As the 2025 year comes to a close, we’re highlighting alumni from York University’s School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design (AMPD) who continue to make an impact across creative industries.
These achievements reflect the range of creative practice shaped at AMPD, and the many paths graduates take after completing their studies.
Explore this year’s alumni highlights below.
Michelle Tracey (BFA Theatre, ’13)
Awarded the Virginia and Myrtle Cooper Award in Costume Design
Michelle Tracey is a Toronto-based costume and set designer whose work spans theatre, opera, dance, film and live events. Her professional career includes collaborations with Soulpepper Theatre, the Stratford Festival, the Shaw Festival, Buddies in Bad Times, Canadian Stage and many others.
In 2025, she received the Virginia and Myrtle Cooper Award for excellence in Costume Design, recognizing more than a decade of work across Canadian stages.
“Receiving the Virginia and Myrtle Cooper Award was an incredible honour, and very affirming of my career path,” says Tracey. “My time at York gave me the foundation I needed to step into professional design work. I was encouraged to develop my artistic voice and translate that into my designs, and many of the artists I met there remain collaborators to this day.”
Visit Tracey’s website to learn more.
Michael Emberley (BFA Film Production, ’00)
Awarded for Best Picture Editing in Reality/Competition for Big Brother Canada
Michael Emberley is a television editor with more than twenty-five years of experience across reality, competition, entertainment, documentary and lifestyle programming. His work on Big Brother Canada has become a defining part of his career, earning national recognition and the 2025 Canadian Screen Award for Best Picture Editing, Reality or Competition. After cutting four seasons of the series, he is now moving on to The Price is Right Tonight in 2026.
“Working on four seasons of Big Brother Canada was a major pivot point in a long career, the culmination of everything I’ve learned since starting my path at York and the beginning of a new chapter.”
Reflecting on his time at AMPD, he says, “The media industries are constantly evolving, so you have to reinvent yourself to stay relevant. I credit the depth of my York education for giving me the perspective to understand new challenges and the agility to tackle them.”
Miriam Fernandes (BFA Theatre, ’11)
Selected as Protégé for the 2025 Siminovitch Prize
Miriam Fernandes is a Toronto-based theatre creator whose work spans acting, directing and collaborative creation. Since graduating from AMPD, she has built an active performance and creation practice with companies including Why Not Theatre, Soulpepper and Theatre New Brunswick.
In 2025, Fernandes was selected as the Siminovitch Protégé by Why Not Theatre founder Ravi Jain, recipient of Canada’s top theatre prize. The Protégé Award includes $25,000 in support of her continued work as a creator.
The recognition follows a major year for Mahabharata, the large-scale production she co-created and performed in, which swept several 2025 Dora Mavor Moore Awards and highlighted the impact of her ongoing collaboration with Jain.
Ekow Nimako (BFA Visual Arts, ’10)
Commissioned by the City of Toronto to create a major public art installation
Ekow Nimako is a Ghanaian-Canadian artist known internationally for his large-scale sculptural work crafted entirely from black LEGO elements. This year, the City of Toronto opened the new Rouge Valley Community Recreation and Childcare Centre, a multimillion-dollar facility more than a decade in development.
As part of the city’s public art program, Nimako was selected to create the centre’s permanent installation, Children of the Rouge Valley, a commission that reflects both the scale of the project and his growing impact as a sculptor.
Reflecting on the piece, Nimako says creating it was especially meaningful because he grew up in the neighbourhood. “I think it is significant that the community members who will use the new facility can read the plaque and see that the artist came up just like them. I feel like art has the potential to be even more inspiring when we can relate to the artist in some way.”
For students interested in large scale public art, he shares, “I would encourage anyone interested in scaled up work to start making it regardless of opportunity. When the desire to go big and create impactful art is there, you find ways to make space for your ideas to be actualized. You just have to go for it.”
Visit Ekow Nimako’s website or watch his AMPD testimonial to learn more.
Asha James (BFA Theatre, ’18)
Awarded the 2025 Dora Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in Flex
Asha James is a Canadian actor whose work spans theatre, film and television. In 2025, she received the Dora Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in Flex. Since graduating from York, she has continued to build a varied performance career while also launching a successful digital marketing and SEO firm.
