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2021 - BEVERLEY LARSSEN

Beverley is completing a combined Master of Physical Therapy and PhD in Rehabilitation Sciences program at the University of British Columbia where she studies rehabilitation therapies for stroke survivors. Using a neuroimaging approach, her research investigates the mechanisms and neuroanatomy that support motor learning/re-learning during physical rehabilitation using error amplification techniques. This work has the potential to help identify who may benefit from such interventions.

 

In her roles as both a physiotherapist and neuroscientist, she continues to engage in knowledge translation both clinically and in research. Her most recent activities include supporting clinical education through the mentorship of physiotherapy students in the UBC Department of Physical Therapy as well as facilitating knowledge translation opportunities for local stroke recovery researchers in her current role as Chair of the BC Stroke Network. Beverley also shares her passion for physical activity and science with youth through her volunteerism as a community track and field coach and participation in community science outreach programs. 

2021- JACQUELINE HAY

Jacqueline is a Ph.D. Candidate and Clinical Exercise Physiologist in Applied Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba. She is passionate about supporting, advocating, and inspiring others to overcome challenges. Her leadership, academic, and research potential have been acknowledged with numerous awards, including a prestigious Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) Vanier Scholarship.  Navigating multiple orthopedic surgeries and supporting her mother through her heart health journey motivated her to pursue translational research to promote policy and practices that improve patient outcomes. As a CIHR Institute of Gender and Health Manitoba Chapter Trainee Lead and member of the Canadian Women’s Heart Health Alliance, she promotes the integration of sex and gender in research and clinical practice.  In her spare time, she engages with students, physicians, nurses, and pharmacists to increase capacity in the healthcare system to provide meaningful physical activity guidance as a part of care. Jacqueline’s doctoral research focuses on examining sex and gender differences in cardiac rehabilitation outcomes in Manitoba. In the future, she intends to pursue additional training to champion translational research to address disparities in cardiovascular health outcomes.

2020 - Cindy Kalenga

Cindy Kalenga is an emerging leader in women’s cardiovascular health. She is currently a PhD candidate with Cumming School of Medicine (CSM) where she is exploring how estrogen hormones in the form of contraceptives and postmenopausal hormone therapy are associated with cardiovascular risk in women.

Kalenga is widely recognized in the research community as she was recently awarded the Libin Cardiovascular Institute of Alberta’s highly competitive doctoral scholarship in Women’s Cardiovascular Health. She also received the Alberta Graduate Award and UCalgary chose her application for the Canadian Institute of Health Research’s Doctoral Scholarship to advance to the national competition, an accomplishment only a few graduate students experience. Kalenga is a highly sought-after speaker at both national and international conferences.

Kalenga is highly committed to supporting women and vowed to optimize the participation of minorities into research to impact the health of all Canadians regardless of race, ethnicity, sex, or gender. As the lead of the Canadian Institute of Health Research’s Sex and Gender Trainee Network at UCalgary, she is working to build awareness and capacity in sex- and gender-based considerations among trainees conducting health research in Canada alongside 18 other Canadian universities. In her spare time, she plays basketball and tutors high school and undergraduate students.

Born in the Democratic Republic of Congo during a time of great civil unrest, her family relocated to South Africa at the height of apartheid where she experienced challenges due to severe racial tension. Her family later immigrated to Canada, where she yet again needed to adapt to a new environment. Kalenga’s diverse cultural experiences have provided her with a high degree of adaptability and resiliency.

Kalenga is currently working on her thesis which she hopes to complete by 2021.

2020 - Emily Drake

Emily is a passionate and innovative public health leader. A graduate of Acadia University’s Honours Psychology program, and Dalhousie University’s Master’s in Health Promotion program, Emily has been a contributor to the Huffington Post (US), the BMJ Blog, the Cancer Knowledge Network and Oncology Exchange. She has also published in the Journal of Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology, Current Hematologic Malignancy Reports, the Journal of Global Oncology, the Journal of Medical Internet Research, Psycho-Oncology, the Journal of Supportive Care in Cancer, Pediatric Blood & Cancer, the Journal of Clinical Nursing and The International Journal of Health, Wellness and Society.

Emily is a PhD in Health candidate at Dalhousie University. Her research focuses on the experiences of adolescents and young adults (AYAs) living with cancer.

 

A social innovator, in 2013, Emily co-founded and continues to grow Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Societal Movement (#AYACSM) - an active, multi-disciplinary community that is changing the way stakeholders interact and share information regarding adolescents and young adults with cancer.

2019 - Stephanie Gumuchian

Stephanie Gumuchian is pursuing a PhD in Clinical Psychology at Concordia University.  Stephanie is conducting a study on the effects of oxytocin as an adjunct treatment to traditional psychotherapy for patients with Major Depressive Disorder – a debilitating mental health disorder.  She hopes to disseminate her findings in an academic realm as well as to clinicians and their patients to help them benefit and learn from her research findings.  Stephanie is dedicated to positively impacting the lives of people suffering from mental illness.

Stephanie has a robust catalogue of publications and presentations as well as being a recipient of many scholastic awards.  She is committed to being an active member of her academic and local communities. Her references were very enthusiastic in praising her academic accomplishments as well as her community service and leadership.

2019 - Elisa Guma

Elisa is a PhD candidate in the Integrated Program in Neuroscience at McGill University in Montreal, QC, under the supervision of Dr. Mallar Chakravarty. 

The title of her thesis is "Studying prenatal exposure to maternal immune activation as risk factor for neurodevelopmental disorders in mice: from the fetus to adulthood"

 

"I investigate how exposure to prenatal maternal immune activation, a known risk factor for psychiatric illnesses such as schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder, affects offspring brain development in mice as a model species. For this work I leverage both longitudinal in vivo MRI and behavioural assessments to study child, adolescent, and adult development as well as ex vivo MRI and post-mortem assays to investigate fetal and neonatal development."

