91社区

The Richard H. Tomlinson Fellowship aims to attract high-caliber doctoral听students in any discipline at听91社区. The Tomlinson Doctoral Fellowships are worth $35,000/year for up to 3 years, making this one of the most prestigious fellowships programs in Canada and a significant contribution to recruiting and supporting exceptional graduate students at 91社区. Read more听on what it means to be a Tomlinson Scholar. More information about the fellowships are available here.

2024-2025 Scholars

Boris Zupancic, Mathematics and Statistics

Boris Zupancic is a first-year PhD student under the supervision of Professor Brent Pym in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. Prior to coming to 91社区, he completed a BScH in mathematical physics and an MSc in mathematics, both at Queen鈥檚 university in Kingston, Ontario. His research in algebraic geometry will investigate methods for the resolution of singularities in mathematical physics using geometric operations called weighted blowups.

Geometric spaces are fundamental in modern physics, as they provide a framework for performing calculus, a necessary tool in modelling electromagnetism, gravitational waves, black holes, as well as all of the fundamental particles and forces. Roughly speaking, singularities can be characterized as points in these geometric spaces that are not smooth, obstructing our ability to perform calculus; resolving a singularity means modifying the space to make it calculusfriendly. The classical method for resolving a singularity was developed by Heisuke Hironaka in the 1960s, sequentially 鈥渁dding extra space鈥� around the singularity by a formal process called 鈥渂lowing up鈥�. In physics however, there are additional structures imposed on geometric spaces that are not preserved under Hironaka鈥檚 algorithm. Boris鈥� research will aim to investigate how recently developed algorithms using weighted blowups, geometric operations that add different amounts of space in different directions, can be applied to structures arising in mathematical physics.

Boris is honoured to have been selected as one of the recipients of the Tomlinson Doctoral Fellowship, and grateful for the unique opportunity this award provides as a new PhD student and researcher at 91社区.

Charle虁ne Lusikila, Social Work

Charl猫ne Lusikila is an incoming Ph. D student in the School of Social Work under the supervision of Dr. Alicia Boatswain-Kyte. She hails from Universit茅 de Montr茅al, where her master's thesis in Social Work focused on understanding the experiences of racism among Black female social workers in Montreal from a Black feminist perspective. Her findings sparked her interest in stereotypes associated with Black women, particularly the "Strong Black Woman" image.

Her proposed doctoral project aims to deepen our understanding of Black womanhood in Quebec by exploring how Black women navigate concepts of strength and vulnerability. Through this research, Charl猫ne is dedicated to empowering Black women to share their experiences, perspectives, and insights, aiming to shift the prevailing narrative about them and ensure their voices are heard. Ultimately, her project seeks to inform interventions that support Black women's well-being in Quebec.

Charl猫ne is honoured and grateful to have been awarded the Richard H. Tomlinson Doctoral Fellowship, which will support her research and engagement with Quebec's Black women.

Emily Draicchio, Anthropology

Emily Draicchio is a first-year doctoral student in the Department of Anthropology at 91社区. Her research challenges the problematic national narrative of Canada's alleged innocence in Atlantic slavery by interrogating the practice of enslavement in Loyalist New Brunswick (1783-1834). Following the American Revolution, 30,000 white Loyalists settled in the Maritimes, half of whom settled in what became New Brunswick in 1784. During the early stages of settlement, they enslaved approximately 1,500 to 2,000 people. Although there have been significant contributions to the study of Canadian slavery in the past several decades by historians, there has been a lack of archaeological studies on the topic. Instead, sites of enslavement (particularly plantations) have been well-explored by archaeologists in the U.S., the Caribbean, and South America.

Emily鈥檚 project will expand archaeological research on slavery beyond tropical plantation sites by completing surface surveys and community excavations with an oral history component at two sites used as living quarters by Black enslaved people in New Brunswick. Her PhD research builds directly on her master's thesis in which she located, documented, and examined seven sites used as living quarters by Black enslaved people in New Brunswick through an analysis of archival records combined with the completion of Geographic Information System (GIS) site mapping and an archaeological desktop survey.

By taking a historical archaeological approach informed by community archaeology, Emily鈥檚 PhD research will provide direct evidence of lived experiences not recorded in print since enslaved people, who were often illiterate, left behind few written records of their own. The artifacts procured from the surface surveys and community excavations will inform us on both the material and non-material worlds of Black enslaved people in Loyalist New Brunswick. Their houses, personal and household items, and faunal and botanical remains will shed light on their living and working conditions, diet, community and familial bonds, cultural practices, leisure activities, survival strategies, and interactions.

