2024-2025 Cohort
Isa Braga is a second-year Philosophy master's student specializing in Bioethics through the Department of Equity, Ethics and Policy. Prior to her graduate studies, Isa received her Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Rollins College, served as a Fulbright grantee in the Republic of Korea, and conducted research in topics ranging from political philosophy to applied medical ethics. Her current research focuses on loss of identity in neurodegeneration and corresponding philosophical, ethical, and legal conceptions of dying for patients suffering from advanced dementia. Building upon her undergraduate thesis, which argued for the moral praiseworthiness of advance euthanasia directives for dementia patients in the American context, Isa's master's research links identity loss to a novel philosophical conception of death. Speaking to intuitions of patients, caretakers, medical professionals, ethicists, and community stakeholders at large, this research is a component of a broader project: an effort to pluralistically return bodily autonomy to dementia patients by allowing individuals to designate the terms of their own final chapters. As Canada is a global leader in redefining end-of-life options for suffering patients, Isa aspires to utilize this momentum to argue for dementia patients' complete agency over their lives' narratives.
Zeinab Cherri is a second-year PhD Epidemiology student supervised by Dr. Alissa Koski. Her research interests focus on sexual and reproductive health and rights as well as refugee and migrant health. Her doctoral thesis will examine the impact of child marriage on sexually transmitted infections in Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. She will also investigate its impact on mental health in the United States. Before joining McGill university as a PhD student, Zeinab worked for several years with international organizations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia. She was also involved with non-governmental organizations addressing women health and rights, such as Women Deliver and the Inter-Agency Working Group on Reproductive Health in Crises. Prior to that, she completed a Bachelor of Science at the American University of Beirut, and a joint Master of Public Health in Disasters as an Erasmus Mundus Scholarship student from the Universidad de Oviedo and the Universit茅 Catholique de Louvain.
Noah Kelly is a second-year master's student supervised by Professor Kevin Manaugh in the Department of Geography. His master鈥檚 thesis investigates the impact of a free public transportation intervention on wellbeing and access to essential supports for youth experiencing homelessness in Toronto. Before joining McGill, Noah co-founded the Transit Access Project (TAP), a nonprofit organization dedicated to researching and advocating for transportation access for people experiencing homelessness in Toronto. He continues to act as the Director of Research & Partnerships at TAP, leading projects to investigate the role of transportation access in the process of rehousing and developing policy alternatives to ensure transportation access for low-income groups. Noah received a Bachelor's of Science from the University of Toronto, majoring in Global Health and Human Geography.
Isabel Mu帽oz Beaulieu is an PhD candidate in the Department of Family Medicine. At McGill, she has also completed a joint honors BA in International Development Studies and Philosophy. Isabel鈥檚 doctoral research is supervised by Dr. Matthew Hunt and builds upon collaborations with the Center for Disaster Preparedness in the Philippines and the Canadian Red Cross. It focuses on the ethical dimensions of what remains after humanitarian organizations leave. Her research will examine the opportunities and challenges for understanding and enacting sustainability of services, benefits, and relationships in humanitarian aid. Isabel has gained field experience working in the humanitarian and development field with the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees in Guatemala and The Hunger Project. She also supports several projects to advance equity in health at Women鈥檚 College Hospital and as a research assistant for the O鈥橬eill-Lancet Commission on Racism, Structural Discrimination and Global Health.
Jeffrey To is a third-year Psychology student in the Experimental Psychology program. He studies implicit biases: The automatic associations we hold toward certain groups. Specifically, he's interested in two lines of research: (1) how intersectionality- how we categorize multiple identities simultaneously--can inform implicit biases and (2) ways to tackle biases beyond diversity training, such as procedure, process, and policy changes. Jeffrey received his Bachelor of Science in Psychology in 2021 from the University of Toronto. After graduating, he spent a year working as an associate in a behavioral science consulting firm, consulting on projects related to education, smoking cessation, and mental health.
Veronica Xia is a Master's student in the School of Computer Science and MILA under the supervision of Dr. Jin Guo. Veronica's research is focused on contestability: how can we develop AI systems that allow users to scrutinize, challenge, and contest AI decisions? Broadly, she is interested in human-centered AI, the development of AI systems that focus on the needs of users, to enhance human abilities and improve human quality of life. With the increasing influence of AI, Veronica's interests are deeply entangled with the development of AI policy. Before starting grad school, she completed her B.Sc. in Honours Mathematics and Computer Science at McGill University, where she also gained industry experience in software development and product management through internships at Microsoft and Huawei.
