2024 CERi Award Announcement

Dr. Catherine D'Andrea is a Professor at SFU’s Department of Archaeology whose research focuses on early agricultural peoples, traditional agricultural knowledge, human ecology and the rise of complex societies in the Horn of Africa. Since 1996, she has directed several field investigations in Africa, most recently the Eastern Tigrai Archaeological Project (ETAP). This project brings together investigators from across the globe to work in partnership with Ethiopian researchers and rural communities to advance our knowledge of the rich past and present cultural heritage of Tigrai, Ethiopia. ETAP approaches to field studies have been undertaken with the direction of Tigrayan academic and government partners and rural communities who wanted to ensure their traditional ways of life were recorded. This has brought the team to under-studied and rural areas of Tigrai, in an effort to build archaeological and cultural heritage capacity in these regions. Over the past two years, ETAP has temporarily set aside archaeological research to assist in the recovery of Tigrai following a devastating conflict which witnessed attacks on civilians and widespread destruction of regional infrastructure, including industries, hospitals, universities and cultural/sacred heritage sites. Our team of Tigrayan and international cultural heritage experts, religious leaders, conservators, architects, and trauma counsellors are united in an effort to use cultural heritage to help communities heal from the violence they experienced during the conflict.

Emily Rose Blyth (she/her) is a fourth year PhD candidate with the Faculty of Health Sciences. She uses arts-based and interdisciplinary approaches to study the differential health impacts related to media exposures to police violence. Her dissertation engages a community of folks who have experienced police violence in order to imagine a more just news reporting style that could promote change in the general public in response to police violence and reduce vicarious media harms in communities of impact. Emily is grateful to explore this work alongside the Unlocking the Gates Services Society with guidance from Indigenous Elders, Peers, and academic mentors at the Transformative Health and Justice Research Cluster and across SFU and Turtle Island. Her work is supported in part by a SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship and Michael Smith Health Research BC. Acknowledging her position as a White settler scholar, Emily is committed to critical structural approaches that connect current police violence to a long and ongoing history of colonialism and racism in Canada.

Joseph Ssendikaddiwa on behalf of Black Support Society – Black Support is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering and celebrating Black communities across British Columbia. With a mission to dismantle systemic barriers and foster holistic health and well-being, Black Support envisions a future where Black communities thrive through equitable access to culturally relevant resources and recognition for their contributions. The organization operates with a dual focus: addressing immediate needs and driving systemic change. Through its flagship platform, Black Central, Black Support provides centralized access to essential services such as healthcare, legal aid, education, housing resources, financial literacy programs, and immigration support. This platform reduces navigation challenges and ensures that individuals can easily connect with the services they need. Black Support's Collective Action Strategy unites service providers, policymakers, funders, and community members to address systemic barriers collaboratively. By leveraging the Public Health Framework and Social Determinants of Health, the organization tackles the root causes of inequities and advocates for sustainable, evidence-based solutions. Founded by SFU alumni Joseph Ssendikaddiwa, Ahmed Lelamo, Tanatswa Mutoko, Germaine Tuyisenge and Black Support integrates community voices to shape initiatives like Black Central, ensuring they align with real needs, a gap that Joseph Ssendikaddiwa found missing in his health services research during his Master’s thesis. The platform fosters collaboration among service providers, maximizing the collective impact to build a future where every Black individual and family in BC can thrive.

