CMS is delighted to celebrate two Killam Teaching Prize recipients and one Killam Graduate Teaching Assistant Award winner from our affiliate community for 2025-26.
Get to know the recipients.
Killam Teaching Prize
The Killam Teaching Prize is awarded annually to faculty nominated by students, colleagues and alumni in recognition of excellence in teaching.
Dr. Amanda Cheong
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology
Dr. Amanda Cheong teaches courses on migration, global development, and qualitative methods. She serves on the faculty advisory committee for the Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies Program and the executive committee for the Centre for Migration Studies. Dr. Cheong researches the impacts of documentation and legal status on people’s lives, working in partnership with stateless, undocumented, and refugee communities in Southeast Asia and North America.
“I share this award with all of the students, especially those from racialized, migrant, and working-class backgrounds, who have felt that their identities and experiences are underrepresented in what is taught to them. I hope that we can keep working together to build a postsecondary learning community that celebrates the knowledge creation capacities of those who have historically been marginalized from this space.”
Dr. Julien Picault
Professor, Department of Economics, Philosophy and Political Science, Irving K. Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Dr. Picault is a labour economist whose work focuses on discrimination in the labour market, with a particular focus on immigration and immigrants. He is currently teaching various economics courses, including Industrial Organization, Cost-Benefit Analysis, and Women in the Economy. His previous research sought to identify root causes of discrimination and assess the effectiveness of policies that foster equitable access to employment and career advancement.
Killam Graduate Teaching Assistant Award
In recognition of the valuable role that Graduate Teaching Assistants play in our programs, UBC annually honours GTAs with the Killam Graduate Teaching Assistant Award. Up to 19 winners are selected each spring. Successful candidates have met criteria demonstrating teaching excellence and a high level of esteem from undergraduate students and supervisors.
Shams Al-Anzi
Doctoral Student, Nursing, Faculty of Applied Science
With research interests in migration, youth mental health, and digital engagement, Shams Al-Anzi’s doctoral work examines how migration-related stressors, structural inequities, and experiences of belonging shape mental health outcomes among migrant and racialized young people in British Columbia, with a particular focus on West Asian and North African communities. Using mixed-methods and population-based data, she explores how everyday mobilities can serve as both sources of empowerment and sites of oppression. Grounded in intersectionality and postcolonial feminist frameworks, her work aims to inform equity-oriented policy, community-based interventions, and health system responses for migrant populations.
