Kalowatie Deonandan wins J.W. George Ivany Award

Kalowatie Deonandan of the Department of Political Studies is the recipient of the 2014 J.W. George Ivany Internationalization Award.

Awarded by the university each year at Fall Convocation, the J.W. George Ivany Internationalization Award recognizes outstanding contributions made by students, scholars or administrators that enhance internationalization at the University of Saskatchewan.

• Award Announcement Page

Kalowatie Deonandan has been a passionate advocate for the internationalization of teaching and research at the University of Saskatchewan since starting her career here.

For over 10 years she has served as coordinator of the university’s Semester Abroad in Guatemala. Students in the program were immersed in a new culture, exposed to extremes of poverty and wealth, learned firsthand of the impact of war and genocide, and witnessed the struggles of communities to survive and rebuild. Her efforts at internationalizing the teaching environment won her the 2012 Provost Award for International Teaching. Presently, she is the chair of graduate studies in the Department of Political Studies, and in this capacity, she will play a leading role in strengthening the internationalization of the graduate program in the department.

Her research is focused on Latin America and the Caribbean, and deals with such themes as mining development and democratic transition. For the past few years she has been conducting research in remote indigenous communities in Latin America, studying the impact of mining on community development. She has presented her work in over a dozen countries. Her research in the international field led to her appointments as a visiting scholar at the University of Delhi and also the Indian Institute of Technology. Additionally, she is a research associate at the Centre for Latin American Studies at York University in Toronto.

Deonandan has served in several leadership roles that advanced internationalization not only on the campus, but in the wider academic community in Canada. She was head of the International Studies Program at the University of Saskatchewan and was the vice-president, and then president, of the Canadian Association of Latin American and Caribbean Studies—the premiere academic association in Canada on the region.