Biographies

CIHR Rewards Four Mentors Who Have Helped Create Tomorrow's Researchers

[ News Release 2008-25 ]

CIHR Synapse Award - Graduate Student / Postdoctoral Fellow

Anteneh Argaw, a CIHR-funded PhD candidate at Université de Montréal (U de M), takes great pride in passing on his knowledge of science to elementary and high school students in the Montreal area.

"In order for societies to progress, it is important for every individual to enhance and share their wealth of knowledge," Mr. Argaw says. "For this reason, I always look forward to sharing with others the lessons I've received from many teachers who have had a profound academic and personal effect on me over the years."

Since 2002, Mr. Argaw has passed on this knowledge through multiple areas. He has acted as a science and math tutor for student-athletes of the U de M football program as well as to students at a community center called Maison d'Haiti He has presented lectures for elementary/high school-based students on celebrated African-American and Canadian scientists and inventors (such as pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson, blood transfusion specialist/creator Dr. Charles Richard Drew, female African-American clinician Dr. Rebecca Cole, and Canadian engineer/inventor Elijah McCoy) at McGill's Black Student Network's Children's Day.

For the past three years, Mr. Argaw has served as a member of the organizing committee for the Montreal chapter of the Brain Awareness Week (BAW). He values his contribution to BAW as one of the most important for scientific mentorship because it is a good opportunity to talk about neuroscience to many students and it also allows him to deliver animated and interactive styles of the presentations that will capture their attention.

At the 2008 BAW, which ran from March 10 to March 14, graduate student volunteers visited 340 English and French elementary and high schools in the Greater Montreal area and taught approximately 10,000 Canadian youth about the complexities of the brain, its role and its function.

Mr. Argaw organized and managed events related to BAW for French elementary schools. This involved the recruitment and training of volunteers who were willing to teach at the elementary level, the preparation of kits and activities for these volunteers to use (everything from M&M chocolates that stimulate/evaluate the sense of taste to plastic models that illustrate how brains work), the coordination of schedules between volunteers and teachers at Montreal schools and the inclusion of other organizations, such as the Quebec Youth Protection Agency and community centers, that service children in high social and economic risk areas.

CIHR Synapse Award - Researcher

Dr. Lisa Robinson wants science to be an understandable, entertaining and hands-on educational subject for all elementary and high school students.

That's why, on top of her duties as an associate professor in paediatrics at the University of Toronto, a staff physician in the division of nephrology at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), a scientist in the cell biology program at the SickKids Research Institute and a Canada Research Chair in Leukocyte Migration in Inflammation and Injury, she co-created the Kids Science program, with the help of Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation's Early Researcher Award program, for 'at risk' youth in the Greater Toronto and Northeastern Ontario regions. These young Canadians do not have equal exposure to science and technology awareness experiences, and include patients with chronic illness at SickKids, as well high school students from Toronto inner-city schools.

The Kids Science Program is a continuation of mentorship efforts Dr. Robinson provided for impoverished middle and high school students, while conducting a fellowship in clinical paediatric nephrology and research (from 1995-99) at Duke University Medical Center (located in Durham, North Carolina). She brought that dedication for mentorship back to Canada, because "it's something that she always wants to do."

Now, in collaboration with Greater Toronto and Northeastern Ontario school boards, Dr. Robinson and Adrienne Wong, the Kids Science project manager, organize four youth and public outreach activities: a) Speakers' Bureau, where health researchers go to schools, collaborate with teachers and deliver hands-on scientific explanations of what it is they do in an accessible fashion; b) Science Extravaganza, hosted in May every year, where students come from Toronto area schools and from north eastern Ontario and learn about science through interactive presentations by health researchers, visit different labs around the SickKids Research Institute to understand how science can be helpful in people's lives (everything from hands-free crutches to super computers), and explore the Ontario Science Centre; c) mentorship component, where high school students are paired up with basic and clinical scientists so that they can act as science and health research role models; and d) laboratory visits throughout the year where students can participate in ongoing research projects with principal investigators.

