Three Trent Alumni Recognized with Alumni Awards
Elizabeth Thipphawong, Chris Chang-Yen Phillips, and Professor James Retallack honoured during online celebrations
A climate and Indigenous women’s activist, a science writer/podcaster, and a prominent historian are the latest Trent University alumni to be honoured with Trent University Alumni Association awards.
Elizabeth Thipphawong ’05, B.B.A., Business Administration received the Paul Delaney Award for Outstanding Young Philanthropist, recognizing a student or a recent alum whose work sowing seeds of friendship and a spirit of philanthropy makes them an outstanding model for Trent students to emulate.
Implementing CARE International’s Remote Ethnic Women strategy in Laos, Ms. Thipphawong’s current focus is on the intersection of Indigenous women and climate change. This sees her working closely with remote communities on climate adaptation and the advocacy of gender responsive climate policies. Among other roles, she has also presented, three times, at the United Nations annual Framework Convention of Climate Change. She has also acted as Canadian delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.
Chris Chang-Yen Phillips ’08, B.A. Honours, Environmental Science and International Development Studies, received the Alumni Young Leader Award, recognizing alumni who have shown outstanding leadership throughout their first 10 years of alumni status either in their professional career and/or community, public or humanitarian service.
Currently podcasting coordinator and grant writer/fund developer with CJSR 88.5 FM in Edmonton, Mr. Phillips is also designing a course on Writing About Science for the University of Alberta where, since early 2019, he has volunteered with the Dino Lab, cleaning and preparing fossils gathered from Alberta sites. Outside of the radio studio, Mr. Phillips volunteered for four years as emcee and live auctioneer at fundraisers for the Sombrilla International Development Society and promoted Edmonton’s history as the city’s fourth historian laureate.
Professor James Retallack ’74, B.A. Honours, History, received the Distinguished Alumni Award, recognizing a person's achievement and leadership in their field.
Prof. Retallack has become Canada’s premier historian of German history and has based his prolific research on extensive work in archives and libraries of East and West Germany, Austria, Great Britain, and the United States, where he accessed previously untapped archival evidence to support his pathbreaking work. He teaches in the Department of History at the University of Toronto, with a Cross-Appointment to the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, and is a Senior Research Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. Prof. Retallack has edited nine multi-authored collections of essays. Among Prof. Retallack’s 22 refereed articles, 16 have in appeared in English-language journals and six in German journals. Two have won “Best Article” prizes.
His latest book, Red Saxony, won the distinguished Hans Rosenberg Prize for 2017 from the Central European History Society.
The awards were given out during special online receptions.
Do you know a Trent University graduate who is making a positive difference? We encourage you to nominate a deserving alumnus. Nominations for the 2021 Alumni Awards are now open. Please complete a nomination using the nomination forms below. Nominations will be accepted until 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday, March 31, 2021. For more information and to access nomination forms, please visit our Alumni Awards Website.