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Fall 2020 Graduate Fellows

Jasleen Bains

Jasleen Bains is a second-year master’s student in the School of Communication at SFU. Her research examines the relationship between mainstream representations of racialized youth in Surrey and the implementation of community-based education spaces that provide a space for young people to imagine beyond the borders of zero-tolerance policies. As a resident of Surrey and a member of the South-Asian community, Jasleen is working from a standpoint of situated knowledge as she strives to advance community engaged research in this space.

Marina Chávez

Marina Chávez is a Master’s student in the Department of Geography. She is focused on understanding the law’s role in the regulation and social construction of poverty.  Marina has worked in research and activism on homeless encampment enforcement in  California and uses her experiences to continue to advocate and collaborate with activists seeking housing and economic justice. Currently, she is working on a project related to the regulation of SRO Tenant possessions in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Her goal is to pursue transparent peer-based research that centers participant voices.

Belen Febres-Cordero

Belen Febres-Cordero is a PhD Candidate in the School of Communication at SFU. Belen's research aims to co-create participatory spaces for self-representation and social change. Belen's doctoral project collaborates with community media and with women who have migrated from rural parts of Ecuador to the country’s capital city to share experiences and perceptions of wellbeing and health.

Jaimy Fischer

Jaimy Fischer is a doctoral candidate in her second year of study in the Faculty of Health Sciences. Jaimy's research interests span active transportation, GIScience, and mobility justice—a grounding for understanding the differential ways people experience transportation and street safety. As a Michif (Métis) researcher, Jaimy aspires to build relations with Indigenous communities, community service providers, and youth to advance equity and amplify Indigenous perspectives on what constitutes safe and healthy mobility.

Samantha Jung

Samantha Jung is a second year master’s student in the School of Resource and Environmental Management (Planning). For her research, she is working in partnership with the Kitselas First Nation to create a food asset map that employs the use of Photovoice, a socially innovative and novel qualitative framework that centres the perspectives of community members to advance systemic and sustainable solutions for tackling local food insecurity through photography and storytelling. She is currently a research assistant with the Food Systems Lab and is a planning intern with the First Nations Health Authority.

Zubia Mansoor

Zubia Mansoor is a second-year graduate researcher in statistics at SFU, supervised by Dr. Lloyd T. Elliott. Her research primarily focuses on machine learning methods and their applications. She is currently exploring the impact of out-of-distribution data on the performance of deep neural networks. Apart from that, she is also working as a CANSSI research assistant on COVID-19 host genetics to assess the power of association studies, and how to control such studies for variables such as ethnicity and socioeconomic status that may correlate with genetics and severity. She hopes that her research can direct the genetics community towards important results and address community needs by answering relevant questions.

Jennifer McDermid

Jenn McDermid is a second year MA student in the public policy program, with a focus on health policy. She is interested in community-based, participatory-action methods, and evidence-based policy, focusing predominately on the health impacts of punitive laws and policies related to sex and sexuality, and the intersection between criminalization, stigma and discrimination. 

Katherine Nichols

Katherine L. Nichols is pursuing a doctoral degree at SFU. She is enrolled in an interdisciplinary program that allows her to work with faculty in the departments of Indigenous Studies and Archaeology and is affiliated with the Centre for Forensic Research. Her current work stems from research started during her MA at the University of Manitoba done in partnership with Sioux Valley Dakota Nation, which focuses on locating cemeteries at the Brandon Indian Residential School in Manitoba.

Jason Proulx

Jason Proulx is a first year PhD student in the department of Psychology. Jason's research focuses on promoting prosociality, social connection, and happiness in the community. Jason has collaborated closely with non-profits, educators, and coaches to examine youth-based prosociality programs--from multi-generational classrooms to philanthropy education programs. Jason aims to understand whether and how these programs can enhance youth prosocial development and social-emotional well-being. 

Daniel Rajasooriar

Daniel Rajasooriar is a second-year master’s student in the Resource and Environmental Planning Program. As a Graduate Research Fellow with the Community-Engaged Research Initiative and a Graduate Research Assistant with the Food Systems Lab, Daniel is working in collaboration with the BC Poverty Reduction Coalition on the “Getting Around to Feed Ourselves Well” project. The project explores the intersection of access to transit and food security for users of nonprofit food hubs in the City of Vancouver before and during the COVID-19 crisis. He holds a Bachelor of Arts Honours degree in Geography from Simon Fraser University.

Claire Shapton

Claire Shapton is a second year Master’s student in the Geography Department within the Faculty of Environment at Simon Fraser University. She is interested in the intersections of housing justice, feminist ecologies, animals, and governance. She began to explore community engaged research as an intern and researcher with an anti-displacement movement in her home of Portland, Oregon. Her current academic work analyzes the logics of property and multi-species housing precarity in Abbotsford, BC with the activist group the Drug War Survivors.

Joseph M. Ssendikaddiwa

Joseph M. Ssendikaddiwa is a second-year graduate student in the Faculty of Health Sciences pursuing his MSc. in Health Sciences particularly focused on health systems/services research. Joseph uses administrative data to study patterns of access to care among immigrant and minority groups in Canada. He also uses of internet search data like Google trends to map population patterns of health service use and resultant policy implications.

Sage Vanier

Sage Vanier is a master’s student in the department of Archaeology at SFU. As a member of the Faculty of Environment, her research focuses on past human-plant interactions, the persisting ecological legacies that these interactions leave on the landscape today, and how this data can challenge and inform current archaeological theory and practice. She seeks to utilize community-derived and community-oriented approaches that reconnect and strengthen ties to land and heritage.