Research Week is a celebration of graduate student and postdoctoral fellow research at Queen's and how that research impacts the wider world. Events taking place over the week include the 3-Minute Research competition, UN SDG Research Day, and the 3-Minute Thesis Final.
UN SDG Research Day Presenters
As part of Research Week, students will be sharing their work and how it relates to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and their advancement at Queen' and around the world.
Talk Title: Social Media: A Battlefield for Gendered Political Struggle
About Isabella: Isabella Aung is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Studies at Queen’s University, researching grassroots women’s digital activism in the ongoing anti-authoritarian movement in Myanmar. Her research explores how contemporary authoritarian power is both contested and sustained through social media. She is currently a UBC Myanmar Initiative Fellow. She holds a doctoral scholarship, funded by the Research Network on Women, Peace, and Security (RN-WPS) at McGill University. She also holds a Graduate Research Fellowship at the Centre for International and Defence Policy (CIDP) and the Principal’s International Doctoral Award (PIDA). She has recently been chosen as a Civil War Paths fellow at the University of York and an inaugural Public Scholarship Fellow at Queen's University.
Talk Title: Speaking Across the Disciplinary Borders to Navigate Themes of Environmental Justice
About Sabrina: Sabrina Masud is an international Ph.D. candidate from Bangladesh at the Department of English, specializing in Environmental Humanities and Ecocriticism at Queen’s University. Sabrina's research focus on minority rights, equity, and diversity has led her to take on various roles, including International Commissioner with the Society of Graduate and Professional Students (SGPS), Inclusivity Fellow with the School of Graduate Studies and Post Doctoral Affairs (SGSPA), and a position on the Social Justice Committee with Public Service Alliance Canada (PSAC) at Queen’s University. Complementing her academic pursuits, Sabrina's passion for creative writing led her to serve as Co-Editor-In-Chief for The Lamp, an international graduate literary journal affiliated with Queen’s Department of English.
Talk Title: Collaborative peer interactions of children with severe speech and motor impairments augmented by technology
About Rafael: Rafael Santana is a first-year PhD student in Rehabilitation Science at the School of Rehabilitation Therapy. He has a background in speech and language disorders from his undergrad and postgrad studies. After starting his master’s in Rehabilitation Science in 2022, he got a promotion to the doctoral program following a successful mini-master’s defence a year later, under the supervision of Dr. Beata Batorowicz, from the School of Rehabilitation Therapy.
Talk Title: Potential human exposures to mercury in staple crops from agricultural areas impacted by artisanal small-scale gold mining (ASGM)
About Excellent: I am currently in the second year of my master's program in the Department of Geological Sciences at Queens University, driven by a passion for understanding and mitigating environmental pollution, particularly in developing nations. Working with a local mining community in Nigeria, my current research focuses on investigating human exposure to mercury in staple crops from agricultural areas impacted by Artisanal Small-Scale Gold Mining (ASGM) activities. Additionally, I aim to understand the processes controlling the cycling of mercury in agricultural systems. With a background in Environmental Sciences, my ultimate goal is to employ a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach, integrating natural sciences and social perspectives, to partner with communities in designing and implementing sustainable solutions to environmental challenges.
Talk Title: Facilitating quality experiences for persons with disabilities in physical activity research and practice
About Janet: Janet’s research is focused on understanding and improving the experiences of athletes with disabilities in sport. Specifically, her doctoral work explores classification, the process used to organize athletes with disabilities for competition, and how increased education related to this affects the quality of athletes’ experiences. Past projects have examined the recruitment and retention strategies of powerchair sport organizations as well as common definitions of ‘safe sport’ within the Para sport context. Janet has taught a number of courses at Queen’s University related to physical activity and disability, including HLTH 332, KNPE 336/436, and KNPE 433. Previously, she worked for the Canadian Paralympic Committee and Athletics Canada.
Talk Title: Sankofa and Ubuntu: Rethinking the Role of African Indigenous Knowledges and Philosophies in Research and Global Knowledge Production
About Kenneth: Kenneth is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Faculty of Education, Queen’s University. He has a Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) from the University of Education, Winneba, Ghana, and a Master's degree in Education Policy and International Development from the University of Bristol, UK. He is a Chevening Scholar with several years of experience working in the education sector. Kenneth’s scholarship and research focus on critical curriculum and policy issues, decolonizing education, STEM, African Indigenous knowledge systems and teacher education. He is currently a Research Coordinator at Toronto District School Board (TDSB)–Canada’s largest public school board. In this role, Kenneth is dedicated to researching and supporting initiatives related to shaping education policy and practice, curriculum development, and amplifying the voices of Black and other underrepresented youth in Canadian K-12 education.
