Killam Laureates

Md Nazmul Arefin

Sociology

Nazmul Arefin is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology. An international student from Bangladesh, Arefin is interested in critical terrorism studies, radicalization, Islamophobia, policing, social justice and narrative criminology. Arefin’s work is supervised by Professor Temitope Oriola on whose research team he currently works as research assistant on a National Dorothy Killam Fellowship project, one of only eight awarded in Canada in 2023.

Given the rising climate of Islamophobia and right-wing extremism, Arefin’s study investigates the lived experiences of Muslim university students in Canada. This study expands knowledge about Muslim students’ experiences in higher education, institutional racism, identity struggles and responses to anti-Muslim racism and hate crimes. As the Senate of Canada engages in drafting an anti-Islamophobia bill following a report released in November 2023, Arefin’s research aims to provide vital granular data and grassroots policy recommendations for the nation-wide effort. The findings can help scholars and university policymakers take action on institutional Islamophobia and improve the efficacy of EDID policies in Canada and other liberal democracies.

Kostiantyn Dmytriiev

Medicine

Kostiantyn Dmytriiev is a dedicated scholar currently pursuing his PhD in Medicine at the University of Alberta. He began his academic journey at the National Pirogov Memorial Medical University, where he earned his MD in 2016. Between 2016 and 2021, he furthered his expertise with multiple certifications in internal medicine, cardiology and respirology.

Kostinatyn's research focuses on the respiratory and cardiovascular systems, with particular emphasis on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), bronchial asthma, and pulmonary hypertension. His work has been recognized with numerous awards.

His early career included roles as a study coordinator and sub-investigator at his alma mater, where he also served as a teaching assistant. Kostiantyn’s commitment to advancing medical science is evident in his extensive publication record and his active participation in various international conferences.

In addition to his academic and research pursuits, Kostiantyn has played multiple roles within the academic community. His resilience and dedication were particularly demonstrated when he continued his research despite the interruption of his PhD program at the National Pirogov Memorial Medical University due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Kostiantyn’s journey reflects a profound commitment to medical research and education, with a clear focus on improving clinical outcomes for patients with respiratory and cardiovascular conditions.

Marisa Dusseault

Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

Marisa is a PhD student in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Alberta. Born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta, she moved to Newfoundland in 2014, where she earned a BSc Honours, MSc and MA at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Her academic research at Memorial focused on implementing materials analysis techniques to assess preservation of archaeological marine carbonate samples and on enhancing the accuracy of marine radiocarbon dates by calculating local marine reservoir corrections for southeast Nova Scotia. Continuing her interest in marine carbonates, Marisa has now turned her attention to corals, which are known for being highly sensitive to environmental changes. Fluvial sediments and run-off generated from anthropogenic activities that wash into reefs can physically damage corals but can also shield them from prolonged sunlight exposure. With rising temperatures and as coastal development intensifies, this shielding affect could become crucial for reef health. For her PhD project, Marisa is studying 50,000-100,000-year-old fossilized coral reefs from Sumba Island, Indonesia. She aims to explore the complex relationships between sediment input into reefs, global climate change and direct human impacts in a region that is highly dependent on reef ecosystems.

Prabin Acharya

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Prabin was born in a remote village in the lap of the Himalayas in Nepal, where he witnessed firsthand the devastating effects of geohazards from a young age. These experiences sparked his passion for finding cost-effective and innovative solutions to study and mitigate natural disasters. As a PhD student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Alberta, Prabin is now dedicated to addressing a longstanding challenge in Alberta’s oil sands industry: managing the vast tailings storage facilities. Home to the world’s fourth-largest oil sand reserves, Alberta faces substantial environmental risks due to the scale and potential impact of waste products (tailings) from mining operations. Prabin's research utilizes artificial intelligence and image-based geospatial analysis to create predictive monitoring measures for tailings facilities; this data-driven approach is critical to the safety, closure, and reclamation efforts, promoting environmental sustainability. By detecting early signs of surface deformation and environmental anomalies, Prabin's research has the potential to save Alberta millions in remediation costs while safeguarding our vital ecosystems.

Md Nazmul Arefin

Sociology

Nazmul Arefin is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology. An international student from Bangladesh, Arefin is interested in critical terrorism studies, radicalization, Islamophobia, policing, social justice and narrative criminology. Arefin’s work is supervised by Professor Temitope Oriola on whose research team he currently works as research assistant on a National Dorothy Killam Fellowship project, one of only eight awarded in Canada in 2023.

