Winter 2024 Internship Cohort
Bronté Anderson is a first-year student in the BCL/JD program at McGill’s Faculty of Law. Prior to law school, she completed a master’s degree in public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, as well as worked for the World Health Organization and Public Health Ontario. During her DEEP internship, Bronté will be working with Professor Jonas-Sébastien Beaudry to explore international case law and investigate whether and to what extent people have rights to socioeconomic support in contexts where this may influence their decisions to continue living or seek medical assistance in dying.
Supervisor: Prof Jonas-Sébastien Beaudry
Project: Social Determinants of Medical Assistance in Dying
Michaële Aubourg is an undergraduate student majoring in cognitive science and minoring in linguistics at McGill. She is interested in interdisciplinary topics that merge both arts and science such as transcultural psychiatry and neuroethics. For the 2024 DEEP internship, she is working with Dr. Phoebe Friesen on the placebo effect and personality.
Supervisor: Prof Phoebe Friesen
Project: The Placebo Effect and Personality
Madeleine Feehan is a fourth-year undergraduate at McGill university, working towards her Bachelor of Science in Psychology with a minor in Environment. She is interested in how individual characteristics, such as mental health, personalities, and attitudes, can be used to inform policy-making strategies. Maddie’s role in Professor Barrington-Leigh’s team is to edit footage from interviews on wellbeing policy approaches with CWKN leaders and network members.
Supervisor: Prof Christopher Barrington-Leigh
Project: Knowledge mobilization through videos on science and policy of wellbeing
Herbie He is a fourth-year Undergraduate student at McGill University majoring in Computer Science. He is greatly interested in machine learning and web development. He will be working with Professor Barrington-Leigh to refine websites that display visualizations and analysis on the disconnectedness of street-network across different regions in the world.
Supervisor: Prof Christopher Barrington-Leigh
Project: Policy-facing knowledge mobilization: urban sprawl
Luca Ifill is a U3 Undergraduate student Majoring in Anthropology and Minoring in Social Studies of Medicine. Her research interests include how diagnostic criteria affects individual subjectivity and intersectional approaches to biomedicine. For the DEEP Internship, she will be working under Dr Phoebe Friesen on the Placebo Effect and Personality.
Supervisor: Prof Phoebe Friesen
Project: The Placebo Effect and Personality
Pascale Laveault-Allard is a second-year medical resident in Public Health and Preventive Medicine. She completed her medical studies and a master's in economics at Université Laval in Québec City. Her master's thesis investigated the correlation between material and social deprivation and healthcare costs in Québec. Pascale's interdisciplinary education in health and economic sciences has fueled her passion for health equity, public health policy, and health advocacy. During the DEEP internship, she collaborates with Dr. Christine Stich to develop policy recommendations and propose an action plan for preventing youth homelessness in Quebec.
Supervisor: Prof Christine Stitch
Project: Quebec youth homelessness prevention: Proposed action and policy recommendations
Charlotte Mines is a second-year Master’s student in the Department of Political Science, concentrating in Comparative Politics and Development Studies through McGill's Institute for the Study of International Development. Her research interests are grounded in political economy and political behavior, specifically concerning foreign aid, remittances, migration, grey markets, and global health. As a DEEP intern, she is collaborating with Dr. Nicholas King to publish a paper exploring the impacts of cash transfers and basic income programs on public health outcomes.
Supervisor: Prof Nicholas King
Project: Just Give Cash
Devin Nihill is a second-year student in the MScPH program within the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health. She completed her undergraduate degree in International Studies at Drexel University with a focus on health and sustainability, minoring in Public Health. She has experience in international health programming, including program design, implementation, and evaluation. Her research interests include evaluation of health programs, social and built environment’s effect on health, and addressing health disparities due to social inequities. Through the DEEP internship, Devin will be investigating ethical considerations – including benefits and harms, autonomy, and justice – of personalized breast cancer screening strategies both in Canada and globally.
Supervisor: Prof Matthew Hunt
Project: Ethical features of personalized breast cancer screening strategies: mapping the landscape
Bela Sullivan (she/her) is a second-year undergraduate studying Joint Honours International Development and Gender, Sexuality, Feminist, and Social Justice Studies with a minor in Geography. She is passionate about integrating gender empowerment into environmental development practices, such as securing land rights and land tenure for women. Additionally, she serves as an executive at a youth-led NGO with consultative status at the UN, where she advocates for youth-based policies at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Throughout the DEEP Internship, Bela will be working with Dr. Phoebe Friesen to support the examination of diverse strategies employed by communities—spanning Indigenous, BIPOC, and rare disease communities—to assert their influence in the governance of research.
