NIA-Toronto Star Journalism in Ageing Project
NIA-Toronto Star Journalism in Ageing Project
This September, the NIA and the Toronto Star were excited to announce the Journalism in Ageing Project where up to five (5) selected journalists will each be awarded $5,000 to conduct a journalism project on the topic of ageing, which they will have one year to complete.
Journalism in Ageing Project Recipients
The NIA and the Toronto Star are proud to announce the winners of the 2023 Journalism in Ageing Project: Christina Frangou, Jat Dhillon, Joanna Cheek, Megan O’Toole and Michaela Cavanagh.
Each project recipient has been awarded a $5,000 prize to complete their project, supported by the Toronto Star’s journalism infrastructure and bolstered by the latest evidence and insights into the lived experience of older adults from the NIA and its partners.
Christina Frangou
Christina Frangou is an independent journalist in Calgary who specializes in writing about health, medicine and social issues. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, Maclean’s, Canadian Geographic and The Globe and Mail, among others. She has received numerous honours, including a National Newspaper Award and four National Magazine Awards for Feature Writing. In 2022, she was awarded the Landsberg Award from the Canadian Women’s Foundation and the Canadian Journalism Foundation. Christina teaches journalism at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology and the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto.
Jat Dhillon
Jat Dhillon's two decades of journalism include roles as producer/reporter in broadcast news and features in the UK, Europe and Canada for TV, radio, online and social media. Jat was an Associate Producer at CBC radio's The Current in Toronto for two years. She had stints with BBC Singapore, media outlets in Brussels, Berlin and the European Parliament. Jat was a leading project producer on live events such as Prince William’s 2011 wedding, London 2012 Olympics and the Queen’s 2022 Platinum Jubilee. She has worked in Canada, Europe and South-East Asia, and speaks French, German and South Asian languages.
Joanna Cheek
Joanna Cheek, M.D., is a Canadian psychiatrist, speaker, meditation teacher, psychotherapist trained in numerous styles of therapy, and clinical associate professor at the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Medicine. She completed her journalism fellowship at UoT with her work featured in the L.A. Times, Toronto Star, the Walrus, Maclean’s, CBC, NeoLife, and National Post, among others. She’s close to completing her MFA in creative nonfiction at King’s College (Dalhousie) and is the author of the upcoming book, It’s Not You. It’s the World: A Mental Health Survival Guide.
Megan O’Toole
Megan O’Toole is an award-winning investigative and data journalist with a career spanning two decades. She has reported from more than a dozen countries worldwide on topics ranging from the war on ISIS, to the Gaza siege, to the economic impact of US sanctions on Iran, to the refugee crisis along the Mediterranean. As an international editor, she has managed dozens of journalists throughout the Middle East and North Africa, handling the commissioning and editing of stories from across the region. Her work has won a variety of accolades, including two awards from Amnesty International for her coverage of indigenous land rights and environmental justice.
Michaela Cavanagh
Michaela Cavanagh is a journalist and writer interested in telling the human stories of climate change. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, the London Review of Books, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Die Zeit and the Globe and Mail. She's a second-year candidate in the MFA program in creative nonfiction at the University of King's College where she's at work on a book about the emotional landscape of the climate crisis. She's currently a visiting researcher at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.