Talk Title: Catalyzing Change through Data: Exploring Data Activism in South Africa
About Jordan: Jordan Stark is a PhD candidate in the Department of Global Development Studies at Queen’s University. Before beginning his research at Queen’s, Jordan completed graduate work at the London School of Economics and Leipzig University through the Erasmus Mundus Global Studies Program. His Master’s work explored the implications of digital technology for social movements with a particular focus on the Arab Spring. Before undertaking studies in Europe, Jordan completed an undergraduate degree at Dalhousie University in the fields of International Development Studies and African history.
Talk Title: Mobilizing social and cultural resources to achieve Sustainable Development Goals: A case study of palliative care in Belize
About Erynn: Erynn Monette is an M.D./Ph.D. student at Queen’s University. Drawing on anthropological and community-based participatory methods, Erynn’s research aims to identify unique cultural particularities that exist in rural communities and to integrate them into local health service planning. Her Ph.D. work, supported by an IDRC International Development Research Award and SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship, examines social and cultural resourcing strategies to support community palliative care services in Belize. Erynn’s research interests also include global disease prevention and ethics in global health.
Talk Title: Social Choice Algorithms For Humanitarian Operations
About Peash: Peash Saha is a Ph.D. student and a graduate research assistant at GOAL (Global Optimization, Analytics and Learning) Lab at the School of Computing, Queen's University. His research focus is on the theoretical aspects and applications of fair social choice algorithms for humanitarian operations. He received an NSERC PGS-D scholarship (2023 - 2026) and an OGS scholarship (2022, 2023) for his Ph.D. study. He completed a master's in computer science from the University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada in December 2018. He worked at Portfolio Aid Inc., Toronto, Canada as a Programmer Analyst before joining Queen's University for his Ph.D. in January 2022.
Talk Title: Guideline-recommended breast cancer treatment in people with intellectual or developmental disabilities in Ontario, Canada: A convergent mixed methods study
About Rebecca: Rebecca Hansford is a doctoral student at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. She is working on different projects that explore health conditions affecting people living with intellectual or developmental disabilities. She has worked on projects exploring COVID-19 as well as cancer risk, staging, treatment, and survival. Her doctoral dissertation focuses on understanding breast cancer treatment among people living with intellectual or developmental disabilities. This work includes quantitative and qualitative analyses. In particular, the qualitative part of this study involves interviewing people living with intellectual or developmental disabilities who have experienced breast cancer. Rebecca is passionate about conducting accessible and inclusive research. After her schooling, she plans to continue working on projects that collaborate with people with lived experience across all steps of research, including from project conception to knowledge sharing.
Talk Title: Sustainable Employment to Ensure Sustainable Development
About Ansha: Ansha Nega Ahmed is a doctoral student in Rehabilitation Science at Queen’s University. Ansha has worked in academia for more than a decade. She has ample experience in community development programs through large-scale research and intervention projects in collaboration with national and international partners. Ansha’s research interest and work experiences are related to post-injury return to work, chronic illness rehabilitation, the health of vulnerable groups at work, occupational health and safety, ergonomics and community-based inclusive development. She is particularly interested in improving the quality of life of the working-age population, persons with disability and their families. Ansha is a lifelong learner to advance knowledge and actions. She strongly believes in functional collaboration with like-minded stakeholders to facilitate learning and create a better world for all.
Talk Title: Birds in Cities: An Innovative Community Science Approach
About Islamiat: Dr. Islamiat Abidemi Raji is an urban ecologist with a recent interest in the Human Dimension of Natural Resources. Her work focuses on fostering community participation and inclusiveness in conservation efforts. With a deep love for nature, people, and a commitment to research and fieldwork, she specializes in conducting ecological studies that contribute to understanding the intricate relationships between biodiversity and their environments. Her research interests encompass a wide range of topics, including plant and animal interactions, urban and landscape ecology. Her commitment extends research and academic responsibilities, as she finds fulfillment in youth mentorship and engagement in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion advocacy.
Talk Title: Queering the binary: missing links in conceptualizing gender equality within sustainable development
About Noah: Noah Mirembe Gabigogo is a lawyer and researcher on sexual and gender diversity in Africa. He is a passionate advocate for gender equality and centers his work on dignity, accountability, and human rights protections. Noah has written on the role of strategic litigation in advancing human rights for lesbians and gays in Africa, and contributed as a research assistant to various independent research projects including Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights and on renown feminist scholar Prof. Sylvia Tamale’s book Decolonization and Afrofeminism published by Canadian Daraja Press in 2020. He has contributed to immigration support to LGBT individuals seeking safety and to strengthening organizations capacity to use strategic litigation for legal mobilization for LGBT movements in Nigeria, Tanzania, Malawi, Liberia, Ghana, and Uganda. In 2017, he was arrested and deported by the government of Tanzania along with other lawyer colleagues for this work. He subsequently co-founded the Taala Foundation- an organization that promotes wellness for youth on the margins through mental health, education, and the law.