\ikˈstrȯrdəˌnerē\
Goes above and beyond.
McGill attracts and retains exceptional students. Our first-year undergraduates arrive with the highest average entering grades in Canada and go on to win more national awards than their peers across the country. McGill students don't just crack the books, either. When they're not in a lecture hall or the library, they're collaborating with professors in research labs or playing sports or volunteering on community projects. No other Canadian university can claim as many Rhodes Scholars – a testament to our students' expansive approach to education.
Driven by their intellectual curiosity, students come to McGill from far and wide to study with great professors. Once here, they find a university teeming with great students, too.
Take Racha Cheaib. The latest recipient of McGill's Women in Science Fellowship decided against her "default" career – medicine – to pursue a Master's in particle physics. In a field abounding with male atheists, the hijab-wearing Lebanese-Canadian is breaking down stereotypes as she unravels some of the universe's greatest mysteries. "The ultimate question of my field right now is: Where has all the antimatter gone? For a religious person, it's like 'Where is God?' We say 'Everywhere,' but give me a location. Be specific!" Cheaib is trying to nail down those specifics through observations at SLAC, Stanford's 1,100-tonne particle detector. But even as she navigates through a sub-atomic world of "charmed" and "strange" mesons, she's keeping an eye on the big picture. "We're trying to understand what we're made up of. Maybe someday we'll be able to answer the why questions."
Serene Joseph is also studying minute entities that have enormous effects. The winner of a prestigious Vanier Scholarship has just begun her PhD in epidemiology, studying malaria and hookworm co-infection in the Peruvian Amazon. "There's relatively little research attention on the diseases which affect the world's poorest populations," she explains. "When you look at the people actually affected by these diseases, there's so much overlap. Yet very little is known about the increased health and social burden of multiple infections." Joseph is focusing on high-risk groups: pregnant women and children under five. "If you're able to improve a woman's health during pregnancy, both mother and child benefit. It's a two-for-one." Joseph's next trip to the Amazon, set for after she finishes her course work this year, will be her tenth. The muggy, buggy setting can be trying, but the benefits outweigh the challenges. "The work is a lot more hands-on when I actually travel somewhere," she says, "and I really like feeling I can help a community."
