Established Researcher of the Year - 2020: Silvia Bonaccio

By Rania Nasrallah-Massaad

Silvia Bonaccio, Full professor at the Telfer School of Management, and Ian Telfer Professor of Workplace Psychology, is awarded the Established Researcher Award for 2020. Since joining the Telfer School, she has been fully engaged in ensuring the growth and recognition of the school, actively pursuing administrative duties while driving her research ambitions to producing outstanding contributions to the field of organizational behavior. She has received global recognition for her research expertise, regularly publishing in impactful journals in her field and continuously receiving substantial funding from SSHRC.

Her research interests span the issues of emotions and anxieties in the hiring process and how workplaces can be more inclusive of employees living with disabilities and mental health concerns. One of her latest publications, “The Participation of People with Disabilities in the Workplace Across the Employment Cycle: Employer Concerns and Research Evidence”, provides evidence-based responses to concerns that employers have about people with disabilities. In this paper, Dr. Bonaccio and her colleagues summarize and evaluate the relevant empirical evidence and provide recommendations for organizations committed to creating more effective, equitable, and inclusive workplaces for all individuals. As a result of her comprehensive analysis, she was able to develop a framework to help employers better understand their misconceptions and provide practical recommendations and resources to employers to help support their employees. Her practical insights offer strategies for ensuring true equity in the workplace. Notably, this paper has already been accessed over 25,000 times since its publication. Learn more about her study.

In addition to her research endeavors, she is a significant role model at the Telfer School. She was awarded the University of Ottawa Excellence in Education Prize, and was an invaluable asset to the Telfer PhD program, offering guidance and support to colleagues and PhD students as the program’s first director, a position she occupied for five years. She has been actively involved in working with and teaching graduate students since starting her career at Telfer. For these outstanding contributions and accomplishments, she is well-deserving of the Established Researcher of the Year Award in 2020.