Tyrone Hall is one of five York PhD students to have been named a Vanier Scholar, receiving $50,000 annually for up to three years to support his research. Vanier Scholars demonstrate leadership skills and a high standard of scholarly achievement in graduate studies in the social sciences and/or humanities, natural sciences and/or engineering and health.

“Vanier recipients are not merely scholars – beyond pushing the frontiers of knowledge production and learning, they also demonstrate a sincere commitment to providing service to our society,” says Fahim Quadir, interim dean, Faculty of Graduate Studies. “Tyrone, Elan, Kam, Claudia and Erica, we commend you for your outstanding achievements. You have made York University proud.”

Tyrone Hall
Communication & Culture

Tyrone Hall

Hall’s proposed thesis, Global Narratives and the Vulnerable frontiers: A Critical Assessment of Global Climate Change Communication Processes and Traditional Retentions, examines climate change and its impact on marginalized and Indigenous communities around the world.

“My project seeks to optimize the communication modalities used to inform, educate and enable social change across these communities that will boost their adaptive capacity and improve livelihoods,” said Hall. This involves mapping how macro-level climate change communication processes interface with the practices and retentions of traditional and indigenous communities that are drawn from Canada, Central America, Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

“Ultimately, it will contribute to alliance-building efforts for future climate change campaigns around contentious issues, namely loss and damage and technology transfer,” said Hall. “I am especially thrilled that I opted to pursue my long-standing intellectual commitment to social change in [York’s] community.”

Hall is also a recipient of an Ontario Trillium Scholarship and a Mitacs Globalink Research Award. He previously managed the communications portfolio for 19 climate change projects across a dozen Caribbean islands, Belize, Guyana and Suriname; and served as the primary communications advisor to the regional climate change centre, which is a United Nations Centre of Excellence.

Read the full story on this year's five York recipients in yFile.

The full listing of recipients from across Canada can be found at Vanier Canada.