This project will therefore contribute to conversations about the often-neglected legacy of slavery in Canada; expand the subfields in the discipline of slavery studies that have yet to be fully explored in a Canadian context; collaborate with Black descendant communities to protect, preserve, and understand the cultural heritage of their ancestors; and, through a critical lens, open a small window into the lived realities of Black enslaved people in New Brunswick. Emily is deeply honoured to be a recipient of the Tomlinson Doctoral Fellowship and is grateful to be part of the 91社区 community again. The resources provided by this fellowship will help support the advancement of her doctoral studies and future research on the study of Canadian Slavery.

Kim Morel, Physics

Kim Morel is an incoming PhD student in the Department of Physics at 91社区听working under the supervision of Prof. Adrian Liu. She completed her MSc degree at听Universit茅 de Montr茅al as a member of the Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets.听After studying other worlds within our own galaxy, she now wants to expand her听research to the entire cosmos. Her project focuses on 21 cm cosmology, which traces听the distribution of matter in the Universe. The goal is to create a 3D map of this matter,听providing insights into the evolution of the Universe since looking far away in space is听akin to looking back in time. Ultimately, it will help constrain key aspects of the听Universe's expansion, galaxy formation, dark matter, and fundamental physics,听including General Relativity.听

21 cm cosmology is named after the radiation of wavelength 21 cm emitted by neutral听hydrogen, the simplest and most abundant element in the Universe. This signal, which听can be observed with radio telescopes, is really faint and buried in that of bright听foreground contaminants. To date, successful measurements of the 21 cm emission听have only been made when supported by other detections, such as galaxy surveys.听Kim鈥檚 project will address these challenges using data from the Hydrogen Epoch of听Reionization Array (HERA), a sensitive radio telescope located in South Africa that aims听to observe the hydrogen emission (and absorption) before and during the formation of听stars. Kim鈥檚 project focuses on bringing an innovative foreground mitigation technique听recently developed at 91社区 to its full potential. By better removing the听foreground contaminants on HERA data, she will place new constraints on the detection听of the 21 cm signal, which in turn will provide new insights into the evolution of the听Universe. Her results will also serve as a guide to establish the required sensitivity of听next-generation telescopes, with the ultimate goal of measuring the first 21 cm signal听alone, which will further deepen our understanding of the early Universe.听

Kim is deeply honored to be a recipient of the Richard H. Tomlinson Fellowship and听grateful to join the community of researchers at 91社区. This fellowship will not听only support her doctoral studies but also enable her to share her research with a听broader community.

Maryna Nekrasova, Philosophy

Maryna Nekrasova is an incoming PhD student in the Philosophy department at 91社区, co-supervised by Dr. Jocelyn Maclure and Dr. Ian Gold. Her research focuses on examining how religious beliefs influence people鈥檚 perceptions of and interactions with artificial intelligence (AI) systems. By gaining an understanding of these beliefs and perceptions, her research seeks to explain why we are led to fear, mischaracterize, and make particular ethical judgments about AI. She hopes that by uncovering why we hold certain biases, these investigations can contribute to a better understanding of how to create ethical regulations without being misguided by fallacious reasoning.

In the future, Maryna would like to make her research findings accessible to the public in order to help prevent people from succumbing to misinformation spread by non-experts and 鈥減opular intellectuals.鈥� She hopes that this would aid the public in maintaining a clear perspective about the real dangers that AI poses to us.

Maryna is honored to be a recipient of the Tomlinson Fellowship and is very excited to begin her academic journey as a doctoral student at 91社区.

Mincen Liu, Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health

Mincen Liu is a first-year PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health at 91社区, under the co-supervision of Dr. Erica Moodie and Dr. Qihuang Zhang. Prior to joining 91社区, Mincen earned her BSPH and ScM degrees in Biostatistics, where she was involved in a series of research projects applying statistical methods to medical, epidemiological, and health policy problems, with a particular focus on HIV and substance use among vulnerable populations.

Mincen believes that equitable health outcomes may arise not from uniform treatments but from targeted interventions tailored to the needs of specific subpopulations. Precision medicine holds the promise of tailoring treatment to individual characteristics, potentially improving health outcomes while reducing costs and side effects. However, through her work, Mincen has identified critical gaps in existing precision medicine methodologies, such as the impact of measurement error introduced by recall bias, privacy concerns, and opaque artificial intelligence techniques, as well as the neglect of individual variability. Her proposed doctoral research aims to develop statistical methods by addressing these gaps to better understand how treatment effects or exposures, such as marijuana use, vary among individuals with different characteristics, such as living conditions or comorbidities. She plans to develop guidelines to facilitate the application of these proposed methods in multifaceted public health research scenarios. Her research will contribute to statistical methods that can help to develop more informed and effective personalized treatment recommendations in clinical settings, which could ultimately transform approaches to healthcare for vulnerable populations.

