McGill.CA / McGill Summer Academy

Maria Haddad (instructor)Maria Haddad

Instructor (Neuroscience)

Maria earned her Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience in the Neurophysiology/Neural Computation Stream from McGill University. During her B.Sc., she worked on a research project characterizing the short-term plasticity of inputs onto Vip interneurons in the motor cortex, using 2-photon microscopy and whole-cell recordings. Following that, she joined the Integrated Program in Neuroscience as a M.Sc. student, and she worked on eye-tracking experiments with human participants concerning the role that eye movements play in face perception. She then fast-tracked to the IPN's PhD program, and she will be starting experiments using wide-field imaging in mouse visual cortex. After being an instructor for McGill Summer Academy in July 2022, she is excited to be this year's team leader, and is looking forward to teaching the course with the other instructors.

Margaret Garber

Margaret Garber

Instructor (Neuroscience)

Margaret is a Ph.D. student in the Integrated Program in Neuroscience at McGill University. She completed her undergraduate studies in Biology and Neuroscience at Syracuse University where she studied how individuals with autism process and integrate sensory information. Her current work focuses on understanding how we process musical rhythm and how rhythmic auditory stimulation can help alleviate motor symptoms in Parkinson’s Disease. Margaret is excited to return to teaching and share her passion for neuroscience with students at the McGill Summer Academy.

Shaima Alsuwaidi

Shaima Alsuwaidi

Instructor (Neuroscience)

Shaima Alsuwaidi is a PhD candidate in the Integrated Program of Neuroscience. Through her research, she uses stem cell models to study rare genetic disorders that affect the nervous system. Prior to the PhD, she obtained a BSc in Chemical Engineering and an MSc in Neuroscience. She really enjoys science communication and outreach and has many years of experience in interactive teaching and learning methods.

Academic Staff

Suvolaxmi Dutta Choudhury: co-instructor for the course “Perspectives on World Politics: International Law, Development, and Organizations”Suvolaxmi Dutta Choudhury

Instructor (Political Science)

Suvolaxmi is a PhD candidate in Political Science at McGill University. At McGill Summer Academy, she teaches international law, human rights, and humanitarian interventions. Her doctoral  research broadly revolves around themes in law, migration, and citizenship. Her work engages with the relationship that laws and constitutions have with drawing the fault lines of social exclusion.  She is currently also teaching an undergraduate course on gender and Canadian politics at McGill University.

Photo of Alice Chessé co-instructor for the course “Perspectives on World Politics: International Law, Development, and Organizations”Alice Chessé

Instructor (Political Science)

 Alice Chessé is a PhD candidate in Political Science at McGill University. She studies the historical sociology of global governance, with a particular interest in the decolonization process and the global governance of development, as well as feminist and decolonial approaches to world politics. In her dissertation, she explores the role the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) played in reinventing relations between former empires and their former colonies. She teaches International Relations Theory, International Organizations and Global Economic Governance, as well as Global Historical Sociology. She uses interactive teaching methods to study abstract theories of world politics through concrete problems to be solved in the classroom. For instance, through critical writing exercises she likes to have students reflect about how current world events that seem far from home actually affect their everyday lives. She also designs simulations of diplomatic conferences to help students understand in practice why global institutions struggle to solve global crises like pandemics or climate change.

She is the administrative coordinator of the Global Research Network on Peaceful Change (GRENPEC). She has been a research fellow of the Centre d’Études en Recherches Internationales de l’Université de Montréal (CÉRIUM) since Fall 2019, and of the McGill Centre for International Peace and Security Studies (CIPSS) since Fall 2012. She received the 2015 McGill Faculty of Arts Undergraduate Society Teaching Assistant Award.

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