books and papers have won dozens of awards from national and regional bodies in communication studies, and she is the recipient of the 2021 Early Career Award from the International Association of Autoethnography and Narrative Inquiry as well as the 2024 Randy Majors Award from the National Communication Association’s Caucus on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Concerns. She has also made extensive creative contributions adjacent to her scholarly work, with performance, writing, and directing credits in a variety of theatre projects. Dr. LeMaster has an extensive graduate and undergraduate teaching, mentoring and supervision record that has been recognized by awards from the Communication Graduate Student Association and Faculty Women’s Association at ASU, as well as professional associations.
Associate Professor - K-12 Educational Leadership
Dr. Vidya Shah begins a tenured appointment at the rank of Associate Professor in the Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education, effective August 1, 2025. Dr. Shah received an EdD in Educational Administration from OISE in 2016. She is currently a tenured Associate Professor of Leadership and Community in the Faculty of Education at York University, where she has held a tenure stream appointment since 2018. Dr. Shah’s research uses anti-racist, decolonial, and anti-colonial frameworks in educational leadership and school district reform to support educational leaders in creating structural, ideological, and pedagogical change towards racial and intersecting justices in education. Dr. Shah’s research has been funded by SSHRC, the Ontario Ministry of Education, York University, and a number of community organizations. Her publication record includes 15 refereed journal articles, 4 book chapters, 4 guest journal editorials, and 14 non-refereed articles. She is the recipient of the 2024 William J. Davis Award from the University Council on Educational Administration for the most outstanding article published in Educational Administration Quarterly, as well as the 2022 OISE Leaders and Legends Mentor of the Year Award. Dr. Shah has given numerous keynote presentations and has been interviewed on television or cited in print media as an educational expert on dozens of occasions. She has extensive graduate supervision and teaching experience, and her excellence in teaching has been recognized by university-wide and Faculty of Education teaching awards at York University. Dr. Shah’s expertise as a researcher and teacher in educational leadership draws upon her earlier professional experience as an elementary school teacher with the TDSB, including an appointment as Lead Teacher for the Model Schools for Inner Cities program from 2009 to 2013, and recognition by the Elementary Teachers of Toronto Excellence in Teaching Equity Award in 2017.