Mincen is greatly honored to receive the Richard H. Tomlinson Doctoral Fellowship and is grateful for the opportunity to join the 91社区 community as a doctoral researcher. The Tomlinson Fellowship will support her research in developing strategies for equitable healthcare.

Robera Demissie Berhanu, Nursing

Robera Demissie Berhanu is a first year PhD student in the Ingram School of Nursing at 91社区 under the supervision of Dr. Kalonde Malama. He received his MSc degree in Adult Health Nursing in 2020 from Jimma University (a top-ranked nursing school in Ethiopia), and his BSc degree in Nursing in 2016 from Madda Walabu University. Before joining 91社区, he worked as a lecturer at two public universities in Ethiopia, where he developed strong experience in nursing education and research.

Robera鈥檚 research project aims to investigate post-migration HIV acquisition among African, Caribbean and Black (ACB) people in Canada. To promote health equity for ACB populations who acquired HIV after migration, it is crucial to identify specific factors that contributed to this vulnerability. This requires conducting research that explores the experiences of ACB immigrants after they acquired HIV in Canada and their preferences to Canadian healthcare system. Gaining insights into the specific challenges faced by ACB immigrants, the findings hopefully inform the development of equitable policies in the intersecting areas of immigration and healthcare. Robera realizes that the field of HIV research offers a unique opportunity to contribute to the fundamental scientific knowledge and the lives of those affected by this global health crisis.

Robera is honored to be a recipient of Tomlinson Fellowship. Being a Tomlinson scholar provides him not only financial support but also fosters a culture of academic excellence, interdisciplinary collaboration, and innovation that continue to inspire him to delve deeper and explore uncharted territories in his field.

Terhas Ghebretecle, Sociology

Terhas Ghebretecle is a Ph. D student in the Department of Sociology under the supervision of Dr. Thomas Soehl. She joins 91社区 after having recently worked as an applied immigration researcher for the Government of Canada. Prior to that, Terhas completed her master鈥檚 degree at the University of Toronto and worked in a variety of applied research settings. She is excited to return to academia to advance her research agenda.

Her project focuses on the role that interpersonal networks play for migrant families in their host society (i.e. how these social networks can help migrants secure jobs or navigate the local school system). Specifically, her research investigates the effect of social capital on the education and employment outcomes of refugee families in Canada. This project adopts a lifecourse perspective to consider how the impacts of social capital may differ across migrant age groups - even within the same family. Methodologically, this project aims to contribute to efforts that empirically examine the causal effect of social capital. More broadly, Terhas hopes this research can contribute to a better understanding of the evolution of migrants鈥� network social capital over time.

Terhas is deeply honoured to be a recipient of the Tomlinson Doctoral Fellowship, and to join this esteemed community of scholars. Moreover, she looks forward to beginning this academic journey at 91社区.

Victoria Van Mierlo, Biology

Victoria Van Mierlo is a newly recruited doctoral student in the Ricciardi Lab within 91社区鈥檚 Department of Biology. Having most recently worked as a federal public servant with the Canadian Wildlife Service after completing her Master degree at the University of Alberta, Victoria is enthusiastic about applying her practical and formal research skills to her PhD project. Enabled by the Richard H. Tomlinson Doctoral Fellowship, Victoria鈥檚 project will focus on the invasive marbled crayfish, an asexually reproducing invader of global concern that has been recently detected in Canadian inland waters for the first time. In response to this imminent threat, her research aims to generate knowledge and tools to help prevent, assess, and mitigate adverse effects of marbled crayfish invasion on native freshwater biodiversity.

Specifically, Victoria will initially develop a model predicting the crayfish鈥檚 invasion risk to water bodies in the Great Lakes Basin. This model aims to identify and prioritize the most vulnerable habitats, thereby anticipating and preventing future invasions. Secondly, Victoria will compare the growth and feeding performance of marbled crayfish with co-occurring native species, to reveal potential ecological impacts of marbled crayfish on biodiversity and food webs. Thirdly, she will investigate the viability of functional eradication as a management strategy for established marbled crayfish populations. In sum, Victoria's doctoral research will contribute to the protection of freshwater ecosystems in the Great Lakes Basin from invasive marbled crayfish.

Victoria is humbled and honored to have been selected as a Tomlinson Scholar and is excited to join the esteemed line of researchers supported by this award.

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