2023-2024 Cohort
Xiaoyan Fang is a second-year PhD student in Clinical Psychology program under the supervision of Dr. Richard Koestner. Prior to beginning her graduate studies, she was an assistant researcher at the Black Community Resource Centre (BCRC) in Montreal and involved in a few community-based studies examining barriers to healthcare, experiences of interpersonal and systemic discrimination, and psychological well-being of individuals from the English-speaking Black community in Quebec. Building on previous work with the BCRC, her thesis will focus on understanding the relation of intersectional discrimination and psycho-social outcomes for racialized minority and official language minority populations. She will examine the experience of racism and language barrier as potential drivers of intention to leave the province, barriers to healthcare accessibility, and poorer psychological well-being. Besides her thesis research, Xiaoyan also receives clinical training and conduct practicum in psychological assessment and psychotherapy.
Maya Hunter is a Master’s student in the Department of Political Science, concentrating in International Relations and pursuing the Development Studies Option. Her research interests are broadly in the domains of intractable conflicts, localized peacebuilding, and peace education. For her Master’s thesis, she is investigating the use of foreign language education as a peacebuilding tool; applying theories of liberatory (Freirean) pedagogies to the context of English language education in Cyprus, the research explores themes of critical education, humanization, and constructivism as they interact with and challenge narratives of ethnic nationalism and the dynamics of protracted conflicts. Prior to entering her graduate studies, she completed dual Bachelor’s degrees in Political Science (International Relations) and Foreign Languages (French, German, and Turkish) at Eastern Illinois University; since joining the McGill community, she has engaged in research opportunities with the Center for International Peace and Security Studies and delighted in assistant teaching for the Departments of Political Science and International Development.
Anna Palmer is a third-year PhD Epidemiology student under the supervision of Dr. Jill Baumgartner and Dr. Alissa Koski. Anna’s research interests center around understanding the impact climate change is having on health at a global scale. Her doctoral research applies epidemiologic methods to examine the impact extreme weather events have on the rate of child marriage across the globe. She will also examine the extent to which the impact of extreme weather on child marriage is mediated by agricultural yield. Prior to entering her PhD studies, Anna completed a Bachelor of Biomedicine at the University of Melbourne, and a Master of Mathematical Sciences at the Australian National University. Throughout her studies, she has worked on a wide array of projects from infectious disease modelling and resource optimization.
Vanessa Seto is a rehabilitation sciences PhD student in the Faculty of Medicine with the School of Physical and Occupational Therapy. She is under the supervision of Dr. Laurence Roy. Her doctoral work is focused on working to end women's homelessness by co-developing and co-evaluating whole-person gender-specific post-shelter supports to help homeless women and their children transition out of a shelter and into autonomous living without falling back into cyclical homelessness. Her research is taking place within Project Lotus, a community-based participatory research project, under the auspices of a multi-stakeholder advisory committee made up of members from Montreal community organizations working in women's homelessness and of women with lived experience. She is looking to developing these supports within Montreal's socio-political landscape, with research interests in program implementation and sustainability, occupational rights, advocacy, and policy. Her interest and expertise in these topics is grounded in her prior work as an occupational therapist clinician at a women's shelter. She obtained her M.Sc and B.Sc in Rehabilitation Sciences - Occupational Therapy from McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
Ziyue Wang is currently a PhD candidate in Family Medicine and Primary care at McGill University. He is working with Dr. Howard Bergman and Dr. Isabelle Vedel. His research at McGill focuses on two main concentrations: (1) Social & Behavioral Health Sciences in elderly care: Understanding of older individuals' priorities, values, and beliefs related to health and medical care is crucial for providing people-centered health care. Ziyue is interested in investigating how these psychosocial and cultural factors shape people’s medical decision-making processes in low resources settings; (2) Program evaluation in primary care: Ziyue has extensive research experiences in evaluating the complex interventions for quality improvement in primary care, especially the impact of continuing professional development for primary care providers. Prior to joining McGill, Ziyue received his MSc degree in Health Policy and Management from China Center for Health Development Studies, Peking University Health Science Center (CCHDS, PKUHSC). He also holds his bachelor’s degree from Fudan University, School of Public Health and a double degree in economics from Peking University, National School of Development (NSD). He also served as an anonymous reviewer for the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, Social Science and Medicine, and other high impact journals.
Sacha Williams (she/her) is a Jean Martin Laberge Global Pediatric Surgery Fellow and second year PhD student under the supervision of Dr. Dan Poenaru in the Department of Surgical and Interventional Sciences. Her research examines the impact of gender on pediatric surgical access and outcomes in Africa. She will explore the influences of various social and structural barriers with African stakeholders for mitigation. Sacha obtained a MD from Ross University, a MPH (Maternal and Child Health) from the University of Massachusetts, and a MS (Biotechnology) from Johns Hopkins University. She was a Pediatric Surgery Research Fellow at Johns Hopkins and studied Global Surgery at the University of Oxford. Sacha is strongly committed to health equity, social justice, and serving marginalized communities.
