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American Pediatric Society 2023 Presidential Address-pathways and partnerships in academic pediatrics: the power of possibility

Pediatric Research volume 94, pages 1916–1920 (2023)Cite this article

Good afternoon and welcome. My name is Lisa Robinson and I have had the honor of serving as APS President over the last year. Today’s Presidential Plenary provides a wonderful opportunity to speak about the work of the APS and to celebrate this year’s John Howland Award Recipient.

I would like to begin by acknowledging that we gather here on the ancestral lands of the Nacotchtank peoples, neighboring the ancestral territory of the Piscataway and Pamunkey peoples. My home is Toronto, or Tkaronto, the Mohawk name which means “the place where there are trees standing in the water”. For thousands of years it has been the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and more recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit. Today, it is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and I am profoundly grateful for the opportunity to work, to play, and live on this beautiful land. With humility, I offer this land acknowledgment to recognize and honor the Indigenous people who have lived on these lands since time immemorial. A land acknowledgment is also an opportunity to reflect on our connection to land and how we came to be in the spaces we occupy. This has always been somewhat unknown for me as my ancestors were stolen and forcibly displaced to Jamaica through the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Wanting to learn more about my roots, I recently did DNA analysis and discovered that my ancestors hail from Nigeria and Ghana. And so, to honor the ancestors, I will ground my address today in Sankofa, which in Twi, spoken in Ghana, guides us to learn from the past to build a successful future.

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Funding

LAR receives research grant funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Canada Research Chairs Program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Paediatrics, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, 555 University Ave, Toronto, ON, M5G 1X8, Canada

    Lisa A. Robinson

  2. Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto, Medical Sciences Building, 1 King’s College Circle, Toronto, ON, M5S 1A8, Canada

    Lisa A. Robinson

  3. Division of Nephrology, The Hospital for Sick Children, 555 University Avenue, Toronto, ON, M5G 1X8, Canada

    Lisa A. Robinson

  4. Program in Cell Biology, The Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute, 686 Bay St, Toronto, ON, M5G 0A4, Canada

    Lisa A. Robinson

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Correspondence to Lisa A. Robinson.

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Robinson, L.A. American Pediatric Society 2023 Presidential Address-pathways and partnerships in academic pediatrics: the power of possibility. Pediatr Res 94, 1916–1920 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-023-02771-3

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