UBC Population and Public Health students receive Canadian Graduate Scholarships and Doctoral Fellowships

Eight UBC Population and Public Health students are announced as the award recipients of the three federal research granting agencies, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

These awards recognize and support the next generation of researchers at UBC and across Canada funding their work for the 2024/25 academic year.

Award recipients:

Canadian Graduate Scholarships

Jonathan Edwin

Area of research: Jonathan’s research focuses on the interplay between mental health and substance use, and is particularly interested in better understanding the burden of disease and facilitators/barriers to care for racialized populations. Through an understanding of the structural and behavioural barriers to care, he intends to evaluate the application of novel and emerging mental health and substance use interventions for priority populations. Jonathan’s has previous research experience in the areas of COVID-19, substance use, and infectious diseases. His doctoral research is supervised by Drs Daniel Vigo and Eugenia Socías.

Suiqiong Fan

Area of research: Suiqiong started her PhD at SPPH in the fall of 2023 with a focus on social epidemiology. Her previous research focused on women’s health. During her master’s, she worked with Dr. Alissa Koski on a systematic review about the health effects of child marriage, and an independent study about the prevalence of child marriage in mainland China. She is interested in epidemiological methods, data analysis, and knowledge synthesis.

Katherine Huerne

Area of research: Katherine’s research focuses on health equity in cancer research by developing evidence-based “best-practice” guidelines for the conduct of sex and gender-based analysis (SGBA). Sex and gender factors are critical considerations to cancer research, affecting etiology, susceptibility, prognosis, and therapeutic response. However, the current recommendations for SGBA often lack analytical rigour or fail to include underrepresented populations such as transgender and intersex populations. By using mixed methodologies to promote transformative research practises, the guidelines will integrate the latest findings in cancer research, trends from large cancer datasets, and expert opinions of cancer researchers. This project addresses a growing need to improve SGBA practises from an interdisciplinary approach of integrating health policy, clinical, and social perspectives.

Bronte Johnston

Area of research: Bronte (she/her) is researching youth contraception for her doctoral thesis with the support of her supervisor, Dr. Kimberlyn McGrail, and Committee Members, Dr. Sarah Munro and Dr. Laura Schummers. Despite contraception’s key role in improving population health, it remains inaccessible to many youth. Recently, British Columbia introduced a contraception subsidy, but its impact on youth use remains unclear. Additionally, access barriers and youth contraception values are not well understood. Her thesis aims to explore youth contraception barriers, prescription trends, and experiences with contraception costs and values.

Sam Tobias

Area of research: Sam’s research focuses on understanding how the unregulated drug supply in British Columbia has evolved over time and its implications for public health. By analyzing different sources of drug supply data and evaluating the impact of shocks or disruptions, he aims to identify shifts in drug composition, particularly fentanyl potency. His work also explores how these changes influence opioid use disorder treatment outcomes, such as retention in opioid agonist therapy. Ultimately, this research seeks to inform harm reduction strategies, improve clinical care, and guide evidence-based public health interventions for people who use drugs.

Chelsey Perry

Chelsey (she/they) has research experience in Indigenous health, access to healthcare, 2S/LGBTQ+ health, and sexual and reproductive health. They have worked on several projects focused on creating training resources for researchers working with Indigenous Peoples, aligning calls to action from foundational documents (i.e., UNDRIP, TRC, MMIWG2S) to research objectives, and creating safer research spaces for Indigenous women, gender diverse, and Two-Spirit Peoples.

NSERC Postgraduate Scholarship

Cassandra Lee Andrew

Area of research: Since 2021, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) has had devastating impacts on wildlife and livestock health in North America, and there is concern that HPAI could cause a global human pandemic. Cassandra’s research focuses on understanding, monitoring, and mitigating the risks of HPAI, with a particular focus on identifying small flock (non-commercial) poultry owner risks. She is blending genomic information with temporo-spatial patterns of outbreaks to understand HPAI spread, evaluating the risk of a management intervention on the amount of virus found in wetlands, and evaluating small flock producers’ beliefs about HPAI and its risk to themselves and their birds.

SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship

Katherine Rebecca White

Area of research: As the frequency and intensity of extreme heat is expected to continue due to ongoing climate change, understanding the relationship between extreme heat and human health has become an urgent public health priority. Katherine’s dissertation work examines individual and neighbourhood environment factors that contribute to heat-related health outcomes experienced by older adults. Her goal is to contribute to evidence-informed decision making to reduce the health impacts of extreme heat.

Read the full announcement on grad.ubc.ca.