Supervisor: Prof Phoebe Friesen
Project: Community Involvement in Research Governance
Ahlam Zidan is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in Rehabilitation Sciences at the School of Physical and Occupational Therapy. Ahlam studies the environmental and personal factors associated with developmental milestones and mobility among children with a rare musculoskeletal condition, “Arthrogryposis Multiplex Congenita,” for her Ph.D. project. Throughout the joint DEEP-ICCPR (International and Canadian Child Rights Partnership) internship, she will work with Dr. Mónica Ruiz-Casares to contribute evidence on the training needs and offerings for Research Ethics Committee members reviewing child-focused and child-led social research.
Supervisor: Dr. Mónica Ruiz-Casares
Project: Training Research Ethics Committee members and investigators on Child-Focused and Child-Led Social Research
Fall 2023 Internship Cohort
Ally Hays-Alberstat is a Ph.D. student in Political Science at McGill University. Her doctoral research focuses on Canadian health policy, equity, and multi-level governance. Through the DEEP internship, she works with Dr. Amélie Quesnel-Vallée and Dr. Emmanuelle Arpin to conduct rapid jurisdictional reviews of excluded health services for children. Policy variation across provinces are underreported and this project aims to understand the different policy characteristics of excluded services across Canadian provinces.
Supervisor: Dr. Amélie Quesnel-Vallée
Project: Jurisdictional Rapid Reviews of Public Supplementary Programs for Excluded Health Services
Gabriel Lévesque is a PhD student in Sociology and Tomlinson Doctoral Fellow at McGill University. He studies toxic substance regulation, public health policies and the role of science and expertise in political processes. As part of the DEEP internship, he is working with Prof. Antonia Maioni on a comparative study of autism-related social and health programs in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and France.
Supervisor: Prof Antonia Maioni
Project: Autism and the Welfare State
Chit Leung is a second-year student in the Master of Law at McGill University with a current research focus on private international law. He read law at the University of Hong Kong, and has practiced as a lawyer specializing in litigation in Hong Kong for a few years and interned as a Law Student in Toronto last summer (2023). He is developing a variety of interests in the relationship between law and society and is particularly drawn to health law. During his DEEP internship, he will be working with Professor Lara Khoury to analyze judgments and cases to see how health-related class action lawsuits inspire (or impede) social changes.
Supervisor: Prof Lara Khoury
Project: Class actions in health as tool for social change: Case law analysis
Ava Liang is a final semester undergraduate student pursuing an honours in Economics with a minor in Philosophy. She is interested in health economics and public policy, particularly in the impact evaluation of health and social policies. She will be working with the PAR-KT research lab, under the supervision of Dr. Keiko Shikako, to support the identification of evidence on how civil society organizations have supported the monitoring and implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Outside of academics, you can find her in livehouses or practicing calligraphy.
Supervisor: Prof Keiko Shikako
Project: CHILD: Canadian Health Indicators for Children with Disabilities
Hani Rukh-E-Qamar is a M.Sc. student in Epidemiology in the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health. Hani completed her B.Sc. in Psychology with double minors in Health Geography and International Development Studies at McGill University, where she also worked as a Global Health Scholar. During her undergraduate degree, Hani also founded a community organization, the Canadian Advisory of Women Immigrants, dedicated to empowering immigrant women and girls. Through the DEEP Internship, Hani will be focusing on ethical guidelines for project closures in humanitarian settings.
Supervisor: Prof Matthew Hunt
Project: Ethics and humanitarian project closure: development of a guidance framework for the Canadian Red Cross
Mathilda Ryon (she/her) is a fourth-year undergraduate student in Cognitive Science with a minor in Anthropology. Her interdisciplinary education in both the social and behavioural sciences has led to her interest in the ethics and sociology of the world of healthcare and health research. During her DEEP internship, Mathilda will be working with Dr. Laurence Kirmayer on developing the Canadian Framework for Brain Health (CFBH). This framework aims to strengthen the relationship between neuroscientists and policy-makers as a way to integrate neuroscience research into the development of better clinical practices and policies for public healthcare.
