‘At the forefront of a sustainable transformation’: 25 years of the Lassonde Scholarships in mineral engineering
![Pierre Lassonde smiles as he poses with 29 of the Lassonde Scholars on a staircase.](https://defygravitycampaign.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Mr-Lassonde-and-scholars_top-1024x1024.jpg)
The day after he first arrived in Canada from Sri Lanka, Channa Kumarage (BASc 2016) headed to the University of Toronto to pay tuition fees. But there was a snag.
“I had to change my cheque to a lesser amount!” he says. “I discovered I had received the Lassonde Scholarship. For a kid who’d just come from far to start a new life, that was a wonderful surprise. I thought it couldn’t get much better than this. Except it did.”
The Lassonde Scholarships, valued at up to $10,000 per year, support students in the Lassonde Mineral Engineering program at U of T’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. Philanthropist Pierre Lassonde (Hon DEng 2001) founded the awards in 1996 as the first step in a visionary program of giving. He has also created two chairs, supported an interdisciplinary research initiative, and donated generously to help renovate the Lassonde Mining Building and its sustainability-focused Goldcorp Mining Innovation Suite.