Reflecting on this year’s Dora Award, James says the recognition feels like a tribute to her younger self. “I never imagined I would receive this kind of recognition so early in my career, and I’m incredibly grateful. It’s both affirming and grounding, and it reminds me that I’m on the right path.”
“At AMPD, I learned how essential it is to stay organized, manage my time, and approach each project with a clear method for breaking down a script. Acting taught me the importance of storytelling and understanding an audience. Skills that now help me shape narratives for clients and speak to what their target audiences are truly searching for.”
Rebecca Munce (BFA Visual Art, ’13)
Commissioned to create a 10,000-square-foot public mural for Toronto’s Gardiner Wallworks series
Rebecca Munce is a Toronto-based visual artist whose work blends symbolic imagery, native flora and architectural forms into intricate narrative worlds. In 2025, she was commissioned to create Petal and Stone for the inaugural Gardiner Wallworks series, transforming a 10,000-square-foot stretch beneath the Gardiner Expressway into a new public landmark between The Bentway and Exhibition Place.
“Working on Petal and Stone allowed me to translate a very personal, symbolic visual language into a public space on a monumental scale. The site carries layers of history, movement and transformation, and it was powerful to respond to that.”
For students interested in public art, she shares, “Don’t wait for permission to think on a large scale. Public art asks for clarity, but not for compromise. Stay connected to your own visual language.”
Munce notes that AMPD helped ground her practice. “It was a place where I learned to experiment, trust intuitive impulses and develop a visual vocabulary that still anchors my work today.”
Visit Munce’s website to learn more.
Luis Ramirez (PhD Music, ’24)
Appointed Assistant Professor of Music Theory at Brandon University
Luis Ramirez is a Mexican-Canadian composer and scholar whose work has been performed by major orchestras across North America, including the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony and Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México.
In 2025, he joined the Music Department at Brandon University as Assistant Professor of Music Theory, building on a growing career as both a composer and educator.
“The music faculty at York University were dedicated professionals who provided invaluable guidance during my studies. Their expertise helped me build a strong foundation that I now draw upon in my role as Assistant Professor at Brandon University. It’s incredibly welcoming to be received by a faculty who already know me so well.”
Visit Ramirez’s website to learn more.
Shaharah Gaznabbi (BFA Theatre, ’24)
Recipient of the 2025 Gerda Hnatyshyn Launch Grant in English Theatre
Shaharah Gaznabbi is a Toronto-based theatre creator whose work spans playwriting, performance, puppetry, drag, sound design and devised theatre.
In 2025, they were awarded the Gerda Hnatyshyn Launch Grant in English Theatre, recognizing their emerging impact and supporting the next stage of their creative work.
Gaznabbi has presented work at festivals including the Toronto Fringe Festival, where they received both TO Live’s Best of Fringe Award and the Canadian Green Alliance’s Greenest in the Fringe Award. They previously participated in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, earning the Neurodiverse Review’s Birds of Paradise Emerging Talent Award.
Visit the Hnatyshyn Foundation’s website to learn more.
Joshua Bonnetta (BFA Film Production, ’04)
Named a 2025 Guggenheim Fellow in the Creative Arts
Joshua Bonnetta is a sound artist and filmmaker whose work explores environmental sound, site-specific listening and the intersection of cinema and sonic arts. In 2025, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in the Creative Arts, one of the most prestigious recognitions for artists in North America.
Based in Munich, Bonnetta works across film, installation and publication, and has exhibited at festivals and institutions including the Berlinale, MoMA, the BFI London Film Festival, IDFA and the New York Film Festival.
His films and sound-based projects investigate how landscapes, communities and ecological forces can be understood through listening. His upcoming work continues this research, focusing on the environmental effects of human generated noise across land and sea.
Visit Bonnetta’s website to learn more.
Benjamin Gillespie (BA Theatre ’09, MA Theatre ’10)
Appointed Assistant Professor of Theatre at Santa Clara University
Benjamin Gillespie is a theatre scholar and educator whose work spans Theatre and Performance Studies, Queer Studies and Age Studies. In 2025, he accepted a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor of Theatre in the Department of Theatre and Dance at Santa Clara University, marking an important milestone in his academic career. He also serves as co-editor of the Journal of American Drama and Theatre and has two books forthcoming with the University of Michigan Press in 2026.
