Catalyst Fellowship Program

COHORT

FALL 2025

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, please download the Fellowship Program Package.

Overview

Selected from academics at Canadian Universities 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.

Fellowship Streams

The Catalyst Fellowship Program offers two distinct streams to advance cybersecurity research and industry engagement. Both streams are designed to cultivate a collaborative environment where original research and industry engagement come together to solve today’s most pressing cybersecurity challenges.

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.

2025-26 Fellows

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.

Academic Stream

This stream is open to any faculty member currently employed at a Canadian 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.

2025-26 Fellows

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.

Fellowship Alumni

Catherine Middleton

Ted Rogers School of Information Technology Management

Richard Wang

Associate Professor of Computer Science at Toronto Metropolitan University

Pamela Robinson MCIP RPP

Professor at the School of Urban and Regional Planning – Toronto Metropolitan University

Pamela Robinson MCIP RPP

Professor at the School of Urban and Regional Planning – Toronto Metropolitan University

Jordan Shaw-Young

Chief of Staff for Security Services – BlueVoyant

Jordan Shaw-Young

Chief of Staff for Security Services – BlueVoyant

Jordan Melzer

Senior Engineer at TELUS Communications

Jasbir Kooner

Director of Cybersecurity at Englobe Corp.

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.

Fellows in Focus

Below is a selection of work from the Catalyst Fellowship Program, including publications, opinion pieces, webinars, and more. Visit our Publications page for further insights from this group of experts.