CIHR Synapse Award - Researcher

Since the start of her professional career, Dr. Jane Roskams has made a concerted effort to encourage youth to both develop an appreciation of science and, as a result, excel through their creativity.

"You don't have to be able to apply a formula in order to develop a new scientific idea," she says. "Ideas come from stepping outside of the formula."

Dr. Roskams is an associate professor in the departments of Zoology and Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia (UBC). In 1997, drawn by its rich neuroscience community and convinced of the promise of UBC by many, including Nobel laureate Dr. Michael Smith, she was recruited to be part of UBC's new Brain Research Centre, which represents 20 university departments and six faculties at UBC. Since then, within and beyond the centre, she has promoted mentorship in various ways.

In 2001, in memory of Dr. Smith, Dr. Roskams helped raise funds to organize a one-day symposium at UBC called 'Women at the Frontier of Excellence'. The event attracted undergraduate and high school student attendees who found motivation from personable female keynote speakers (Shirley Tilghman, Janet Rossant, Freda Miller, Julia Levy and Catherine Kallin) who explained in layperson terms who they were and how they came to their individual levels of achievement in different frontiers of science. Invited speakers also visited Vancouver schools to encourage interest in Science and technology.

In 2003, Dr. Roskams started the UBC Mentor Centre, a Vancouver School Board-UBC mentorship program that has allowed members of the UBC research community to offer scientific guidance to high school and elementary. High school students have come into UBC-based labs to work on different science fair projects, while graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and scientists have consulted with elementary school teachers so that they can successfully interact with young students.

Dr. Roskams has also served as a keynote speaker for the BC Science Teacher's Association annual 'Catalyst' conference, serves as faculty advisor at UBC's Life Sciences Institute Graduate Students Association (which encourages children to learn about value of science to health and well-being), is a supervisor and mentor for the Vancouver School Board Student Placement Program, and has used her various network of connections within the neuroscience and genetics research community to encourage Nobel Prize winning scientists (such as Drs. Sidney Brenner and Linda Buck) to speak at local schools.

In the future, Dr. Roskams hopes to expand the Mentor Centre so that it becomes a provincially driven science-educational outreach initiative, as well as offers training opportunities for high school and elementary students in new fields that are at the interface of science and technology, like bioengineering.

CIHR Synapse Award - Research Group

Since 2005, Drs. Sarah Flicker, an assistant professor at York University's Faculty of Environmental Studies, and June Larkin, principal investigator of Gendering Adolescent AIDS Prevention (GAAP) at the University of Toronto (U of T), have had a clear mission in mind with the Toronto Teen Survey (TTS) research team. At the request of Planned Parenthood Toronto (PPT), they sought to develop a survey tool that could effectively evaluate the assets and also the gaps and barriers that exist in sexual health education among youth. Based on that information, they would, in turn, develop a strategy that increases positive sexual health outcomes among this youth. In order to collect, assess and disseminate the information from the TTS, however, Drs. Flicker and Larkin decided to mentor and involve members from the affected youth community.

"Our whole approach to research is from the ground up," says Dr. Flicker. "It's working with a community that is most affected by a problem in an effort to find appropriate solutions."

To embrace this research angle and develop the TTS research team, Drs. Flicker and Larkin, in collaboration with professionals based at PPT, the Ontario HIV Treatment Network and Toronto Public Health, formed a Youth Advisory Committee (YAC) made up of 12 teenagers (aged 13-17) from different neighborhoods, racial and ethnic backgrounds, and socio-economic status. All committee members received training on how to develop, collect and assess information from surveys, and learned about sexual health, anti-oppression and social determinants of health.

YAC helped develop the TTS with questions that evaluated the current state of sexual health services and the desired ideal services for their peers. As of August 2007, through use of the survey, the TTS research team collected information from 90 workshops conducted at community settings (such as after school drop-in programs, shelters, summer camps, and group homes) - and reached over 1,200 youth.

Since then, the TTS research team has advanced into analysis of the gathered information and, will move toward dissemination of the information through literature (youth oriented magazines, posters and fact sheets), new media (YouTube) and an educational DVD.