Meet the 2026 Women of Distinction at McMaster

Five years ago, when Sarah Kalmanovitch moved to Hamilton to study at McMaster, she started volunteering at a local middle school.

One of the first pupils she worked with had significant learning challenges. But after Kalmanovitch took a creative approach to learning, the child not only found a renewed interest in school, “a year later, I found out that student had learned to read.”

That experience planted the seed for something that Kalmanovitch nurtured into a local project. The Canadian Teaching Assistant Volunteer Program has now grown into a network of more than 200 university student volunteers supporting hundreds of school-age learners in multiple cities.

And it all began “because I really wanted to get involved in my new community.”

Kalmanovitch shared the story as she accepted the Young Trailblazer Award at the YWCA Hamilton Women of Distinction celebration Thursday. A commitment to creating strong, supportive communities was at the heart of every nominee and winner’s work.

Kalmanovitch, who graduated from McMaster last year, was one of seven award recipients — and about 40 nominees — with strong ties to the university.

Chancellor Emeritus Santee Smith won the award for Arts and Culture. The multiple Dora Award-winning artist spoke of the many communities — of family, of artists, at McMaster, at her home in Six Nations — that have supported her gifts and artistry.

This year, Smith’s Kaha:wi Dance Theatre celebrates 20 years of Indigenous performance, a time in which the company and Smith herself have opened doors for Indigenous perspectives and expression.

“As artists, we traverse the unknown, the sublime, dreamscapes,” Smith said. “We are mirrors reflecting back our reality in this earth realm, the beauty, truth.” Click here to learn more about Smith’s extraordinary life and career.

The evening marked 50 years of the YWCA Hamilton honouring women in this community, “a beautiful legacy of feminist resistance,” Community Champion recipient and McMaster Social Work graduate Kim Ritchie said.

In moving remarks, Ritchie spoke of her own experience of homelessness and substance use.

“I was criminalized and dehumanized by the systems meant to protect me. I found and set out to challenge those systems.”

Ritchie and her friend Rebecca Morris-Miller founded the National Overdose Response Service (NORS). Canada’s pioneering virtual drug consumption service, NORS has received 20,000 calls and saved hundreds of people from overdose.

“Our struggles may differ. But I know the same systems failing people who use drugs are the same systems failing our sisters now,” Ritchie said. “If one of us is unsafe, all of us are unsafe.”

Morris-Miller’s death by overdose in 2022 was a failure of drug policy, Ritchie said. “When the system fails, only the community holds.”

“It is a choice to stand between our sisters and the systems that fail them. To stand in power, we must always stand together.”

Professor Karen Hill from the Department of Family Medicine in the Faculty of Health Sciences, who won the award for Education, is also a two-time McMaster graduate.

A Mohawk physician from Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, she co-created “Juddah’s Place,” a collaborative practice with Traditional Medicine Practitioners.

Receiving her award, Hill paid tribute to her mother, who was born with spina bifida. “The medical community many, many times said, ‘You won’t live to be a child, you won’t live to be a teenager, you won’t live to be an adult, you’ll never walk, you’ll never have children.’

“My mother did all of those things and more.”

No one helps their community in hope of getting an award, she pointed out.

“We go into this work because it’s what we’re gifted in, it’s because it’s what we have a passion for,” Hill said.

“And for me, my passion has always been to bring humanity together. And through education, I’ve been able to do that.”

McMaster graduate and associate professor Sheryl Green, who won the award for Health and Wellness, is a clinical and health psychologist who helps women and individuals assigned female at birth with mental-health difficulties.

“I’ve always viewed it as a privilege to be working with women across the reproductive timeline — pregnancy, postpartum, the menopause transition,” Green said.

Nearly 20 years ago, “I quickly realized that there was not a lot of non-pharmacological methods for treatment for those individuals who cannot or choose not to take medications, and that was just not right for me,” she said.

“So, I started to develop programming as complementary or alternative forms of treatment and just feel so grateful and blessed and privileged to be able to work with and assist women over these very crucial transitions in life.”

Katherine Gardhouse, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, received the award for innovation in business. A clinical psychologist, she founded eFIT mental health gym, which bridges human health, psychology, and AI to create systems that increase mental health access and sustain healing over time. She also created Innermap.ai, pioneering empathic AI that helps users visualize and process emotion.

“I always felt that in the mental health field, we have not done justice to seeing the whole human. And I wanted to create something that would honour our full lived experience,” said Gardhouse, who chose to set up in Hamilton because it’s a place of “grit, generosity and heart.”

“Our mental health centre and hub is to really address whole human health care, addressing the physical, the emotional, nutritional, social components that contribute to what is chronic, complex mental health conditions. And it has been such a privilege to do this work.”

Lifetime Achievement award winner and McMaster graduate Marisa Mariella is a well-known advocate for social connection, mental-health awareness, suicide prevention, wellness promotion and volunteerism.

In emotional remarks, Mariella spoke of navigating a dark time in her life a few years ago. “I felt broken,” she said, and she realized she needed to focus on caring for herself as she had always cared for others, something many, many women experience.

“There’s something to be said about the power of compassion and empathy, and it starts towards yourself,” she said.

But that doesn’t mean you are alone.

“Like many of you, I was surrounded by a group of incredible women, beginning with my mother, my mother-in-law, my dear sister, my dear friends, many of whom are here today. And they lent me their light when my light was dim. And we all have the power to do that.”

As Mariella paused to regain her composure, the audience of more than 1,000 people got to their feet in a standing ovation, before she continued her remarks.

“We need to change the definition of success,” she said. “The world doesn’t need any more successful people.”

“The world needs more compassionate people, people with empathy, and people that have the strength to reach and connect with someone who needs help. We need to help promote hope, help and healing on all levels.”