This year, one of Carleton’s own is taking home a Premier’s Discovery award in the arts and humanities division. Ruth Phillips was this year’s recipient at an award ceremony May 18.    

According to a university press release, the Premier’s Discovery awards are granted each year to celebrate the outstanding research of Ontario’s most accomplished researchers.

While the award allows the recipient a $250,000 grant to further their research, it also gives acknowledgement to individuals’ findings and improves Ontario’s position as a place for global discovery.

Phillips is not a new name to the division of arts and humanities. As a former art historian, museum director and curator, Phillips has a lot of experience that aids in her continuing research.

“I am very honoured by this recognition of the work of my collaborators ­— museums, universities and Aboriginal communities,” Phillips said about her award.           
Phillips attended Harvard, the University of Toronto and the University of London.

She became involved with Native North American art after earning a doctorate in African art history from the University of London.            

The Premier’s Discovery award is not the first time Phillips has been given a grant for her work. In 1997, she was granted $43 million from the Canada Foundation for Innovation for the expansion and redesign of the University of British Colombia’s Museum of Anthropology.            

Phillips’ contribution to Carleton is not solely as a professor. She created the visual studies laboratory in Carleton’s Institute of Comparative Studies in Literature, Art, and Culture.

The laboratory is home to the work of the Great Lakes Research Alliance for the Study of Aboriginal Arts and Cultures (GRASAC), which was also founded by Phillips.            

With the grant from the Premier’s Discovery Award, Phillips said she plans to take the GRASAC knowledge-sharing software and database to the next level.             

She is currently the Canada research chair in modern culture at Carleton. She says her position has just been extended for another seven-year period.

Although Phillips was just recently a visiting professor of Canadian studies at Harvard University, she insisted Carleton is a better place for her work.

“My favourite aspect of working at Carleton is the freedom that Carleton has always given me to pioneer new teaching and research areas.”                      q