Catalyst Fellowship Program

COHORT

FALL 2024

LOCATION

HYBRID

COST

FREE

Catalyst Fellowship Program

The Catalyst Fellowship Program is a major initiative dedicated to advancing the Catalyst’s mission — to empower Canadians and Canadian businesses to seize the opportunities and tackle the challenges of cybersecurity — through original research and industry engagement.

Registration for this program is now closed.
To learn more download brochure

Overview

Selected from academics at Toronto Metropolitan University and professionals working in a wide variety of organizations and sectors, Catalyst Fellows will undertake original research and other projects related to the Catalyst’s work; engage closely with Catalyst program participants and staff; and share their expertise in an environment dedicated to innovation and collaboration in cybersecurity.

There are two streams in the Catalyst Fellowship Program: the Industry Stream and the Academic Stream.

Available Streams

Duis pharetra sem at augue mattis laoreet. Etiam augue mi, suscipit ac dignissim eu, vulputate sed nunc. Nunc ultricies laoreet ipsum hendrerit auctor. Praesent faucibus rutrum velit quis facilisis. Nunc eu orci tristique, bibendum turpis at, congue odio. Praesent id posuere odio. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Curabitur et consequat nibh.

Industry Stream

This stream is open to professionals from all industry sectors and across all career stages, including private industry, government and government agencies, and not-for-profit organizations. Catalyst Fellows in this stream will advance projects of their own design in cybersecurity or related topics while engaging with the Catalyst’s work, program participants and staff.

Academic Stream

This stream is open to any faculty member currently employed at Toronto Metropolitan University. Catalyst Fellows in this stream will advance their academic research in cybersecurity or related topics, while engaging with the Catalyst’s work, program participants and staff.

2024-25 Fellows

The Catalyst is excited to announce the Catalyst Fellowship Program cohort for the 2024-25 academic year.

Julie Thorpe

Professor at the Faculty of Business and IT, Ontario Tech

Academic Fellow

Julie Thorpe is a Professor at the Faculty of Business and IT, Ontario Tech. She will nudge older adults towards secure online authentication by researching and providing practical, human-centered cybersecurity solutions and resources with industry collaboration potential, particularly focusing on encouraging the adoption of password managers.

Jake Okechukwu Effoduh

Assistant Professor at Lincoln Alexander School of Law, Toronto Metropolitan University

Academic Fellow

Jake Okechukwu Effoduh is an Assistant Professor at Lincoln Alexander School of Law, Toronto Metropolitan University. He will address legal uncertainties in ransomware payments to provide clarity and actionable policy recommendations for cybersecurity policy and governance, specifically researching the legal grey zones of ransom payments in the age of AI-driven cybercrime.

Pawel Pralat

Professor of Mathematics at Toronto Metropolitan University

Academic Fellow

Pawel Pralat is a Professor of Mathematics at Toronto Metropolitan University. He will apply network science tools to detect anomalous behavior, advancing robust threat detection and anomaly analysis in cybersecurity by focusing on identifying anomalies within complex networks.

Liam Stock-Rabbat

Founder at EduRisk

Industry Fellow

Liam Stock-Rabbat founded EduRisk, a cybersecurity consultancy focused on human risk management. He will propose an open-access model to assess and improve security awareness programs to bring about real behavioral change among employees. The proposed maturity model for security awareness programs will be grounded in behavioral science.

Mary Carmichael

Director of Risk Advisory at Momentum Technology

Industry Fellow

Mary Carmichael, Director of Risk Advisory at Momentum Technology, is developing a Catalyst-branded AI Procurement & Supply Chain Risk Toolkit to support municipalities in adopting AI responsibly. The toolkit improves visibility into third-party AI systems by integrating standards and accountability measures into procurement and vendor oversight.

Steve McMichael

Director, Governance, Risk & Compliance at BlackBerry

Industry Fellow

Steve McMichael is the Director, Governance, Risk & Compliance at BlackBerry. He will provide Catalyst's network with actionable data to close Canada's cybersecurity talent gap by developing free, publicly available data and online tools, akin to cyberseek.org, to offer transparency into the Canadian cybersecurity job market, improving workforce development and thought leadership.

Fellowship Alumni

Merlin Chatwin

Executive Director, Open North

Kevin Magee

Chief Security Officer, Microsoft Canada

Erinn van Wynsberghe

Founding President, CEO, & Chief Engineer, VanWyn Inc.

