Pioneering tech researcher Rhonda McEwen will become president of the University of Victoria in October.University of Victoria/Supplied
Rhonda McEwen, a pioneering researcher and academic leader who was the first Black woman to lead a Canadian university, has been chosen as the next president of the University of Victoria in British Columbia.
Dr. McEwen has been president of Victoria University, a federated university within the University of Toronto, since 2022. She will take up her new role in October.
Dr. McEwen said she’s excited about UVic’s potential, citing its status as one of Canada’s top comprehensive universities and its leading role in areas such as ocean and climate research, and highlighting what she called a “shockingly beautiful” campus.
Originally from Trinidad and Tobago, Dr. McEwen began her career in academia after working as a consultant in the private sector for several years, including at Deloitte and IBM. She has an MBA from City St. George’s, University of London and a PhD from the University of Toronto’s faculty of information. Her academic expertise is in human-machine interaction. Her study of the use of touchscreen technology for students with special needs was featured on 60 Minutes and she was consulted by Sesame Street on the creation of Julia, a puppet character with autism.
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She is a Canada Research Chair in tactile interface, communication and cognition and has maintained an active research lab while holding an administrative role.
She said universities in British Columbia are facing financial challenges that are similar to those she has experienced in Ontario’s postsecondary sector in recent years. The B.C. system is currently awaiting the outcome of an independent review of its financial sustainability, launched after the government identified significant budget pressure brought on in part by a drop in the number of international study permits.
“UVic is a star. It’s an institution with top 10 standing in Canada for research quality,” Dr. McEwen said, adding that the university is also known for its work in her own research interest, digital tech.
She said she looks forward to continuing work she has done on Indigenous reconciliation and to pushing the role of research for students at all levels, particularly undergraduates. She said research should not be seen as “stuff that gets published in a journal and gets locked up somewhere,” but as something that should be alive in the community.
“Research is about solving problems and answering questions and we have no end of those right now. So we’ll be focusing on research throughout the student lifespan, all the way from undergraduate to the top levels,” Dr. McEwen said. “I’ll be looking to see how we can integrate AI into the kind of research that we’re doing, but also in how to help people implement the solutions we’re coming up with.”
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Erinn Pinkerton, acting chair of the UVic board of governors, called Dr. McEwen “an energetic and approachable leader” committed to equity, experiential education and supportive learning environments.
Dr. McEwen will succeed interim president Qwul’sih’yah’maht, Robina Thomas, who stepped into the role last year when former president Kevin Hall departed shortly after being reappointed to a second term. At the time, a previous board chair said Dr. Hall had steered the university through difficult financial times.
In November, 2025, UVic published a set of criteria and qualifications as part of its presidential search. It called for candidates to have a commitment to Indigenous engagement, equity, diversity and anti-racism, and to be a champion of students, among other things.
In her time in leadership, Dr. McEwen has backed initiatives to encourage students to engage in difficult conversations. She said she found students were struggling to formulate responses to points of view with which they disagreed. In her view, debate and disagreement should be central to the university experience.
She has called for first-year courses to be marked as pass or fail, to encourage students to take more risks and focus on pushing themselves, and to de-emphasize grades as the motivating factor in their learning.
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“Our grading system trains students to avoid risk and, in the process, narrows the very idea of a university education. When every assignment carries long-term consequences, curiosity gives way to strategy,” Dr. McEwen wrote in an opinion piece published in The Globe and Mail in April.
She said she will see if the idea has support at UVic.
Dr. McEwen has also written about how universities can contribute to improving Canada’s poor record on productivity.
“Incredible work is coming out of universities on innovation and invention, and we’re not translating it really well into Canadian companies. We have to fix that, because we can’t keep losing our top talent to other places.”