Two UCalgary students selected for prestigious Fulbright Canada Killam Fellowship Program

Two students from the University of Calgary are travelling to the United States for a fall semester after being chosen for the Killam Fellowships Program, for young leaders pursuing an undergraduate degree.

Killam Fellowship award winner Michelle Leong, from the UCalgary Bachelor of Health Sciences program in the Cumming School of Medicine, is heading to Bridgewater State University (BSU) in Massachusetts. She is passionate about health care, and hopes to attend medical school and become a clinician-researcher.  She is already involved with research projects at UCalgary; one involves researching the long-term effects of folic acid in mice and how it affects embryonic development on a cellular and genetic level. The other project looks at regional differences in TIA and minor stroke care in Alberta emergency departments.

During her fall semester at BSU, Leong will take a number of cultural/medical anthropology and public health courses. “I am looking forward to exchanging ideas with my peers and professors who are from a different culture and health system than myself,” she says. “These courses will hopefully expand my perception on what health and disease means outside of the biomedical perspective.”

Killam Fellowship award winner Anastasiya Lazarenko, from the UCalgary Faculty of Science, is heading to the Towson University in Maryland. Lazarenko is a computer science major and her motivation for the exchange is to learn about industry cybersecurity initiatives. Her fall courses at Towson University include cryptography, and application software security. She will also join their cybersecurity student club.

“Apart from professional development, I am also looking forward to personal development that will arise from being an exchange student, living in a new country, and being immersed in a different culture,” says Lazarenko. “Killam also encourages its fellows to be exemplary students and ambassadors of their country, which provides motivation for me to get involved at my host university.”

Fulbright Canada announced the 2018-2019 cohort of Fulbright Scholars, Fulbright Students, and Killam Fellows earlier this summer. These prestigious awards are given to university students and professors to enhance mutual understanding between people in the United States and Canada.

The University of Calgary will also have four Fulbright Canada winners on campus this year.

This year’s visiting scholars are:

• Fulbright scholar, Dr. Yonn Dierwechte, PhD, University of Washington – Tacoma
  Fulbright Canada Research Chair in Social and Environmental Implications of Smart Cities
  Project title: Making Smart Growth “Smarter”?
• Fulbright scholar, Dr. Jacqueline Leonard, PhD, University of Wyoming
  Fulbright Canada Research Chair in STEM Education 
  Project title: Computational Thinking, Indigenous Culture, and Digital Game Design
• Fulbright scholar Dr. James L. Sorensen, PhD, University of California, San Francisco
  Fulbright Canada Research Chair in Child and Youth Mental Health 
  Project title: Linking Addiction Treatments and Research: Focus on Ethics
• Killam fellow, Carolina Marques de Mesquita, Arizona State University