Given the rising climate of Islamophobia and right-wing extremism, Arefin’s study investigates the lived experiences of Muslim university students in Canada. This study expands knowledge about Muslim students’ experiences in higher education, institutional racism, identity struggles and responses to anti-Muslim racism and hate crimes. As the Senate of Canada engages in drafting an anti-Islamophobia bill following a report released in November 2023, Arefin’s research aims to provide vital granular data and grassroots policy recommendations for the nation-wide effort. The findings can help scholars and university policymakers take action on institutional Islamophobia and improve the efficacy of EDID policies in Canada and other liberal democracies.

Yared Aynalem

Nursing

Yared Aynalem is a PhD student in Nursing at the University of Alberta, originally from a rural area in Gondar, Ethiopia. He completed his undergraduate studies at Debre Berhan University and earned his MSc in Nursing from Addis Ababa University. His early exposure to healthcare challenges faced by women and children profoundly influenced his career. His extensive research, teaching and community service have resulted in over 72 publications in esteemed peer-reviewed journals, primarily on maternal and child health. He has also contributed as a journal reviewer and editor. His achievements have been recognized with several prestigious awards, including the CIHR Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship.

His research centers on preconception care (PCC), which is crucial for reducing morbidity and mortality among reproductive-aged individuals and newborns. PCC addresses issues such as newborn complications and couples' health problems. In low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) like Ethiopia, where maternal and infant mortality rates are high, PCC is crucial but underutilized due to barriers like limited access and cultural factors. This study examines how intersecting factors such as socioeconomic status, gender, educational level and other structural factors affect PCC utilization in Ethiopia’s diverse social and cultural context, using socio-ecological models and intersectionality theories. This approach will enhance culturally tailored interventions, improving health outcomes for couples and newborns. Using tools like infographics, I will ensure widespread dissemination of findings to promote informed decision-making across diverse cultural contexts.

Augustine Botwe

Educational Psychology

Augustine Aboagye Botwe is a PhD student in the Measurements, Evaluation and Data Science (MEDS) with the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta. Augustine has over 20 years of strategic evaluation experience and has served in several countries and regions across the globe with UNICEF. He is a bridge builder and a passionate advocate for vulnerable populations. His career and passion have focused on demonstrating and communicating impact to inform decision-making, address disparities and improve health outcomes for vulnerable populations. 

Under the co-supervision of Drs. Cheryl Poth and Rebecca Gokiert, Augustine’s PhD research explores the impact of culturally safe healthcare approaches on the health outcomes of refugee children (from birth to five years old). Refugees in Canada face significant integration challenges in critical areas, particularly in healthcare. They arrive with health conditions including infectious diseases and trauma-related mental health issues that may not be commonly seen in Canada. This situation is acute for refugee children, who face additional health risks including malnutrition and developmental delays that, if left untreated, can persist throughout their lifetime, with long-term impacts. For this reason, improving healthcare access for children from the onset is essential. To enable healthcare for refugee children, there is a need to adopt a systems perspective that includes refugee families, the healthcare providers they interact with and the services they access. Among the key access challenges are their families' difficulties navigating the healthcare system, and cultural and language barriers. His study adopts the view that addressing these barriers from the outset requires recognizing and understanding the social determinants of health that significantly shape their health experiences and influence access to essential services. 

His study context, the New Canadians Health Centre (NCHC) in Edmonton, Alberta established in 2021 addresses the immediate health needs of Government-Assisted Refugees through its community-based, culturally safe principle-driven healthcare approach. In partnership with NCHC, Augustine’s research aims to directly address real-world challenges and provide actionable insights to enhance service delivery and broaden our understanding of healthcare challenges and opportunities for refugee children. By providing evidence-based recommendations, he aims to contribute to the policy discourse for better healthcare delivery to address the unique health needs of refugee children in Alberta and Canada.

Kostiantyn Dmytriiev

Medicine

Kostiantyn Dmytriiev is a dedicated scholar currently pursuing his PhD in Medicine at the University of Alberta. He began his academic journey at the National Pirogov Memorial Medical University, where he earned his MD in 2016. Between 2016 and 2021, he furthered his expertise with multiple certifications in internal medicine, cardiology and respirology.

Kostinatyn's research focuses on the respiratory and cardiovascular systems, with particular emphasis on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), bronchial asthma, and pulmonary hypertension. His work has been recognized with numerous awards.

His early career included roles as a study coordinator and sub-investigator at his alma mater, where he also served as a teaching assistant. Kostiantyn’s commitment to advancing medical science is evident in his extensive publication record and his active participation in various international conferences.

