Dr. Sandra Black, O.Ont., Brill Chair in Neurology in the Department of Medicine at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and the University of Toronto, has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Election to the academies of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC), founded in 1882, is the highest honour a scholar can achieve in the Arts, Humanities and Sciences. Fellows are elected by their peers in recognition of outstanding scholarly, scientific and artistic achievements.

Dr. Black, an internationally-recognized leader and clinical trialist in both stroke and dementia research, uses leading-edge neuroimaging techniques for detection, diagnosis, monitoring outcomes and studying brain-behaviour relationships.

She is a founding member of both the Canadian Stroke Consortium of clinical stroke investigators and the equivalent Canadian dementia investigator consortium, the C5R. Dr. Black also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Ontario Stroke Network, which oversees the Ontario Stroke System, and served as a member of the steering committee of the Canadian Stroke Strategy. She is Medical Director of the Regional Stroke Program for N&E GTA and Brain Sciences Program Research Director for the Sunnybrook Research Institute.

An innovator in systems of care and research, Dr. Black is a founding Site Director for the Heart and Stroke Foundation Centre for Stroke Recovery, a multi-institutional national non-profit corporation dedicated to leading-edge research to maximize stroke recovery, involving 5 leading Canadian research institutions and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada (centreforstrokerecovery.ca).

She was also named to the Order of Ontario earlier this year.

Dr. Black will be inducted to the RSC during the Induction and Awards Ceremony on November 17, 2012 in Ottawa.