Forum’s latest awardees in developing skilled future leaders in strengthening health and social systems

The McMaster Health Forum is pleased to announce the latest awardees of our Developing Skilled Future Leaders in Strengthening Health and Social Systems project: Annie Xiong, Kenneth Chen, Maureen Saha, Nujud Al-Jabouri and Stella Ross.

Annie, Maureen, Nujud and Stella will be travelling to South Africa to spend five weeks with our partners at the Pan-African Collective for Evidence (PACE) assisting with various projects including a project on gender-based violence and artificial intelligence in South Africa and a project on designing a learning platform for capacity-building for evidence-use. All four awardees working with our partners in South Africa will learn the research processes of health policy with an additional exposure to stakeholders and how they are engaged in health policy research.

Kenneth will be travelling to Australia to work with the Prevention Research Collaboration at the University of Sydney’s School of Public Health as well as the Implementation Science Academy with Sydney Health Partners. Through his internship, Kenneth will develop a better understanding of the processes used to inform decisions within public health, both from the researcher side as well as from the public health professional side.

Funded by Global Skills Opportunity, part of Canada’s International Education Strategy, this multi-year project aims to diversify the destination countries typically made available to students and are geared towards students who have been typically under-represented in international study/work programs. Over the next four years, the Forum will facilitate meaningful international experiences through this opportunity for 40 undergraduate students by integrating them into projects focused on real-world initiatives.

Students will gain a foundation of knowledge by working alongside senior scientific staff to support the Forum’s programs, which use the best-available research evidence to generate action on the pressing health- and social- system issues of our time. Participants will then apply this foundational knowledge by working with one of McMaster’s international research partners through an internship or applied research position in a health and medical research institute, government ministry or research organization setting.

To stay connected with our Global Skills Opportunity awardees, follow @McMasterForum on Twitter.

Read more about the Global Skills Opportunity program offered by the Forum.