Supervisor: Dr. Laurence Kirmayer
Project: Toward a Canadian Framework for Brain Health
Stephanie Wang is a fourth-year undergraduate student honours in International Development Studies (IDS) with a minor in Economics. Within the interdisciplinary IDS program, she is particularly interested in environmental management and the sustainable future of corporate supply chains. She will be working with Dr. Jaye Ellis during this DEEP internship to examine global net zero and carbon reduction initiatives, aiming to develop a set of metrics to assess the quality of these transnational standards.
Supervisor: Dr. Jaye Ellis
Project: Transnational Environmental Standards: Assessing Quality
Rebecca Zhao (she/her) is a fourth year Ph.D. student in the Department of Family Medicine at McGill University. Her dissertation focuses on mental health and participatory visual methods. Throughout the DEEP internship, she will be working with Dr. Alayne Adams to conduct a rapid review to compile guidance and best practices for youth-led and youth-engaged research.
Supervisor: Dr. Alayne Adams
Project: Creating guidance for youth-engaged, youth-led research
Winter 2023 Internship Cohort
Seerat Chawla is a second-year Master of Science student in the Department of Family Medicine. She completed her BSc in Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). During her undergraduate years, she was involved with community-based work as an HIV test counselor and a board member of Bruin Shelter, the first homeless shelter for college students run by college students in the nation. As a DEEP intern, Seerat will be working with Dr. Alayne Adams to understand the current approaches and challenges to community-based social prescription in Montreal from the perspective of both community organizations and primary care providers.
Supervisor: Dr. Alayne Adams
Project: Community-based social prescription for older adults in Montreal: An environmental scan of current approaches and challenges
Ada Collins (she/her) is a second-year undergraduate pursuing a B.A. in Economics and Environment in the Bieler School of Environment at McGill University with a Minor in English Literature. Her study interests include how to foster and improve environmental incentives within the public policy and economic spheres. She is currently working with Professor Barrington-Leigh on developing a database of solved collective action problems and an associated theoretical framework.
Supervisor: Professor Chris Barrington-Leigh
Project: Database of Solved Collective Action Problems
Natasha Kandage is a second-year undergraduate student at McGill University, pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Environment and Development, and a minor in Psychology. She is drawn to the relationship between social policy, happiness, well-being, and equality, and she is interested in pursuing a career in social and economic progress and working with children. Under Prof. Barrington-Leigh’s supervision, Natasha will be working on the development of a database of solved collective action problems.
Supervisor: Professor Chris Barrington-Leigh
Project: Database of Solved Collective Action Problems
Ebrahim Mahmoudi is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Physical and Occupational Therapy at McGill University. His doctoral thesis focuses on the development of a gamified mobile application to increase leisure participation among youth with disabilities. Through the DEEP Internship, he will work with Dr. Matthew Hunt to conduct a scoping review to explore the current evidence around environmental responsibility in physiotherapy and map practices and policies implemented in different settings.
Supervisor: Professor Matt Hunt
Project: Environmental Responsibility in the Physiotherapy Clinic
Charlotte Ridsdale is a second-year student in the BCL/JD program at McGill's Faculty of Law. She completed her BSc in Honours Biology at McGill in 2018 and is presently interested in rights-based approaches to health policy. During her DEEP internship, she will be working with Professor Lara Khoury to conduct systematic searches and analyses focused on health-related class action lawsuits. This work seeks to deepen our understanding of the role of liability litigation in forcing structural changes in the sectors of healthcare and public health.
Supervisor: Professor Lara Khoury
Project: Use by Citizens of Liability Litigation as Leverage to Promote Policy Change in Healthcare and Public Health Sectors
Chloe Rourke is a third-year law student. She also completed her BA&Sc at McGill in Cognitive Science (Hon.) in 2017. Chloe is interested in disability rights, in particular the rights of persons with psychosocial disabilities. She has done research on the United Nation Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as part of the Realizing Human Rights and Social Justice in Mental Health initiative under the supervision of Dr. Marina Morrow at York University. She is working with Professor Jonas-Sébastien Beaudry researching contemporary understandings of socio-economic rights and their potential applicability for individuals seeking medical assistance in dying due to a lack of economic and social supports.
Supervisor: Professor Jonas-Sébastien Beaudry
Project: Social Rights and Medical Assistance in Dying
Pryor Sohn is a third-year undergraduate student pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science with a minor in International Development. He is interested in sustainable economic development and wants to look at the effects that grassroots representative political organizations can have on local economic stability. As a DEEP Intern, Pryor will be working with Professor Barrington-Lee to create a database of solved collective action problems that can be used as an educational or research tool.
Supervisor: Professor Chris Barrington-Leigh
Project: Database of Solved Collective Action Problems