Dr. Manar Alafi

Associate Professor of Computer Science, Toronto Metropolitan University

Dr. Andriy Miranskyy

Associate Professor, Toronto Metropolitan University

Alexandra Mogyoros

Assistant Professor, Lincoln Alexander School of Law

Reza Samavi

Assistant Professor at the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering, Toronto Metropolitan University

Rasha Kashef

Assistant Professor at the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering, Toronto Metropolitan University

Monika Freunek

Instructor at the G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education, Toronto Metropolitan University

Jeff Schwartzentruber

Senior Machine Learning Scientist, eSentire

Burcu Bulgurcu

Associate Professor at the Department of Information Technology Management, Toronto Metropolitan University

A.J. Khan

Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Vehiqilla Inc.

Fellowship Documents

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim.

fellows page

AI Automation in Business: A Risk Assessment Webinar

fellows page

Stronger Together: How Public and Private Sectors Can Protect Digital Lives and Empower Individuals webinar

Multimedia

WATCH: Catalyst Fellowship Program virtual panel on cyber regulations in Canada

Opinion

Autonomous fleets are almost here. Are they safe from cyberattacks?

Opinion

Regulate artificial intelligence — before it's too late

Features

Catalyst Fellowship Program: A collaborative approach to improving cybersecurity

Fellowship

Publications Page Placeholder (1080 x 720 px)

Fellowship Final Report: Quantifying Machine Learning Model Trustworthiness

View

Fellowship

Fellowship Final Report: Shillings’ Attacks Detection in Recommendation Systems Using Hybrid Adversarial Deep Learning

View

Fellowship

Fellowship Final Report: Cyber Security for Current and Future IoT and Ubiquitous Computing Systems

View

Fellowship

Fellowship Final Report: Enhancing Cybersecurity with Automated Log Parsing and Anomaly Detection

View

AI Automation in Business:

A Risk Assessment

Your company is deploying AI agents faster than you can assess them. The business wants answers yesterday. And in the space between ‘this tool is amazing’ and ‘wait, what data is it touching?’, that is where things get interesting and real challenges emerge.

Join the Catalyst Fellows for a virtual webinar on Tuesday, March 3 from 11:00 AM–12:00 PM to hear a deep dive into the risk assessment of a real AI automation system. We’re not talking theory: we’re walking through a practical tool you can build at home, pulling back the curtain on its vulnerabilities, and showing you how seemingly simple automations can expose organizations to data leakage, prompt injection, untrusted output, and system compromise.

This session provides a practical examination of how cybersecurity professionals assess and categorize risk in emerging AI ecosystems, and identifies the key safeguards that matter most as these tools become increasingly accessible.

The Catalyst Fellowship Program is a major initiative dedicated to advancing the Catalyst’s mission.

Designed to empower women and non-binary leaders who want to shape the future of Canadian cybersecurity.

This program develops the key skills for cyber professionals to become effective managers.

Accelerated Cybersecurity Training Program

Catalyst Cyber Accelerator

Corporate Training

Cyber Talent Acquisition

Mastercard Emerging Leaders Cyber Initiative

Catalyst Fellowship Program​

COHORT

LOCATION

COST

Catalyst Fellowship Program

The Catalyst Fellowship Program is a major initiative dedicated to advancing the Catalyst’s mission — to empower Canadians and Canadian businesses to seize the opportunities and tackle the challenges of cybersecurity — through original research and industry engagement.

Overview

Key Dates

Available Streams

Industry Stream

Academic Stream

This stream is open to any faculty member currently employed at Toronto Metropolitan University. Catalyst Fellows in this stream will advance their academic research in cybersecurity or related topics, while engaging with the Catalyst’s work, program participants and staff.

2024-25 Fellows

The Catalyst is excited to announce the Catalyst Fellowship Program cohort for the 2024-25 academic year.

Fellowship Alumni

Fellowship Documents

AI Automation in Business:

A Risk Assessment

Tuesday, March 3

2026

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM

EST (UTC-5)

Virtual Event

Hosted on Zoom

Have questions?

Join the Catalyst community by subscribing to our newsletter

© Rogers Cybersecure Catalyst

Fill out the form below to subscribe to The Catalyst Connect newsletter and stay in the know:

Contact Us

*By clicking submit, you consent to receive emails from Rogers Cybersecure Catalyst.

Fill out the form below to subscribe to The Catalyst Connect newsletter and stay in the know:

*By clicking submit, you consent to receive emails from Rogers Cybersecure Catalyst.

Select Program Pathway

Catalyst Fellowship Program