The Research Impact Canada (RIC) Engaged Scholarship Award for Graduate Students recognizes graduate students that conduct research projects following engaged scholarship principles that lead to increased awareness of audiences beyond academia or changes in stakeholder actions, practices, guidelines, or policies.
We’re thrilled that this year’s winners of the RIC award will be presenting their work at the 2021 Canadian Association of Research Administrators (CARA) Conference on May 13, 1:15 – 2:45 PM EST.
We are pleased to announce this year’s RIC Engaged Scholarship Award Winners:
PhD
Brady Reid, University of Guelph
Brady is working towards a Ph.D. in Rural Studies student at the University of Guelph. Brady also coordinates the PhiLab Atlantic Hub research network and serves as the Regional Studies Association Blog Editor. His research interests intersect environmental stewardship, extractive industries, rural community development, and Indigenous self-determination.
Project: Traditional Knowledge and Land Use: Building Research Relationships with a Rural Ktaqmkuk Mi’kmaw Community
His project emerged from a collaborative research effort between the No’kmaq Village Mi’kmaw Band (Elder Calvin White) and Grenfell Campus, Memorial University. Researchers working with Indigenous groups or communities must undergo thorough self-reflection of their own positionality to identify assumptions and biases inherent to research relationships. This self-reflection – informed by open communication with community collaborators – can assess the appropriateness of research as a tool for development in that specific community at that specific time. Aside from a written master’s thesis, this project included a podcast which described the results of our study and responsibility for researchers working with Indigenous groups. This approach helped increase accessibility and mitigate the alienation of community participants from research results through conversational discourse.
Perri Tutelman, Dalhousie University
Perri Tutelman is a PhD Candidate in Clinical Psychology at Dalhousie University and the IWK Health Centre. Her research and clinical interests include pain in pediatric oncology, the use of social media for knowledge translation, and patient engagement in research. Her research has been supported by several provincial and national funding bodies including the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship program, Research Nova Scotia, and the Maritime SPOR Support Unit.
Project: Understanding the Pain Experience in Childhood Cancer Survivors
Over 80% of children with cancer are expected to become long-term survivors, however life after cancer often brings new challenges, including chronic pain. The reasons for this are not well understood, but are likely a combination of biological (e.g., alterations in neural processing) and psychological (e.g., thoughts and feelings about cancer and pain) factors. This research project was a co-created exploratory sequential mixed methods study aimed at understanding pain in childhood cancer survivors using qualitative and experimental pain methods.
Andrew Kadykalo, University of Ottawa
Andrew Kadykalo is a PhD Candidate in the department of Department of Biology and Institute of Environmental and Interdisciplinary Science at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. He is an interdisciplinary conservation scientist who applies natural and social science tools to explore relationships between people and nature. His research interests focus on regulating ecosystem services (e.g. pollination, flood regulation) and the use of evidence in wildlife management and biodiversity conservation.
Project: Sustaining Freshwater Recreational Fisheries in a Changing Environment
Fisheries and wildlife managers are faced with the daunting task of making informed and sensible decisions in the face of conflicting objectives and rapid environmental change. A strong evidence base is needed to support these complex decisions. This project explored the extent of evidenece use in such decisions in British Columbia using interviews and fuzzy cognitive mapping workshops with members from natural resource management branches of Indigenous governments and parliamentary governments, as well as representatives from nongovernmental stakeholders.
Masters
Emily De Sousa, University of Guelph
Emily De Sousa is a master’s student at the University of Guelph, where she researches alternative seafood networks and works as the communications lead for the Coastal Routes Network. She is a passionate science communicator and knowledge mobilizer, founding her own brand, Seaside with Emily, to educate people about sustainable seafood, responsible travel, and food culture.
Project: Values, challenges, and opportunities for resilience presented by alternative seafood networks
Her research project explored the values and challenges of a relatively new and unexplored model in the seafood industry: alternative seafood networks. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, she adjusted her research to focus heavily on the resilience of seafood supply chains to global shock. To capture the rapidly unfolding impacts of the pandemic on the stakeholder communities within her thesis project, she co-founded a podcast called Social FISHtancing. The bi-weekly episodes shared the stories of individuals within the seafood industry, how they we’re impacted by the pandemic, and the creative ways in which they adapted.
Kimiya Missaghi, Carleton University
Kimiya Missaghi is a MA Candidate at the Department of Law and Legal Studies at Carleton University currently completing her thesis research. She also works as a research assistant on a number of human rights and pedagogy-related research projects. Areas of interest include human rights, religious freedom, refugee resiliency, social change, and innovative pedagogical approaches.
Project: An exploration of how resilience combats oppression among minorities: A case study of the Baha’I underground university in Iran
Baha’is are the largest religious minority in Iran and have faced systematic persecution because of their religious affiliation whereby they are unable to access higher education. The Baha’i community has responded to this injustice by creating their own underground university which is run by volunteer faculty and is internationally recognized. This study, conducted at Carleton University, interviewed fifteen alumni from this underground university. It explored themes of resiliency, oppression, resistance, and education and sought to advance discourse on overcoming oppression and systematic barriers among minority groups.
For more information, please subscribe to the Research Impact Canada newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/f24691f47bd3/research-impact-canada-newsletter