Athabasca University (AU) is a Canadian public research university that primarily operates through online distance education. Founded in 1970, it is one of four comprehensive academic and research universities in Alberta, and was the first Canadian university to specialize in distance education.
Richard Marvin Hansen is a Canadian track and field athlete, activist, and philanthropist for people with disabilities. Following a pickup truck crash at the age of 15, Hansen sustained a spinal cord injury and became a paraplegic. Hansen is most famous for his Man in Motion World Tour, in which he circled the globe in a wheelchair to raise funds for charity. He was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 2006. He was one of the final torchbearers in the 1988 Winter Olympics and the 2010 Winter Olympics. He was profiled and spoke during the 2010 Winter Paralympics opening ceremony.
Frits Pannekoek served as president of Athabasca University from 2005 to 2014. From 1998 to 2005 he was Director of Information Resources and Associate Professor in the Faculty of Communication and Culture, University of Calgary. Prior to taking that position, he was director of Director of Historic Sites. Graduating from the University of Alberta in 1969 with a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) and the Governor General’s Gold Medal, Pannekoek went on to get his Master of Arts from the same institution. This was followed by a doctorate in 1974 from Queen's University with a dissertation on Western Canadian history and Indigenous people.
Stephen John Toope is a Canadian legal scholar, academic administrator and a scholar specializing in human rights, public international law and international relations. In November 2022, he was appointed as the fifth President and CEO of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR). Prior to this, he served for five years as the 346th Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge.
John Rowan was an English author, counsellor, psychotherapist and clinical supervisor, known for being one of the pioneers of humanistic psychology and integrative psychotherapy. He worked in exploring transpersonal psychology, and wrote about the concept of subpersonality.
Emmy van Deurzen is an existential therapist. She developed a philosophical therapy based in existential-phenomenology.
Karl Adolf Clark was a chemist and oil sand researcher. He is best known for perfecting a process that uses hot water and reagents to separate bitumen from oil sands.
Elizabeth Casson OBE was a British medical doctor and an occupational therapy pioneer. Initially training as a secretary, Casson began studying medicine at the University of Bristol when she was 32. She received her medical degree in 1926, becoming the first woman to receive one from the University of Bristol. She also attained the Gaskell prize from the Royal Medico-Psychological Association and a diploma in psychological medicine from the University of London.
George Siemens is a Canadian expatriate professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Arlington and professor and director of the Centre for Change and Complexity in Learning at the University of South Australia. He is known for his theory of connectivism, which seeks to understand learning in the digital age. He played a role in the early development of massive online open courses (MOOCs).
Walter Alvah Samuel Smith, known as Sam Smith, was a Canadian psychologist and academic who served as President of the University of Lethbridge and of Athabasca University.
Geraint Talfan Davies OBE DL FRIBA FLSW is a Welsh journalist and broadcaster, and a long-serving trustee and chairman of many Welsh civic, arts, media and cultural organisations.
Jane Sterk is a Canadian psychologist, businesswoman, academic, and politician. She is the former leader of the Green Party of British Columbia and a business professor at University Canada West. In the 2009 British Columbia provincial election she was a candidate in the riding of Esquimalt-Royal Roads and in the 2013 election was a candidate in Victoria-Beacon Hill. Sterk was elected councillor in the Township of Esquimalt in 2005 was elected leader of the provincial Green Party in October 2007. In the 2004 federal election and the 2005 provincial election as a candidate in the Esquimalt ridings, she placed fourth and third with 9% and 10% of the vote, respectively.
Sir Kenneth Aphunezi Olisa is a British businessman and philanthropist. He is the first mixed heritage Lord-Lieutenant of Greater London. He founded and led the AIM-listed technology merchant bank Interregnum and now leads Restoration Partners. Ken Olisa is Past Master of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists and has served and serves on several boards of philanthropic, educational and regulator organisations. Sir Kenneth with his wife endowed the Olisa Library at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge.
Roger John Laugharne Thomas, Baron Thomas of Cwmgiedd, FLSW is a British judge. He served as Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales from 2013 to 2017.
Dame Elan Closs Stephens is a Welsh academic who has been a non-executive director of the BBC Board since 2017, and Chair of the BBC since 27 June 2023. Specialising in cultural and broadcasting policy, she is also Electoral Commissioner for Wales and Pro-Chancellor of Aberystwyth University. She also chairs the UNESCO International Prize for the Creative Economy panel.
Jagannath Prasad Das is an Indo-Canadian educational psychologist specialized in educational psychology, intelligence and childhood development. Among his contributions to psychology are the PASS theory of intelligence and the Das-Naglieri Cognitive Assessment System. Das was the Director of the JP Das Developmental Disabilities Centre at the University of Alberta. He formally retired in 1996, and is currently Emeritus Director of the Centre on Developmental and Learning Disabilities and Emeritus Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Alberta. He is a member of the Royal Society of Canada, was inducted into the Order of Canada and has an Honorary Doctorate degree from the University of Vigo in Spain.
Open College was a radio-based university-credit distance education provider based in Toronto, Canada; it primarily served listeners in Ontario.
Sanjoy Bhattacharya, FRAS, is an academic and historian, who is the permanent Head of the School of History at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, where he is also the professor of medical and global health histories.
Michael Donald Newcomb was an American psychologist. His research focused on drug etiology, as well as nuclear anxiety and other topics.