2018 - Alice Musabende

Alice Musabende is currently pursuing a PhD in Politics and International Relations at the University of Cambridge, in the UK. 


Alice's research focuses on the effects of external involvement in the policy making processes of the African Union. She investigates if and how a proliferation of international actors impacts collective action of African states and their behavior in the international system.

 

At Cambridge, she is a Gates Cambridge scholar as well as a SSHRC scholar.


Before moving to Cambridge, Alice was a political journalist based in Ottawa, Canada, where she worked for iPolitics and CBC among other Canadian news organizations.

 

Born and raised in Rwanda, Alice graduated from the University of Rwanda. She also holds a Master's of Journalism from Carleton University and a Master's of International Development Studies from Dalhousie University.

2018 - Sanjana Shellikeri

University of Toronto

Sanjana Shellikeri's research focuses on characterizing the neural correlates of bulbar Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), a fatal and devastating neurodegenerative disease that affects muscles involved in speech and swallowing functions. Her PhD work combines magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and neuropathology of cadaver brain tissue to understand motor and cognitive-linguistic deficits in bulbar ALS.

 

Over the course of her MSc and PhD programs, Sanjana has published five first-author manuscripts and contributed to four other peer-reviewed publications. She has presented her work at numerous national and international conferences, and recently won the best presentation award at one of the most prestigious conferences in her field. Her academic achievements include two consecutive years of the Ontario Graduate Scholarship, and numerous travel awards. 

 

Sanjana is also a full-time caregiver for her mother, who was diagnosed with ALS in 2010. She shows her support for the ALS community by fundraising annually for the Walk for ALS events and as a volunteer at the ALS Society of Canada. She hosted two online forums on reddit.com to answer ALS-related questions, both in her capacity as an emerging researcher and as an active caregiver for someone living with the disease. She hopes to follow the academic path with the goal of establishing herself as an independent researcher and contribute her growing skills and expertise to improve the lives of people suffering from ALS.

2017 - Anita Acai

McMaster University

Anita impressed the committees with her description of her journey to her current PhD candidacy in the field of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour.  Her story of confidence gained, lost and transformation borne of failure was very engaging.  The enthusiasm she has for the work she is doing shone through in her application.

 

Her area of study focuses of the role of competence committees in surgical education.  Her goal is to create practical guidelines for committees to utilize in reviewing future health professionals by analyzing how they operate in practice, influences at play, the impact of cognitive biases in the decision-making process.

 

Anita has an impressive list of academic awards and a lengthy catalogue of articles, presentations, reports and publications.  

 

Anita also demonstrated her dedication to community service both within the university as part of student government and as a strong advocate for mental health services for graduate students and as a volunteer with the Red Cross.

2017 - Victoria McPhail

York University

Victoria’s enthusiasm for nature and bumble bees led her to research to determine reasons for decline in populations of rare species of bumble bees.  She is proposing to analyze data collected from volunteers through BumbleBeeWatch.org to answer important questions and help fill knowledge gaps regarding population decline and improve and influence conservation policies related to bumble bees.

 

She has a very impressive body of published work and presentations.  Victoria is the winner of many academic and civic awards and scholarships throughout her academic career.  In 2014 she was recognized as one of the Guelph Mercury’s top “40 under 40” recognizing her volunteer and professional contributions.

Victoria has also demonstrated an ability to share her findings and passion for pollinators with the public through media interviews, publications as well as implementing programs and workshops to educate people about bumble bees and recruiting volunteers to help monitor bees.

 

Victoria has also put her passion for nature and bees to work in a volunteer capacity – founding Pollination Guelph which is an organization dedicated to protecting pollinators and their habitats.  She is also a long-standing leader in Girl Guides with over 25 years as a guide leader being a role model for girls and young women.

2017- Catherine Shaffer

Simon Fraser University

Catherine’s research is focused on finding ways to reduce adolescent dating violence by adapting the risk management tools used assess and manage the risk of spousal violence for use with adolescents.  She hopes that the guidelines that she develops will be used by professional to help facilitate the case management of offenders and safety planning for victims.  Catherine hopes that her research will improve policy and decision-making processes in the justice and mental health fields.  To reach her goals she will assist with the development of approaches to help reduce violence, conduct research to examine factors associated with forms of intimate violence and design community outreach initiatives for violence mitigation.  She also hopes to continue teaching and mentoring and has taken training to that end.

Catherine has been an active member of her university community throughout her university career holding positions in student government and faculty organizations. She has demonstrated her dedication to her area of study with action by volunteering with an organization that supports violence prevention and intervention services to battered women.

Catherine has demonstrated great success in academia, she has received many awards over her academic career.  She has garnered praise for her future potential and demonstrated outstanding leadership as a teacher and mentor as well as a researcher. 

 

2016 - Sara King-Dowling

McMaster University 

Sara King-Dowling is studying Developmental Coordination Disorder a neurodevelopmental condition where children have persistent problems with fine and gross motor coordination.  Her work is studying the impact on the cardiovascular health of children with this condition.

 

Sara has spent her academic career at McMaster University.   She has been the recipient of several awards and has a strong catalogue of publications.

 

She is active in her school community as a graduate student, union representative and intramural athlete.  She is also a volunteer in the wider community organizing running events and mentoring at-risk youth in school based physical activity programs.

 

Sara’s goals are to continue to improve the health and well-being of children with motor coordination difficulties through research and a career in academia.

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