In addition to his academic and research pursuits, Kostiantyn has played multiple roles within the academic community. His resilience and dedication were particularly demonstrated when he continued his research despite the interruption of his PhD program at the National Pirogov Memorial Medical University due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Kostiantyn’s journey reflects a profound commitment to medical research and education, with a clear focus on improving clinical outcomes for patients with respiratory and cardiovascular conditions.

Marisa Dusseault

Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

Marisa is a PhD student in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Alberta. Born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta, she moved to Newfoundland in 2014, where she earned a BSc Honours, MSc and MA at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Her academic research at Memorial focused on implementing materials analysis techniques to assess preservation of archaeological marine carbonate samples and on enhancing the accuracy of marine radiocarbon dates by calculating local marine reservoir corrections for southeast Nova Scotia. Continuing her interest in marine carbonates, Marisa has now turned her attention to corals, which are known for being highly sensitive to environmental changes. Fluvial sediments and run-off generated from anthropogenic activities that wash into reefs can physically damage corals but can also shield them from prolonged sunlight exposure. With rising temperatures and as coastal development intensifies, this shielding affect could become crucial for reef health. For her PhD project, Marisa is studying 50,000-100,000-year-old fossilized coral reefs from Sumba Island, Indonesia. She aims to explore the complex relationships between sediment input into reefs, global climate change and direct human impacts in a region that is highly dependent on reef ecosystems.

Cindy Grappe

Business

Cindy Grappe is a marketing PhD student at the University of Alberta specializing in consumer behaviour. Her research explores the intersection of moral conflict and purchases made for close others. Although consumers frequently make purchases for partners or family members, it is not yet understood how the moral incongruence associated with certain buys, such as a vegetarian buying meat for their partner, affects their emotions, their relationships and their consumption choices. While some people might boycott certain product categories or brands because of the incompatibility of their ethics with their own morals, the majority that ends up prioritizing pleasing a close one by purchasing the requested product may experience high levels of moral distress, which can ultimately have a negative impact on their relationships. While 72% of Canadians report boycotting one or more product/brand for social and ethical reasons, academia has overlooked the impacts on personal well-being, morality and relationships. By addressing these knowledge gaps, Cindy’s research will offer practical implications for improving consumer welfare in situations where conflicting preferences in social groups are prevalent and morals are challenged.

Cindy’s contributions to the field include published research in several journals. She has also been very engaged in creative and social work, as well as knowledge translation activities. She authored consumer guides about sustainable consumption practices in collaboration with non-for-profit media, gave talks to expose common marketing strategies and debunk myths and created tools for the greater public that promote sustainable and cruelty-free consumption.

Amber Hussain

Nursing

Receiving the prestigious Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Scholarship is an incredible honour, and I am deeply grateful for this recognition. As a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Nursing, this scholarship brings me closer to my goal of improving mental health support for adolescent mothers in Pakistan.

I received my BScN and MScN at the Aga Khan University School of Nursing and Midwifery in Karachi, Pakistan. During my early career, I worked extensively within the community, advocating for the health and rights of women and children. Through this advocacy, I became acutely aware of the severe mental health challenges faced by adolescent mothers in Pakistan, which are significantly compounded by a lack of support and societal taboos surrounding women’s and child health.

These young mothers often grapple with intense anxiety, depression, and fear. In Pakistan, the notable absence of open dialogue about these issues leaves many of these young women without the support they desperately need. My PhD research is dedicated to exploring the mental health impacts on adolescent mothers in Pakistan. I aim to understand how the lack of safe spaces and open dialogue about women’s and child health affects their mental health and well-being and to develop strategies to address these challenges. My goal is to ensure that adolescent mothers in Pakistan can access their health rights and receive the support that has been lacking due to stigma and systemic barriers.

I will be conducting my research in Pakistan, engaging with rural adolescent mothers to gather crucial data. This scholarship will significantly support my research expenses and my efforts to reach out to these communities. I am profoundly thankful for the support from the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Alberta and the invaluable guidance from my supervisors, Dr. Salima Meherali and Dr. Tanya Park. Their encouragement and mentorship have been pivotal to my progress and success.

Ayushi Khemka

Philosphy

Ayushi Khemka is a PhD student in Philosophy, investigating how Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism occur in Canada and India. She is conducting an interdisciplinary research using philosophy of race and digital humanities. She questions how the systems of injustices get organized in the two countries, by focusing on two sets of conspiracy theories in Canada and India, namely “the great/grand replacement theory” and “love jihad”, respectively. She provides a philosophical understanding of race, conspiracy theory and propaganda and how it plays out in the two contexts. She is using digital humanities methods to collect relevant data and conducting a social network analysis to map out the connections between different stakeholders and add to the contemporary literature on philosophy of race, anti-Muslim racism and conspiracy theories. Ayushi earned her MPhil in Women’s Studies and MA in English from Jawaharlal Nehru University, India.

