“I really missed my students and it was about time to come back to the classroom.”
Alishah Shabbir
SPECTRUM Writer
November 15, 2015
Professor Nirusha Thavarajah is a woman with endless educational credentials, a passion for learning, and an intriguing research project on synthetic anticancer reagents. During this hectic season of midterms and studying, she has taken the time to share with the Spectrum a little about herself.
Professor Thavarajah welcomes all students into her office with a smile. She’s the kind of person who motivates students to find their ambition and drive for learning that was once rooted in us all and sometimes gets lost along the road to success. When asked about her educational background, Professor Thavarajah displayed a well-established academic experience. She explained that her interest in the sciences is because two of her grade twelve teachers in high school that taught her chemistry and biology “they had such enthusiastic personalities and my chemistry teacher inspired me to go into the sciences.” When applying to universities abroad and around the city in 1996, Professor Thavarajah decided to come to the one and only University of Toronto Scarborough. “When I came to UTSC, I knew this was the place for me. I loved the close-knit community and how beautiful the campus was.” Pursuing her degree in the Biological Chemistry Specialist Program, she was mentored by some of her professors, including Wanda Restivo. With her strong connections to organic chemistry in her undergraduate, she decided to base her career path around chemistry. Upon completion of her undergraduate, she decided to continue her studies in Synthetic Organic Chemistry and Organometallic Chemistry at University of Toronto St. George. Professor Thavarajah completed her PhD from 2000-2004 straight out of her bachelors.
On August 31st 2004, most of us would be enjoying the last few days of summer, but Professor Thavarajah had something else in mind as she was completing her teaching defense. Consequently, that very same fall of 2004, she began teaching at UTSC from 2004-2009 lecturing for CHMB41, B42, C41, and C42. She enjoyed her teaching experience stupendously, “it was such a great experience and I knew that I wanted to do this while keeping myself up to date in my education.” To continue her education, she went back to do her post-doctoral studies from 2009-2012 at MaRS University Health Network affiliated with UofT and her research was in the Ontario Institute of Cancer Research (OICR) focusing on medicinal and biological chemistry specialist courses. For her PhD the research she conducted focused on synthesizing anticancer reagents at the nucleic acid level and her post-doctoral focused on synthesizing anticancer reagents at the protein level by targeting phosphatases and developing inhibitors for these phosphatases.
Shortly after completing her PhD, Professor Thavarajah had her first child in October 2005, “I wanted a daughter so badly and I got a daughter!” After completing her post-doctoral, she had her son in February 2012. Missing her teaching experience, she came back to teaching at UTSC, “I really missed my students and it was about time to come back to the classroom.” However, patent law always intrigued her during her post-doctoral experience. Being inspired to understand the legal aspect of things in chemistry, she pursued her degree in Patent Law at Osgoode Law School at the University of Toronto and completed her Masters in Patent Law in two years. She is a big advocate for interdisciplinary learning and connecting different forms and fields, “learning is a life-long endeavor and you have to model that passion for your students so that if they find something they are very passionate about, they don’t lose it.” She currently teaches approximately thirteen courses at UTSC including biophysical chemistry, introductory organic chemistry, and inorganic chemistry since 2012. She feels that everyone at UTSC has been extremely helpful in welcoming her, including the current Department Chair of Environmental Chemistry George Arhonditsis, “It has been such an honour and pleasure to be here at UTSC from being a student and now an educator and next year, it will be twenty years since I stepped foot into UTSC.”
Some of the interesting things she is involved in outside of school include raising her two children as well as watching shows including Master Chef Canada. Fascinatingly enough, she enjoys watching this show because it illustrates collaboration and dynamic learning as well as chemical processes involved in cooking. She also enjoys The Big Bang Theory while having a good laugh with comedic presentations of Russell Peters. When she gets a little bit of free time to herself, she watches educational documentaries with her family, especially about archeology due to her daughters’ strong interest in the subject.
Her future goals are to go into a teaching stream as an assistant professor at UTSC and apply for research funding to eventually open an undergraduate research lab setting for students. Just when you thought that the amount of education that Professor Thavarajah has is exceptional, she mentioned that currently she is pursuing a degree in Masters of Education at University of Ontario Institute of Technology. She explains how much she loves UTSC and how much the staff and students are like family to her, “there are so many opportunities and resources and that you should all make use of.” Professor Thavarajah is very impassioned about learning and how to model learning for all her students, “if you teach a student how to learn, they can learn anything.”