2022-2023 Cohort
Petro Gregory Analytis III is a second year MA in Political Science specializing in Political Theory. Petro’s interests include health law, the history, sociology, and philosophy of science (especially the “psy” fields), legal theory and human rights, smart contracts, governance, applying management methodologies (such as Scrum and Agile) to policymaking, Foucault and governmentality, phenomenology (especially Heidegger), and drug liberalization.
Petro is working on the political theory of drug liberalization; a political project to solve the problems of and replace prohibition as the hegemonic drug policy. There are two aspects of drug liberalization: the theoretical and the practicable. The latter aspect comprises harm reduction, economic arguments that focus on the material costs of prohibition, drug courts, marijuana legalization, (limited) decriminalization efforts (notably in Portugal, British Columbia, and certain US states), as well as rights-based legal cases in domestic settings and the international sphere. In short, drug liberalization is already happening within the liberal, democratic, capitalist milieu of today’s society. Yet, the telos of this movement is markedly unclear and underdetermined by current efforts, despite their tremendous political and historical value. This is where the theoretical aspect becomes of prime importance.
Petro’s master’s thesis argues that the politics of drugs are underlined by a particular kind of freedom: cognitive liberty (or freedom of consciousness). However, this form of freedom is antithetical to the heart of the liberal project: the production of a liberal subject who can be governed at a distance through a variety of economic, social, and ethical techniques. The purpose of the division of drug liberalization into the theoretical and the practicable is to argue that while these latter efforts should and must continue, they will outpace the liberal framework that props them up. As such, the former is necessary to formally connect cognitive liberty with the efforts that are already existing so that they might work together rather than in theoretical and empirical antithesis.
Giovanna Busa is a second year M.Sc. Epidemiology student under the supervision of Dr. Amélie Quesnel-Vallée and Dr. Isabelle Vedel. Prior to commencing her Master's degree, she was a research coordinator on a project with the aim to reduce social isolation for older adults in long term care. Giovanna is interested in conducting research on health care services, health policies, and social inequalities. She would like her work to contribute to improving the health and well-being of marginalized and vulnerable populations. Her thesis explores social inequalities in primary care continuity and potentially avoidable hospitalizations for older adults. In addition to her thesis work, Giovanna is collaborating with her colleagues to conduct a mixed studies systematic review on social inequalities for older adults to age in place. Giovanna is a recipient of McGill’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences Internal Studentship Award.
Olawale Dudubo is a PhD student in the Faculty of Dentistry at McGill University, under the supervision of Dr. Mary Ellen Macdonald and Dr. Belinda Nicolau. His research interests center around oral health research, oral health disparities, childhood ethics in oral health, and use of qualitative methodology in population oral health research. He is also a member of VOICE (Views On Interdisciplinary Childhood Ethics), an interdisciplinary research team promoting the recognition of moral experience and agency of young people. His doctoral project is embedded in the Migrant Oral Health Project (MOHP) aimed to improve the oral health of refugeed people in Canada. Olawale’s project aims to highlight the gap in dental coverage for refugee children within the Interim Federal Health Program oral health policy. Prior to his doctoral studies at McGill, Olawale obtained Bachelor of Dental Surgery degree at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife Nigeria; and a Master of Science degree in Dental Public Health from Queen Mary University, London.
Kayley Laura Lata is a Master’s student at McGill University’s Faculty of Law working under the supervision of Prof. Daniel Weinstock. Her thesis examines health resource allocation in Canada. She is most interested in what informs decision-making when determining what services are insured within Quebec’s list of insured benefits, as well as the acceptability of the inequities that result from this operation. Her research lies at the intersection of law, political philosophy, ethics and health economics. In addition to her thesis project, she is also working on a SSHRC-funded research project on exception drugs with Prof. Pierre-Marie David at the University of Montreal’s Faculty of Pharmacy.
Prior to entering her Graduate studies, she completed her Bachelor of Laws at the University of Montreal. Throughout her studies, she worked with different professors on a wide array of questions ranging from procedural justice to university policies regarding admission and hiring processes.
Kaya Van Roost is a second-year PhD student studying social epidemiology under the supervision of Dr. Alissa Koski. Her doctoral research applies epidemiologic methods to subjects at the intersection of gender, law, and population health. Her thesis will focus on the motivations for and consequences of child marriage in Canada and the United States. She will examine teen pregnancy and restricted access to abortion as potential drivers of child marriage in North America. She will also estimate how often child marriages result in teen pregnancies.
Sarah Wishloff is a second-year Master’s Student in Medical Anthropology under the supervision of Dr. Todd Meyers. She received her BA in Anthropology from Amherst College in Massachusetts. Sarah’s research interests center around mental health, structural violence, and access to community-based care. Her SSHRC-funded research examines alternatives to traditional police response for individuals experiencing mental health crises, and the systematic and social challenges of interrupting cycles of violence, recurring crises, and homeless. In addition to her thesis research, Sarah is working with Dr. Laurence Kirmayer of the Culture and Mental Health Research Unit on the Canadian Framework for Brain Health. Outside of her studies, Sarah is a long-distance runner and a volunteer mentor with Big Brothers Big Sisters.