Maitland Waddell - Maitland is a Ph.D. student in SFU’s Psychology department’s Intergroup Relations and Social Justice Lab, supervised by Dr. Stephen C. Wright. His research focuses on community-relevant social issues, including his ongoing collaboration with the registered North Vancouver charity Harvest Project and the Making Ends Meet project. As its newly appointed Applied Research Lead, Maitland is guiding Harvest towards its broad goal of becoming an evidence-based organization grounded in behavioral sciences. In this capacity, he has organized knowledge mobilization workshops, conducted one-on-one interviews with members of the Harvest community, and is helping to develop the key health indicators (KHIs) that will shape the organization’s strategic planning. Furthermore, Maitland has been involved with the Making Ends Meet project since 2015, starting as an undergraduate volunteer and continuing it today as part of his Ph.D. research. Making Ends Meet is an experiential learning intervention aimed at challenging poverty stigma, where up to 80 participants take part in a perspective-taking exercise and attempt to "make ends meet" during a simulated month in poverty. Maitland has facilitated and co-facilitated Making Ends Meet with close to 1,300 undergraduate students in Simon Fraser University's Psychology Department. His research demonstrates that Making Ends Meet not only reduces poverty stigma (less blame, more attribution to systemic issues) but also creates allies who support local poverty-reduction efforts. Most importantly, Making Ends Meet has been made possible by the dedication of over 200 undergraduate research assistants, who have volunteered countless hours as the intervention's "service providers" (bank, school, grocery store, etc.), focus group moderators, and data collectors. Many of these volunteers have gone on to become knowledge producers themselves, presenting at international conferences, co-authoring peer-reviewed publications, and applying their experiences to leadership roles in their local communities.

Kayli Jamieson - Kayli is a Master’s student at SFU’s School of Communication. She has co-led community-engaged research with Long COVID patients and their caregivers to address community-identified needs that raise awareness of the impacts of this illness and to address gaps in health system services. She has created and contributed towards multiple research reports and conference presentations to mobilize findings and co-organized an international event (featuring Pulitzer Prize winner Ed Yong) including Long COVID patients, caregivers and clinicians to amplify Long COVID experiences. She has also been a co-applicant on several successful grants including from Michael Smith Health Research BC and Long COVID Web to research ways that can transform current approaches to Long COVID care by further destigmatizing this illness and advocate for more inclusive healthcare practices. In addition to academic work, she consistently advocates on behalf of her community through her social media channels and engages thousands of people each month.

Tyson Singh Kelsall is a PhD candidate at SFU’s Faculty of Health Sciences. As an outreach-based social, worker and emerging community-based health researcher, Tyson co-designed and implemented a multiyear participatory research project in response to demands emerging from the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) membership and staff, related to member experiences of police violence and harassment. Tyson’s primary focus has been co-developing and supporting the operations of 'Police Oversight with Evidence and Research (P.O.W.E.R.),' alongside other members of VANDU and Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society (WAHRS). While doing so, he has translated his own grounded expertise as a registered social worker, and that of VANDU members into published community-oriented media and academic research, and helped push against policies that would increase police discretion, power and violence against many of Vancouver's overlapping communities, such as Bill 34.

Anmol Swaich - Anmol Swaich recently started her PhD student in the Faculty of Health Sciences after completing her MSc Health Sciences in December 2024. She is also the Executive Director of the Surrey Union of Drug Users (SUDU). Anmol has been a leader in bringing issues linked to the drug toxicity crisis within Punjabi and South Asian communities to light, in addition to conducting & publishing research related to the toxic drug crisis. While working at SUDU, Anmol started the SUDU South Asian Committee (SAC) and has spearheaded several language translation activities to advance knowledge translation of drug education and solutions to the crisis, as well as making critical resources accessible to Punjabi and South Asian communities. SAC’s weekly meetings are peer-to-peer and mutual aid-focused, which are well studied as some of the most useful interventions for empowerment within marginalized communities. Under the supervision of Dr. Kanna Hayashi, Anmol will be collaborating with the SAC for her PhD research examining how immigration status and labour conditions influence patterns of unregulated drug use and healthcare access among South Asian tradesmen. Anmol’s scholarly contributions and community engagement illustrate her commitment to not only advancing knowledge, but also translating that knowledge into practical solutions. Her research reflects a deep understanding of the complexities surrounding drug use and the socio-cultural factors at play, positioning them as a thought leader in this field.