A number of students and postdoctoral fellows from the faculty of medicine have received 2020-2021 Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships and Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships (Vanier CGS).
The Vanier CGS program awards up to $50,000 per year for three years, for students working in social sciences and humanities, natural sciences, engineering and health. The Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships are worth $70,000 per year for two years. Across Canada, 166 doctoral students received the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship, while 70 received Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships.
“The recipients of this year’s Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships and Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships could not be more deserving of these prestigious awards,” said the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry. “They will bring critical new insights to their fields, help ensure that cutting-edge discoveries and innovations continue to propel Canada as a global leader, and contribute to a healthier, greener, more equitable and more prosperous future.”
UBC’s world-class doctoral students for 2021 include researchers working on everything from vaccine efficacy to data analysis and information dissemination. With both Canadian and international recipients, the funded projects include community-based research, multi-longitudinal studies and projects that have potential to directly impact people across the globe.
Scholarships are distributed equally between the three federal granting agencies: Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).
Faculty of medicine recipients:
Banting Fellows
Ania Bogoslowski, department of medical genetics
Supervisor: Josef Penninger
Research Project: Characterization of neuroimmune interactions in the tumour microenvironment.
Emma Morton, department of psychiatry
Supervisors: Erin Michalak (UBC), John Torous (Harvard Medical School).
Research Project: Towards a future optimising quality of life in bipolar disorder: A focus on digital health.
Vanier Scholars
Elizabeth Castle, School of Biomedical Engineering
Supervisor: Peter Zandstra
Research Project: Engineering an in vitro arterial niche for the development of lymphoid-competent hematopoietic stem cells.
Hamidreza Galavi, department of experimental medicine
Supervisor: Steven Daniel Pelech
Research Project: Regulation of gene expression by phosphorylation of transcription factors.
Elyn Rowe, department of pathology and laboratory medicine
Supervisor: Cheryl Wellington
Research Project: Investigating the Role of Circulating High Density Lipoproteins Containing Apolipoprotein E in Alzheimer Disease.
Shayda Swann, MD/PhD program
Supervisors: Helene Cote, Melanie Murray
Research Project: Investigating the role of reproductive hormones in healthy aging for women living with HIV: A community-collaborative cohort study.
Maryam Vaseghi-Shanjani, MD/PhD program
Supervisor: Stuart Turvey
Research Project: Discovery and characterization of novel monogenic causes of allergic diseases in humans.
Enav Zusman, department of obstetrics and gynecology
Supervisors: Timothy Oberlander (UBC), Robert Platt (McGill)
Research Project: Associations between prenatal serotonin reuptake inhibitor antidepressant exposure-related longitudinal changes in key stress regulatory functions and mood (anxiety and depression) across childhood: a cohort and population level study.