Faculty Awards and Distinctions

Dr. Kailin Wright

Department of English
President's Research Award

Dr. Kailin Wright is a remarkable researcher whose national and international reputation reflects strongly on StFX. Since joining the faculty in 2012, she has achieved significant research impact beyond theatre and performance studies, producing four books, 19 articles, securing over $2.5 million in funding, four theatre productions, and teaching and mentorship excellence.

Dr. Wright has made exceptional contributions to both English literature and Canadian theatre studies. Reviewers of her first monograph enthuse that Dr. Wright’s book is “an illuminating read and a welcome addition to the field” and is “indispensable.” Her second monograph, released in 2026, No Mother, No Future: Performing Motherhood and Reproductive Loss, promises to be a field-defining work as the first book-length study on reproductive justice in Canadian theatre.

Dr. Wright has published in the top journals on Canadian theatre and serves as associate editor for Canadian Theatre Review. This year, she assumed editorship for The Antigonish Review, one of Canada’s longest-standing and most reputable literary journals. Dr. Wright is also an award-winning teacher and mentor. She received StFX’s Outstanding Teaching Award in 2017 and the Association of Atlantic Universities’ Distinguished Teaching Award in 2021.

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Dr. Susan Vincent

Department of Anthropology
Professor Emerita

Dr. Susan Vincent is a consummate anthropologist, a skilled ethnographer who has conducted fieldwork in a Peruvian peasant community for more than 40 years. In her remarkable career as an anthropologist, she has investigated development projects, interrogated neoliberal and ‘Third World’ economic policies, and examined migration, gender roles, and livelihoods. She did all this, and much more, through years of state oppression, insurgency movements, and political corruption. She persists despite a knifepoint robbery, an aid worker’s murder, and accusations of being a CIA agent.

Professor Vincent has an impressive record of publications and research grants, is a Fellow of the Canadian Anthropology Society, and a founding member of the StFX Anthropology Department. Her work is transformative. Her mentorship spans decades, engaging generations of StFX students and faculty to pursue ethical practice, to question systemic inequalities, to use their minds and hearts to find solutions grounded in local knowledge, wellbeing, and fairness. Her scholarship makes a difference.

Dr. Vincent’s current focus is water, a subject that permeates every domain of human existence. To honour her labours, the Peruvian community has named her madrina, godmother, of their new water security project, an extraordinary testament to Dr. Vincent’s profound commitment to research that matters.

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Dr. Charlene Weaving

Department of Human Kinetics
University Research Award

Dr. Charlene Weaving is an internationally recognized scholar in the interdisciplinary fields of feminist philosophy, sport ethics, and the social construction of gender in sport and physical activity. Her contributions have established her as a leading and influential scholar of gender in sport; the sexual objectification of women in sport; sex verification; doping and gender; and inequities in sport. This scholarship is recognised not only by its lasting impact and wide readership, but also by its applicability to current issues in the popular media related to misogyny in sport, and the Olympic Games. During the Olympics, she was an invited expert on Maritime Noon and Ontario Today call-in programs on CBC Radio.

Her impressive research program is highly collaborative, connecting her to international colleagues through research funded by the World Anti-Doping Agency and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC.) Dr. Weaving has mentored students as research assistants working on these projects, and has supervised 50 honours theses over the past 21 years. Her exceptional research informs her teaching, which was recognized in 2007 when she received the StFX Outstanding Teaching Award.

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Dr. Darien DeWolf

Department of Math & Statistics
Outstanding Faculty Teaching Award

Dr. Darien DeWolf is a passionate, dedicated, and effective educator who is an integral part of the StFX community. Dr. DeWolf joined the Department of Mathematics and Statistics in 2017 and has taught a wide range of courses from first year statistics to upper-level abstract mathematics. He challenges and inspires students to ask questions and go beyond the classroom materials. He has mentored students from different disciplines through thesis supervision, research projects, and involvement with Science Atlantic undergraduate conferences. 

Former students say Dr. DeWolf’s mentorship has equipped them with real, applicable skills sets that they have taken beyond St. Francis Xavier University. His genuine care and commitment to teaching and learning benefit his students and influence his colleagues to grow as educators. He is regularly involved with updates to better serve student learning such as the new data science program. 

Dr. DeWolf’s passion for teaching goes beyond StFX to the local community through involvement with the Antigonish County Adult Learning Association (ACALA) and the Canadian Association for Community Living (CACL).

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