2023-2024 Cohort
Xiaoyan Fang is a second-year PhD student in Clinical Psychology program under the supervision of Dr. Richard Koestner. Prior to beginning her graduate studies, she was an assistant researcher at the Black Community Resource Centre (BCRC) in Montreal and involved in a few community-based studies examining barriers to healthcare, experiences of interpersonal and systemic discrimination, and psychological well-being of individuals from the English-speaking Black community in Quebec. Building on previous work with the BCRC, her thesis will focus on understanding the relation of intersectional discrimination and psycho-social outcomes for racialized minority and official language minority populations. She will examine the experience of racism and language barrier as potential drivers of intention to leave the province, barriers to healthcare accessibility, and poorer psychological well-being. Besides her thesis research, Xiaoyan also receives clinical training and conduct practicum in psychological assessment and psychotherapy.
Maya Hunter is a Master鈥檚 student in the Department of Political Science, concentrating in International Relations and pursuing the Development Studies Option. Her research interests are broadly in the domains of intractable conflicts, localized peacebuilding, and peace education. For her Master鈥檚 thesis, she is investigating the use of foreign language education as a peacebuilding tool; applying theories of liberatory (Freirean) pedagogies to the context of English language education in Cyprus, the research explores themes of critical education, humanization, and constructivism as they interact with and challenge narratives of ethnic nationalism and the dynamics of protracted conflicts. Prior to entering her graduate studies, she completed dual Bachelor鈥檚 degrees in Political Science (International Relations) and Foreign Languages (French, German, and Turkish) at Eastern Illinois University; since joining the McGill community, she has engaged in research opportunities with the Center for International Peace and Security Studies and delighted in assistant teaching for the Departments of Political Science and International Development.
Anna Palmer is a third-year PhD Epidemiology student under the supervision of Dr. Jill Baumgartner and Dr. Alissa Koski. Anna鈥檚 research interests center around understanding the impact climate change is having on health at a global scale. Her doctoral research applies epidemiologic methods to examine the impact extreme weather events have on the rate of child marriage across the globe. She will also examine the extent to which the impact of extreme weather on child marriage is mediated by agricultural yield. Prior to entering her PhD studies, Anna completed a Bachelor of Biomedicine at the University of Melbourne, and a Master of Mathematical Sciences at the Australian National University. Throughout her studies, she has worked on a wide array of projects from infectious disease modelling and resource optimization.
Vanessa Seto is a rehabilitation sciences PhD student in the Faculty of Medicine with the School of Physical and Occupational Therapy. She is under the supervision of Dr. Laurence Roy.聽 Her doctoral work is focused on working to end women's homelessness by co-developing and co-evaluating whole-person gender-specific post-shelter supports to help homeless women and their children transition out of a shelter and into autonomous living without falling back into cyclical homelessness. Her research is taking place within Project Lotus, a community-based participatory research project, under the auspices of a multi-stakeholder advisory committee made up of members from Montreal community organizations working in women's homelessness and of women with lived experience. She is looking to developing these supports within Montreal's socio-political landscape, with research interests in program implementation and sustainability, occupational rights, advocacy, and policy. Her interest and expertise in these topics is grounded in her prior work as an occupational therapist clinician at a women's shelter. She obtained her M.Sc and B.Sc in Rehabilitation Sciences - Occupational Therapy from McGill University, Montreal, Canada.聽
Ziyue Wang is currently a PhD candidate in Family Medicine and Primary care at McGill University. He is working with Dr. Howard Bergman and Dr. Isabelle Vedel. His research at McGill focuses on two main concentrations: (1) Social & Behavioral Health Sciences in elderly care: Understanding of older individuals' priorities, values, and beliefs related to health and medical care is crucial for providing people-centered health care. Ziyue is interested in investigating how these psychosocial and cultural factors shape people鈥檚 medical decision-making processes in low resources settings; (2) Program evaluation in primary care: Ziyue has extensive research experiences in evaluating the complex interventions for quality improvement in primary care, especially the impact of continuing professional development for primary care providers. Prior to joining McGill, Ziyue received his MSc degree in Health Policy and Management from China Center for Health Development Studies, Peking University Health Science Center (CCHDS, PKUHSC). He also holds his bachelor鈥檚 degree from Fudan University, School of Public Health and a double degree in economics from Peking University, National School of Development (NSD). He also served as an anonymous reviewer for the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, Social Science and Medicine, and other high impact journals.
Sacha Williams聽(she/her) is a Jean Martin Laberge Global Pediatric Surgery Fellow and second year PhD student under the supervision of Dr. Dan Poenaru in the Department of Surgical and Interventional Sciences. Her research examines the impact of gender on pediatric surgical access and outcomes in Africa. She will explore the influences of various social and structural barriers with African stakeholders for mitigation. Sacha obtained a MD from Ross University, a MPH (Maternal and Child Health) from the University of Massachusetts, and a MS (Biotechnology) from Johns Hopkins University. She was a Pediatric Surgery Research Fellow at Johns Hopkins and studied Global Surgery at the University of Oxford. Sacha is strongly committed to health equity, social justice, and serving marginalized communities.