Brydon Kramer

Political Science

Brydon Kramer is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science working under the supervision of Dr. Isabel Altamirano-Jiménez. His primary research interests include Political Theory and histories of political thought; Critical Indigenous Studies; racial capitalism and the Black radical tradition; and Women, Gender & Sexuality studies. In his dissertation research, Brydon responds to recent calls to decolonize the field of Political Theory by asking two central questions: 1) what theoretical and methodological approaches can best engage with different modes of social organization, not as additive or supplemental to the colonial state, but as fundamentally different political projects? And 2) how can investigating different ways of living support current struggles against unfreedom? Looking at three historical moments, Brydon’s work critically analyzes how Political Theory engages with those modes of organizing that are embodied by the discipline’s “Others.” In doing so, he aims to develop a dual-pronged approach that not only critiques colonial states but, also, investigates those modes of social organization that challenge and/or exceed the current status quo. In taking these different modes of organizing seriously, Brydon’s dissertation stands to not only contribute to the study of major topics in Political Theory — such as colonization, freedom and relationships of power — but it will also make a concrete contribution to public debates on decolonization and social justice.

Lixing Lin

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Lixing Lin is a PhD student in Petroleum Engineering whose research aims to enhance the efficiency of oil and gas production and improve carbon storage in unconventional reservoirs, including heavy oil reservoirs and tight formations. His work involves an in-depth analysis of the performance of specific chemicals in reducing interfacial tension, altering wettability, decreasing viscosity and facilitating emulsification. Through both experimental and theoretical studies, he investigates the recovery and interaction mechanisms with/without chemical additives. The results of his work will advance our understanding and optimization of the oil recovery and CO2 storage processes in unconventional reservoirs. The outcomes will benefit Canada's oil and gas industry and contribute to global efforts in mitigating climate change.

Lixing holds a Master’s degree in Petroleum Systems Engineering from the University of Regina. Besides academics, he is dedicated to educating and mentoring young students on energy and STEM-related topics through his leadership in various outreach programs.

Holly Mathias

School of Public Health

Holly Mathias is a doctoral candidate in the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta. Holly holds a master’s degree in Health Promotion (Dalhousie University) and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Global Development Studies and English Literature (Queen’s University). Holly’s original and ambitious community-based research responds to two linked and pressing social and human rights issues in Canada: toxic drug-related morbidity and mortality and growing burden of family caregiving in rural and remote Canada. In partnership with community leaders, including Moms Stop the Harm and Manitoba Harm Reduction Network, she aims to generate policy-relevant data to enhance the lives of people who use drugs and their families. She has been invited to present her work and contribute her expertise in regional, national and international forums. Her doctoral work has also been recognized with a Vanier Scholarship and a 2023 Pierre Elliott Trudeau Doctoral Scholarship.

Additionally, Holly is an active community member. She was a member of the inaugural GROWW national training cohort on women and girl’s lifelong health and now sits on the GROWW Program Advisory Committee. She is a member of the SPH’s Diversity Inclusion Action Group, and a member of the Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy (CSSDP) national board and local Edmonton chapter. Outside of research, she enjoys traveling and spending time with her family and friends.

Olawunmi Olagundoye

Medicine

Olawunmi Olagundoye holds a medical degree, a Master of Science degree in Psychology and a Master of Philosophy honors degree in Family Medicine. A physician with experience in health data classification, she piloted a geriatric clinic pilot scheme and implemented an EMR system at the General Hospital, Lagos, Nigeria. She is currently a PhD student in the Geriatric Medicine division at the University of Alberta. She has won several awards including the Alberta Graduate Excellence Scholarship and the Canadian Institute of Health Research's Summer Program in Aging training grant. Her research interests include health services research, epidemiological, interventional, operational and implementation studies, quality improvement initiatives and the development/validation of standardized tools. In her doctoral research project, she will synthesize evidence from the literature, perspectives of older men with urinary incontinence (UI) and expert opinions to co-develop an evidence-based, patient-centered, self-management intervention aimed at improving UI-related quality of life, through the use of the intervention mapping framework as a co-creation strategy and a community-based participatory research approach.

