Black Research Network members named to Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists
Two members of the Black Research Network have been named to the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists.
New members elected to the college include Jude Kong, an assistant professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and Karina Joan Vernon, an associate professor of English at the University of Toronto Scarborough.
The college recognizes members of the emerging generation of Canadian intellectual leadership who have showcased exceptional accomplishment. It is Canada’s most prestigious recognition for mid-career academics and artists.
Jude Kong
Kong uses artificial intelligence to provide solution to global health challenges, largely in the Global South. He was named a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Community-Oriented Artificial Intelligence & Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Disease in 2024.
As founder of the Africa Canada Artificial Intelligence and Data Innovation Consortium (ACADIC), Kong led a team of researchers from across nine African countries to create AI-powered early detection systems for COVID-19, which helped predict daily case counts, amongst other insights.
In 2022, Kong founded the AI4PEP network, which includes more than 160 researchers from 16 countries. With a focus on leadership from the Global South, the network works to advance responsible AI solutions to strengthen public health systems and improve prevention, preparedness and response to disease outbreaks.
Karina Joan Vernon
Vernon’s research focuses on Black and Black-Indigenous histories of the Canadian Prairies. Her scholarship is deeply rooted in her own experience of growing up in Alberta in the 1980s, when Black history in the Prairies was largely erased from classrooms and public life.
Her work has since sought to recover and share those erased narratives.
Vernon gained national attention for her research on Black Prairie literature. She edited The Black Prairie Archives: An Anthology, which uncovers the voices of Black fur traders, farmers, and contemporary poets – some published for the first time – in forms ranging from letters and recipes to rap lyrics and fiction. The work has enabled a stream of storytelling about the Black prairie experience in a variety of forms including in journalism, visual art and writing.
Read more about her work in UTSC News.
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