Criminology student Vienna Chichi Lam nominated for the Trudeau Foundation Doctoral Scholarship

SFU Dean of Graduate Studies has just nominated Criminology’s Vienna Chichi Lam for the prestigious Trudeau Foundation Doctoral Scholarship Award. Recognized as one of the top eight graduate candidates at SFU, Lam will be competing at the national stage in the People and the Natural Environment category.  

“Vienna is an amazing scholar who is principal investigator on four major research projects, only one of which is her MA research. She shows tremendous leadership in the clubs and societies that she has founded and her volunteer work. Vienna is also a very highly trained diver which gives her insight into her water-related research projects,” says Professor Gail Anderson, who supervises Lam’s research.

Lam has had an incredible year of scholarly success. This past summer, Lam won the 2016 Canadian Society of Forensic Science Education Award. Under the guidance of Professor Lynne Bell, Lam has expanded the SFU Centre for Forensic Research’s foothold in taphonomic research by creating a satellite field site at University of British Columbia’s Malcolm Knapp Research Forest. Titled “Forensic Taphonomy and Death Investigations in Lacustrine Environments”, Lam aims to develop a new tool for identifying whether submerged skeletal remains have moved post-mortem in water-related death investigations.

At the 2016 American Society of Criminology annual conference, Lam presented her geospatial analysis of suicidal bridge jumping as the chair of the Homicide and Suicide Victimization panel. This research was nominated for the Division of Victimology’s Graduate Paper Award, and has now been submitted for publication. Given her high returns as a graduate student and 4.26 CGPA, she has also won several research awards totalling $4,200 on top of her $34,000 Graduate Fellowship and Funding Package and two Vice-President Research Awards.

Lam is also recognized as a community leader for her volunteerism and active role as a member of the Research Ethics Board (REB), The Teaching Support Staff Union, and Student Ambassador Program. She volunteers as a graduate mentor for SFU’s Voices Against Extremism (VAE) anti-radicalization campaign. As finalists in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe competition, Lam now spends the remainder of her time preparing their team for their presentation in Hamburg, Germany.