Camila Estefani Orsso

Agricultural, Food & Nutritional Sciences

Camila Orsso is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutritional Science. Throughout her academic and professional journey, she has focused her efforts on improving individuals' physical activity and nutrition behaviours to promote optimal body composition, health and overall well-being. Her doctoral research investigates the efficacy of an Alberta-made digital health platform that focuses on three key pillars of self-care — nutrition, physical activity and mental health awareness — for cancer prevention and survivorship. While digital health platforms can support health goals and are accessible to many people, few have been rigorously tested and validated for effectiveness. Her work will inform implementation of the digital health platform for use in primary care units and future guidelines for interventions in cancer survivorship.

Mark Powers

Biological Sciences

Mark Powers is a PhD Candidate studying the evolution of snakes across the Mesozoic-Cenozoic transition into their modern diversity at the University of Alberta. His research focuses on fossil snake species that existed across the transition between eras to create a novel dataset based on these fossils to test how modern snakes fit into this radiation. This method attempts to constrain deep phylogenetic relationships to early lineage splitting to better understand how the modern groups have come to be morphologically and biogeographically. This method is being tested on snakes but has broad utility and implications for clades with both fossil and modern representatives.

Matthew Weigel

English and Film Studies

Matthew James Weigel is an award winning Dene and Métis poet and artist born and raised in Edmonton. His visual art often represents the many relationships we have with our surroundings, while his scholarly focus hopes to reclaim archival histories. Currently pursuing a PhD in English at the University of Alberta, he holds a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences and a Master of Arts in English. Matthew is a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal and winner of the City of Edmonton Book Prize. He is a Writers’ Trust Dayne Ogilvie Prize finalist, National Magazine Award finalist, Indigenous Voices Award recipient, bpnichol Chapbook Award winner and his debut full-length collection “Whitemud Walking” received the Alcuin Society Award for book design, as well as the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award.

Nishaka William

Laboratory Medicine and Pathology

Nishaka William holds a BSc from the University of Waterloo and an MSc from the University of Alberta, where he studied improved strategies to preserve livers for transplantation. Inspired by his MSc work, Nishaka’s PhD focuses on applying fundamental concepts of membrane biology to improve clinical outcomes in critically ill patients requiring transfusions. During storage in blood bank refrigerators at 1-4 °C, the lipid composition of red blood cells (RBCs) can change in a way that sensitizes the cells to apoptotic or necrotic cell death mechanisms post-transfusion. This issue is further complicated by donor-to-donor variability in these compositional changes; storage for a given number of days may render one donor’s RBCs more susceptible to cell death while having a limited impact on another’s. Using the main drivers for this cell death — lipid hydrolase and oxidases — Nishaka is studying lipid-specific biomarkers likely to be associated with diminished post-transfusion survival, along with possible links between these biomarkers and certain donor demographics. The goals of this research are twofold: (1) to develop precision medicine approaches that better inform the selection of blood products for critically ill patients, and (2) to investigate interventions that mitigate relevant changes to the RBC lipidome during storage, which can be applied when blood shortages hinder implementation of precision medicine approaches. Outside of his PhD, Nishaka works as a sessional instructor at MacEwan University and is an active member of his community, volunteering for organizations such as the Canadian Mental Health Association and Let’s Talk Science.

Taia Wyenberg-Henzler

Biological Sciences

My research combines observations of tooth wear and bite marked bones of modern and fossil animals with observations of marks created using a mechanical biting rig. By taking this combined approach I aim to interpret possible feeding behaviours of large carnivorous dinosaurs, such as Tyrannosaurus rex, and see how these behaviours compare to those of modern animals such as Komodo monitor lizards and crocodiles.

Using observations of tooth wear and bite marked bones of modern and fossil animals, my research aims to interpret possible feeding behaviours of large carnivorous dinosaurs, such as Tyrannosaurus rex, and see how these behaviours compare to those seen in modern animals such as Komodo monitor lizards and crocodiles.

Yunusa Umar

Nursing

Dr Umar Yunusa is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Nursing Science, Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria. He is a registered public health nurse and a fellow of the West African Postgraduate College of Nurses and Midwives. He completed his PhD Nursing (Public Health Nursing) in December 2021. His research focus is on exploring innovative strategies for getting eligible populations, especially those living in resource limited settings, immunized with age-appropriate vaccines. Though he utilizes both quantitative designs and mixed research approach, his strengths are on qualitative research designs. He has published several peer reviewed articles in reputable journals.

