Honouring Dr. Dina Brooks

This message is on behalf of RSI Director, Dr. Angela Colantonio

On December 6, we celebrated the extraordinary accomplishments and service of Dr. Dina Brooks, our longstanding Graduate coordinator. In a very packed Alumni Café at 500 University, we heard from numerous faculty, students and colleagues about her legacy of mentorship, education and research. She will be taking on the role of Vice Dean (Faculty of Health Sciences) and Executive Director, School of Rehabilitation Science at McMaster University effective January 1, 2019. I wish to congratulate her on this important new role in her already illustrious career.

While we are very happy to see Dr. Brooks flourish in her new role, needless to say, we are also very sad. There are no words to really express and capture all the extraordinary contributions she has made to the Rehabilitation Sciences Institute, (formerly the Graduate Department of Rehabilitation Science). She has played an instrumental role in the mentorship of faculty, graduate students and staff across departments and research institutes. She is a world leader in physical therapy and rehabilitation science and has taken on numerous significant leadership roles with a broad range of organizations.

On a personal level, I have never met anyone so genuinely focused on mentorship of our broad range of students and so quick to respond to all their needs. The success of our graduate program could not have been possible without all her dedicated input on so many committees and on our leadership team. While she will continue to maintain an appointment in RSI, she will be dearly missed by all. I have deeply appreciated her collegiality, warmth, enthusiasm, brilliance, passion and support.

It is to no one’s surprise that Dr. Brooks was our inaugural RSI Service Award recipient so in recognizing her incredible contributions to RSI, I am happy to announce that award will now be called the Dr. Dina Brooks RSI Service Award. We wish her every success in her future role and look forward to collaborating nationally!

Our new graduate coordinator as of January 1, 2019 is Dr. Yana Yunusova, who is an Associate Professor of Speech Language Pathology. She is an outstanding scholar who demonstrates an enormous energy and enthusiasm to make a difference. Please see the link to her bio. We are excited to work with Dr. Yunusova!

Sincerely,