Moncada received the award for earning 98% in his undergraduate kinesiology program.
After finishing his shift at UHN’s KITE Research Institute, Anthony Moncada checked his email — and froze.
The University of Guelph-Humber had sent him an email to inform him that he had just won the Governor General’s Academic Medal, which is awarded to the top undergraduate students in each graduating class. Moncada had earned a 98%, the top mark in his undergraduate kinesiology program.
Moncada hasn’t always been such an academic all-star. In high school, Moncada’s marks were in the 80s; then, he earned a diploma and took a job in an unrelated field. After realizing he wasn’t on the right path for him, he decided to go back to school for his undergrad.
That life experience helped shape his success. “I had the maturity from those experiences, and I treated school like a full-time job,” he says. Having left a job to pursue his studies and needing to pay for school himself made him recognize the full value of this opportunity. “I was more appreciative of what it takes and how fortunate I was to be able to go to school and do what I want.”
That passion carried into his work at KITE as well. While completing his final year of undergraduate studies, Moncada worked in the Multisensory Integration and Virtual Environment (MIVE) lab under the supervision of Dr. Jennifer Campos. There, he studied whether multisensory tasks, such as audiovisual illusions, could help identify cognitive decline in its earliest stages.
Balancing that work with a full course load wasn’t easy, especially with a long commute. “But everyone was very supportive,” he says. “And there were lots of opportunities, like presenting at conferences.”
He says one highlight of his time at KITE was when he went to the International Conference on Aging, Innovation and Rehabilitation (ICAIR) at the beginning of his time with KITE in 2024. He then returned in 2025 as a presenter. “It was kind of a full circle moment,” he says.
This fall, Moncada will head to Western University for a Master’s in Anatomy and Cell Biology. With top marks and research experience at KITE, he’s well-prepared to excel - though he’s the kind of person who values the process over the outcome.
“Honestly, I just wanted to go [to University] and learn, and get as much out of it as I could,” he says. “Getting the recognition of this award is just a nice bonus.”