Elaine Cagulada awarded Alice Wilson medal by Royal Society of Canada

University of Toronto alumna Elaine Cagulada, who teaches and researches disability studies and its intersectionalities, is among the 2023 recipients of the Alice Wilson medal from the Royal Society of Canada.

Awarded nationally to three women of outstanding academic qualifications at the postdoctoral level, the Wilson award’s recipients are chosen from the current year’s female winners of postdoctoral fellowships from the three granting councils: the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

Cagulada, who earned her doctorate from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at U of T earlier this year, is now a SSHRC postdoctoral fellow in the department of gender studies at Queen's University.

“Being awarded the Alice Wilson medal means receiving institutional recognition for my research in the fields of disability studies, Black studies and sociology,” says Cagulada, whose doctoral research explored the intersectionality of Deafness, disability, race and policing.

After reading about the medal and the barriers that Wilson faced as a woman in geology, paleontology, and academia, Cagulada says she deeply appreciates receiving the award named for the scholar.  

“From what I can understand, being granted a Royal Society of Canada medal in Alice Wilson’s name suggests being recognized for pursuing wonder, curiosity and transformative change amid the entwined objectifying forces of ableism, racial capitalism, and colonial hetero-patriarchy – forces of which Wilson seemed aware,” she says.