Convocation profile: Michael Fryer

June 2010 | The Ring | Online here

Michael Fryer

The dinnertime conversation in Michael Fryer’s house may have centred on science and math, but it was never dull.

His father, a high school physics teacher in Sechelt, BC, and his mother, who has a background in biology, focused on “fun science” and ideas, he says, with the family figuring out the number of trees in the world, or using vinegar to show that blackberries can be used as an indicator of pH.

“We were good at leaving all the boring stuff for school and just dealing with the fun stuff.”

Convocation profile: Anne Mitaru

June 2010 | The Ring | Online here

When graduate law student Anne Mitaru saw a posting for an internship with Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), she wondered, “Is this possible?”

Mitaru, who was born in Canada and raised mostly in Kenya (she earned a bachelor of laws degree from the University of Nairobi), has a background in international law and women’s rights, and DAWN—a network of feminist scholars, researchers and activists—is a major organization in the field.

“I, of course, seized the day,” she says. “Any feminist working on global South issues would want to have an opportunity to meet the people behind DAWN.”