“What I valued most during my time at AMPD was the excellent mentorship I received from faculty who deeply shaped my path as a scholar, and the opportunity to engage with advanced courses in theatre and drama that challenged me to think critically and creatively about the field.”
Learn more about Gillespie’s forthcoming book, Late Stage: Theatrical Perspectives on Age and Aging.
Andrés Livov (BFA Film Production, ’04)
World Premiere of The Blueberry Blues at the Camden International Film Festival
Andrés Livov is a Montreal-based filmmaker whose work explores community, memory and the dignity of everyday life. In 2025, his third feature documentary, The Blueberry Blues, premiered as the closing film of the Camden International Film Festival and was selected to close the Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM). The film offers a sensitive portrait of Lac Saint Jean through the rhythms of harvest season and the stories of the people who return to its blueberry fields each summer.
Born in Buenos Aires and now based in Montreal, Livov has created feature films and shorts that have screened internationally. The Blueberry Blues continues his commitment to storytelling rooted in place, resilience and shared experience.
Learn more about The Blueberry Blues.
Ken Beatty (MFA Theatre, ’88)
Winner of the Lee Playwriting Prize for War Artist
Ken Beatty is a playwright and scholar whose career has spanned theatre, linguistics and education. In 2025, his play War Artist received the Lee Playwriting Prize for New Canadian Plays, a recognition that marks a meaningful return to his roots in theatre.
After completing his MFA at AMPD, Beatty went on to earn a PhD in Applied Linguistics and became an internationally published author of more than one hundred ESL textbooks, while continuing to write for the stage.
“My MFA training in dialogue surfaced in writing a listening and speaking textbook series for Oxford University Press,” he says. “And then another, and then another. So far, that has led to 152 textbooks and readers for a dozen international publishers, and to travels in 35 countries.”
Learn more about the Lee Playwriting Prize on the University of Alberta website.
Weyni Mengesha (BFA Theatre, ’98)
Recipient of the 2025 Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Prize
Weyni Mengesha is one of Canada’s most influential theatre directors, known for work that has shaped stages in Toronto, London, New York and Los Angeles. In 2025, she received a Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Prize, one of Ontario’s largest awards for mid-career artists.
This year also marked a transition in her artistic leadership. After almost seven years as Artistic Director of Soulpepper Theatre Company, Mengesha announced that she would step down in August 2025 to focus on her own creative practice.
Her tenure at Soulpepper revived the Soulpepper Academy, supported new voices and launched productions that featured many AMPD graduates.
Mengesha’s ongoing work as a director, mentor and educator continues to influence Canadian theatre and beyond.
Learn more about the 2025 Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Prize through the Metcalf Foundation.
Alokananda Dasgupta (BFA Music, ’09)
Awarded Best Background Score for Amazon Prime’s Khauf
Alokananda Dasgupta is one of India’s most acclaimed film composers, known for her work on Sacred Games, Jubilee, The Jengaburu Curse, and Three of Us. Her 2025 score for Amazon Prime’s Khauf earned her the Filmfare Award for Best Background Score, adding to a career that already includes two prior Filmfare wins and a BAFTA Breakthrough recognition. She credits her time at AMPD for giving her the foundation to find her voice as a composer.
“York changed everything. My studies there reignited my curiosity, turning my confusion into exploration. The mentorship I received helped mend the invisible gap between me and my potential. My professors showed me that I didn’t need to be a virtuoso pianist to have a voice in music. I could shape my own path, create my own role and build a life in music that felt authentic to me.”
She continues to compose for film and television while developing new personal work, including her first album in several years.
Explore Dasgupta’s music on Spotify and visit her official website.
These are a few of the many contributions our alumni made across the arts, culture and creative sectors in 2025. As we look ahead, we look forward to the new work our alumni will bring into the coming year.
Interested in more alumni stories from 2025? Check out the articles below.
AMPD alumni earn accolades at TIFF 50
AMPD Design students and alumni recognized at the 2025 RGD Student Awards
AMPD Alumni Shine at 2025 Toronto Theatre Critics’ Awards
AMPD alumni excel at 2025 Canadian Screen Awards
AMPD alumni recognized with wins and nominations at the 2025 Dora Mavor Moore Awards
AMPD Alumnus is reimagining Toronto's Former Downsview Airport
If you are an alum from one of our programs, visit our Alumni page to see how you can get involved.