Dr Umar was a recipient of the Visiting Scholars Grant through the Faculty of Nursing, University of Alberta between October 2023 and January 2024. During the visit, he worked under the supervision of Dr. Shannon MacDonald. Through her mentorship, guidance and support, he engaged in several research activities including; attending conferences, a workshop and had his research output published by the Journal of Pediatric and Health Care. It was during the visiting scholar program that Dr Umar with the support of Dr Shannon successfully applied for and won the 2024 Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Postdoctoral Fellowship. His Killam PDF research will explore the consent process for adolescent vaccination and its relationship with vaccine uptake in Canada. This is with a view of reducing the cases vaccine preventable diseases affecting adolescents in Canada. With the recent introduction of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine in the routine immunization system of Nigeria, findings from the PDF research will highlight and provide recommendations that may be supportive in managing the expected challenges associated with the consent process for adolescent vaccination. 

The 2024 Killam PDF is a great opportunity for Dr Umar to achieve his research goals of improving his research skills, experience and networks.

Arturo Macias Franco

Agricultural, Food & Nutritional Sciences

Arturo is a postdoctoral fellow working under the supervision of Dr. Gleise Medeiros da Silva. Born and raised in Torreón Coahuila, an agricultural hub in northern Mêxico, Arturo grew up surrounded by livestock production systems in resource limited environments. He is a ruminant nutritionist with a background in mathematical and statistical modeling. He completed his doctoral training at the University of Nevada, Reno where he worked on issues surrounding agricultural water use. Arturo's research integrates tools and technologies to develop decision support systems and mechanistic models that increase the sustainability and biological understanding of livestock production. As an Izaak Walton Killam Postdoctoral Fellow, he aims to develop fermentation models tracking enteric methane production of grazing cattle in extensive systems. His research will assist in the development of best-grazing practices for livestock producers of our state and globally.

Robil Janlo

Biological Sciences

Janlo is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Biological Sciences at the Faculty of Science, working under the supervision of Dr. Enrico Scarpella. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri-Columbia as a Fulbright Scholar from the Philippines. Janlo is a developmental biologist, and his research focuses on the regulation of tissue stripes, which are essential building blocks of biological patterns, from the veins in plant leaves to the ribs and vertebrae in human bodies. In animals, tissue stripe formation is controlled by organizer tissues whose positions do not overlap with those of the stripes they form. In plants, the leaf epidermis acts as an organizer that controls vein formation in the inner leaf tissue, but the underlying mechanism remains unknown. For his Killam Postdoctoral Fellowship, Janlo is employing live-cell imaging and molecular genetic analysis to investigate how the leaf epidermis induces vein formation. By addressing that question, he aims to uncover either a novel mechanism of organizer action or one that is similar to that of animals, which would be revolutionary given the independent evolution of multicellularity in plants and animals.

Suddhabrata Deb Roy

Social Sciences Augustana

Suddhabrata Deb Roy is a researcher and author from India. His research as a Killam Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Alberta under Professor Sandra Rein engages with analyzing the sociological and political ideas of radical anti-colonial progressive organizations and secret societies of pre-Independence India. In his Postdoctoral Research, Suddhabrata will be focusing on understanding the socio-political contributions of the often overlooked radical organizations and individuals, and analyzing how contemporary socio-political theory can gain from an analysis of such occulted thinkers and organizational philosophies, particularly as many demonstrate a unique, humanist core. The research would mainly emphasize the contemporary relevance of organizations such as the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA), the Ghadar Party and the Anushilan Samiti. Suddhabrata will also be looking at the ideological contributions of “largely forgotten” figures such as Bhupendranath Dutta, Udham Singh, Durgawati Devi, Rani Gaidinliu, Bhagat Singh, Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna and others.

Michael Baggaley

Mechanical Engineering

My work at the University of Alberta will use a multi-scale modeling approach to integrate the principals of mechanics and biology to produce a mechanobiological model of cranial suture growth and development. We lack a robust understanding of how underlying biological (i.e., genetic and environmental) factors modulate the cranial suture response to mechanical stimuli. Once a mechanobiological relationship has been developed for cranial suture growth, these models can be integrated with digital treatment planning tools to provide clinicians with the ability to plan treatments based on predicted suture growth patterns, that account for sex- and age-dependent growth.

