Seven UBC Faculty of Medicine doctoral students have been named to the 2024/2025 cohort of the UBC Public Scholars Initiative (PSI) Program.
Selected based on their outstanding potential for public impact, the Faculty of Medicine scholars will advance collaborative research in areas like extreme heat, Indigenous health and traumatic brain injuries.
The PSI was launched in 2015 to support UBC doctoral students whose research extends beyond traditional approaches to have a tangible impact for the public good. Over the last decade, nearly 400 Public Scholars across 10 cohorts have worked with more than 200 partners in dozens of countries.
This year, 35 scholars are joining the program across UBC’s Vancouver and Okanagan campuses, receiving nearly $360,000 to support their academic work.
Three of the Faculty of Medicine scholars are part of the PSI’s Health Equity Stream, which launched in 2023 in partnership with UBC Health to facilitate research improving equity within local, national, and global health systems.
Meet the Faculty of Medicine scholars and learn more about their innovative research below.
Faculty of Medicine 2024 Public Scholars:
*Researchers in the health equity stream
Chelsey Perry*, Population and Public Health
Project: Intersections of Indigenous health, gender equity, and climate justice
Fatimah Bahrami, Neuroscience
Project: The Effects of a Child-Friendly Mindfulness Karate Program on Academic Success, Executive Functions, Mindfulness, Mental Health, and Motor and Character Development
Katherine White, Population and Public Health
Project: The built environment and housing characteristics, indoor heat exposure, social isolation, and health outcomes of older adults during periods of high outdoor ambient temperature
Rinni Mamman, Rehabilitation Sciences
Project: What are the public perceptions of traumatic brain injury?
Sarinn Blawatt, Population and Public Health
Project: Perceptions of social support outside of clinical care during injectable opioid agonist treatment: An explanatory sequential mixed methods study in Vancouver, B.C.
Zeba Khan*, Women+ and Children’s Health Sciences
Project: Choices for Alleviating Menstruation-Related Pelvic Pain Study (CrAMPPS)
Xiaocong Guo, Population and Public Health
Project: Heat-related illness and injury: Prioritizing at-risk workers for policy and practice in British Columbia