Each year the Honorary Doctorate Degree Program celebrates and recognizes the commitment, dedication, and service of individuals who are distinguished by their significant contributions and sustained creative and philanthropic achievements in their areas of expertise.

Rebecca Belmore studied at Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) from 1984–1986. Belmore is a multi-disciplinary artist whose works evoke the connections between bodies, land, and language and are firmly rooted in the political and social realities of Indigenous communities. Since 1987, Belmore has exhibited her work at national and international venues. Her solo shows include: Rebecca Belmore: Rising to the Occasion, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC (2008);The Named and the Unnamed, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC (2002); and Fountain (2005) at the 51st Venice Biennale.

Her group exhibitions include: Echigo-Tsumari Triennial, Niigata Prefecture, Japan (2015); Global Feminisms, Brooklyn Art Museum, New York (2007); Land, Spirit, Power, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, ON (1992); and Creation or Death: We will Win, Havana Biennial, Cuba (1991).

Belmore was a recipient of the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2013, the Hnatyshyn Foundation Visual Arts Award in 2009, and an Honorary Doctorate from the Ontario College of Art and Design University in 2005.