Yasmeen Abu-Laban

Political Science

Yasmeen Abu-Laban is Professor and Canada Research Chair in the Politics of Citizenship and Human Rights in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta, and a Fellow at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. The author or editor of nine scholarly books, she has also published over 150 articles, chapters and reviews. Dr. Abu-Laban’s research interests centre on the Canadian and comparative dimensions of diversity and representation; immigration policies and politics; multiculturalism, human rights and anti-racism; as well as surveillance, advanced digital technologies and border control. Sharing research and collaborating with community groups and government, she has worked to advance equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in the larger society. She has also sought to advance EDI in the profession and the next generation of researchers. She has served as President of the Canadian Political Science Association (2016-2017), Vice-President of the International Political Science Association (2018-2021) and is currently President of the Canadian Ethnic Studies Association. She has taught and supervised numerous undergraduate, MA and PhD students as well as postdoctoral fellows, maintaining an ethical commitment to seeing and supporting the varied distinct needs of each individual student and their specific research and professional aspirations, goals and unique contributions.

Sandra Bucerius

Sociology

Dr. Bucerius is a Professor of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Alberta (UofA) as well as the founder and inaugural Director of its Centre for Criminological Research (CCR). In 2020, she was honoured to be appointed a Henry Marshall Tory Chair.

Dr. Bucerius is interested in issues pertaining to social inequality in the broadest sense. As a researcher and an expert consultant to multiple levels of government and community organizations, she studies this by conducting critical and in-depth examinations of criminal justice institutions and the people who encounter them. She reveals the intricacies of settings that are difficult both to access and to understand: prisons, re-entry post prison, police organizations, and marginalized street communities. She is passionate to attend to the implications of her work for diverse and inequitably positioned people, aims to confront the challenges presented by the criminal justice system, and translates her knowledge into best practices, including non-punitive alternatives to incarceration.

She currently serves as the Director of a newly awarded $2.5 million SSHRC Partnership Grant on the Intersecting Issues of Justice and Injustice, examining barriers and challenges for people who move through the various institutions of the justice system (police, courts, prison and re-entry). She is also the Director of the University of Alberta prison project (UAPP), the largest mixed methods study on Canadian prisons in the history of Canadian criminology and currently leads a large scale re-entry study, examining barriers and challenges to re-entry post prison in this province.

Her five-year ethnography with drug dealers Unwanted - Muslim Immigrants, Dignity and Drug Dealing appeared with Oxford University Press in 2014 and received glowing reviews in many leading academic journals. She is also co-editor of the Oxford Handbook on Ethnicity, Crime and Immigration (with Michael Tonry), the Oxford Handbook on Ethnographies of Crime and Criminal Justice (with Kevin Haggerty and Luca Beradi), as well as the Crime and Justice Review Book on Prisons and Prisoners (with Michael Tonry — Chicago University Press). Her numerous journal articles appear in Criminology, Sociology, Crime and Justice, International Journal of Drug Policy, British Journal of Criminology, Ethnic and Racial Studies, the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, among others.

She serves as the co-editor of the Oxford University Press Handbook series in Criminology and on the editorial board for Criminology, Crime and Justice, Incarceration, the Journal of Criminology.

Mohamed Gamal El-Din

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Dr. Mohamed Gamal El-Din is a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Alberta. His research focuses on innovative treatment approaches for municipal and industrial wastewater, including oil and gas. Since 2011, he has held an NSERC Senior Industrial Research Chair in Oil Sands Tailings Water Treatment and is also a Theme Lead for the Future Energy Systems (FES) theme on Resilient Reclaimed Land and Water Systems. In 2024, Dr. Gamal El-Din was awarded the Albert E. Berry Medal by the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE) for outstanding contributions to the field of environmental engineering in Canada. In 2017, Dr. Gamal El-Din was awarded the Alberta Science and Technology Leadership (ASTech) Foundation Award for Innovation in Oil Sands Research. He is a Jinshan Distinguished Professor at Jiangsu University and was awarded the Research Chair in Environmental Engineering at Tongji University in China in 2020. In 2023, he was appointed the Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Sustainable and Resilient Wastewater Treatment for Reuse. Additionally, he was named the U of A Engineering Research Chair in Community-Based Wastewater Management with a focus on advancing a circular economy. Dr. Gamal El-Din also serves as the Director of the Water Research Centre (WRC). Dr. Gamal El-Din's commitment to education and research is unparalleled. Over the course of two decades, he has supervised a diverse group of 207 students and staff members. Under his mentorship, these individuals have grown into accomplished professionals who are making significant contributions to their respective fields. Dr. Gamal El-Din is also a prolific researcher, with an extensive body of work that includes 332 peer-reviewed journal papers and 414 conference and workshop presentations, among other publications. His contributions to the field have been widely recognized, as evidenced by his impressive h-index of 72, and over 17,000 citations as per Google Scholar.

