Dr. Kate Tilleczek
Professor, Canada Research Chair (Tier I), Founder & Scientific Director of YLRL
Kate Tilleczek is a Professor who holds the Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Youth, Education & Global Good in the Faculty of Education at York University. She is an educator, founder (in 2009) and Director of the Young Lives Research Laboratory which employs global, intercultural and interdisciplinary approaches to collaborative research with and for young people and their communities. The objective is to better understand and record how youth navigate challenges arising in contemporary local/global contexts (e.g. ecological degradation, digital technology, climate change, mental wellbeing). Professor Tilleczek has developed many innovative, youth-centered research processes and findings on these topics and put them to use in re-imagining quality education. She is currently developing a Partnership for Youth and Planetary Wellbeing to investigate emerging social, educational and digital challenges for youth wellbeing, particularly within the social and economic context of the COVID pandemic. Working across countries and cultures with holistic models of wellbeing and ecological systems thinking, Professor Tilleczek’s research garners new understanding about the wellbeing of young people and how we might re-design quality education and whole-of-society supports with/by them.
In her York University Research Minute, Kate briefly describes some of her ongoing research and work.

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AWARDS & HONOURS
2020: Fellow of McLauchlin College (York University)
2019: Oscar Romera Award for Human Rights Education
2018: Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) ~ Youth, Education & Global Good
2018: Research Leader (York University)
2014: Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) ~ Young Lives in Global/Local Contexts
2013: Whitworth Award for Career Education Research Excellence (Canadian Education Association)
2013: President’s Award for Achievement in Scholarly Endeavours (UPEI)
2009: Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) ~ Youth Contexts and Transitions
In 2013 Kate accepted the CEA Whitworth Award for her work in marginalized youth education policy and practice, and her dedication to inquiry into how we can improve education for young people today, and in future, continues to grow.
Leadership and Service (Current)
Current | Director (and founder in 2009) | Young Lives Research Laboratory York University |
Current | Chair, Research Advisory Committee | Pathways to Education Canada |
Current | Editor-in-Chief Bloomsbury Education & Childhood Series (“Youth”) | Bloomsbury Publishing London, UK |
Current | Co-Editor-in-Chief Children/Youth in the Anthropocene Series | Rowan and Littlefield Publishing UK |
Current | Editorial Board | Adolescence |
Current | Editorial Board | Sociological Studies of Children and Youth |
Current | Advisory Board | In:cite Journal (A journal by/for youth) |
Current | Advisory Committee Partnership for Rights for Children/Youth in the Americas (RCYP) | Ryerson University – SSHRC Partnership Project |