Aminu Bello

Medicine

Aminu Bello is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Alberta, and Consultant Nephrologist at the University of Alberta Hospital. A fellow of several scientific bodies and professional organizations including the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, International Society of Nephrology, American Society of Nephrology, Royal College of Physicians and American College of Physicians. He currently serves as an Associate Editor of the Canadian Journal of Kidney Health and Disease, the official journal of the Canadian Society of Nephrology. An outstanding academic record includes over 250 publications garnering over 90,000 citations (h-index 66, i10-index 163).

Dr Bello’s work is dedicated to the needs of rural and remote-dwellers and underrepresented groups (including Indigenous populations). He is among the team of experts that drove the development of Alberta’s electronic consultation system (eConsult) that links care providers with specialists; a template now used to enhance access to care in a number of specialists in the province and beyond. His work with Canada’s Indigenous Peoples has led to novel culturally grounded approaches to kidney disease care. He chairs the Indigenous Kidney Check program (under the auspices of Can-SOLVE CKD), a national initiative targeted to Canadian Indigenous communities for early detection and prevention of kidney disease and promotion of kidney health. At the international level, his groundbreaking work is transforming our global understanding of healthcare system structures for kidney care, leading the development of innovative international and national policy and practice frameworks and models of care, and building the partnerships and technologies needed to make kidney care accessible, affordable and equitable particularly in resource limited settings. He is internationally recognized for designing and implementing the International Society of Nephrology’s Global Kidney Health Atlas (ISN-GKHA) and bringing together the world’s nephrology societies, the governments and health systems of over 200 nations and international stakeholder organizations including World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations and World Bank to identify, assess and solve gaps in kidney care. The largest health program of its kind, the ISN-GKHA’s public global data sets and reports (2016, 2019, 2023) have led to over 60 major publications in the world’s top kidney and medicine journals, critical contributions to Global Burden of Disease studies, and the development of ISN’s Global Kidney Health Roadmap (2017) and its evidence-based Care Plan (2019-2025); programs currently helping countries develop prevention, dialysis and kidney transplantation programs. Dr. Bello’s work is driving the formation and use of national and global kidney disease surveillance frameworks (including in Canada). In tandem, he has trained over 50 Global Kidney Health Fellows from low income countries to build capacity for strong health systems to support kidney care, and reducing the menace of kidney failure and its adverse consequences on health and economy of nations.

Dominique Clément

Sociology

Dominique Clément is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta and a member of the Royal Society of Canada (CNSAS). He is the author of Canada’s Rights Revolution, Equality Deferred, Human Rights in Canada and Debating Rights Inflation. He is also the co-editor for Alberta's Human Rights Story and Debating Dissent. Clément has been a Visiting Scholar in Australia, Belgium, China, Ireland and the United Kingdom. He is the author of numerous articles on the history of human rights, social movements, women’s history, foreign policy and labour history. Clément has consulted for the Canadian Human Rights Commission, Canadian Museum for Human Rights and the Canadian Heritage Information Network. He has also been a member of the Board of Directors for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Centre for Constitutional Studies, and the John Humphrey Centre for Human Rights among others. His websites, HistoryOfRights.ca and statefunding.ca, serve as research and teaching portals on the study of human rights and social movements in Canada.

Yunjie Xu

Chemistry

Yunjie Xu’s research program centers on chirality recognition, transfer, and amplification events in isolated molecular clusters, condensed phases and at liquid-liquid interfaces. She brings a rigorous physical sciences approach to chirality research, an area that holds significant relevance for diverse fields, from asymmetric synthesis to drug discovery. To unravel the molecular-level mechanisms underlying these phenomena, Xu develops and applies new spectroscopic tools, in tandem with theoretical modelling. Her pioneering contributions include quantifying stereospecific non-covalent interactions and untangling co-occurring chiral events linked to resonance conditions, thereby advancing our understanding of chiral forces and the light-matter interactions responsible for intricate chiral phenomena.

Xu is currently a Chemistry Professor at the University of Alberta and a Tier I Canada Research Chair in Chirality and Chirality Recognition.

Karim El-Basyouny

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Dr. Karim El-Basyouny is recognized for his outstanding contributions to the field of transportation engineering and infrastructure development. As a distinguished researcher and educator, Dr. El-Basyouny has made significant strides in advancing transportation networks. His research spans critical areas such as transportation safety, traffic operations and infrastructure management, focusing on optimizing systems to meet future urban mobility challenges.

A respected figure in his field, Dr. El-Basyouny's commitment to excellence in research and education is reflected in his numerous publications and his role as a mentor to aspiring engineers and researchers. His dedication to fostering interdisciplinary collaborations underscores his vision for creating safe and inclusive urban environments through transformative transportation solutions.