PhD students Susan Chiblow, Leigha Comer, Rivka Green, Natasha Henry and Hannah Rackow have been awarded prestigious Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships, receiving $50,000 annually for up to three years to support their research projects.

Vanier Scholars demonstrate leadership skills and a high standard of scholarly achievement in graduate studies in the social sciences and/or humanities, natural sciences and/or engineering and health.

“These research projects will produce results with significant impact, certainly for knowledge within their disciplines, but also for individuals in communities and society at large,” said Thomas Loebel, dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies. “On behalf of the entire graduate community, I want to congratulate each of you on this impressive scholarly achievement.”

A full listing of recipients from across Canada can be found at the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships website.

Ogamauh annag qwe miinwa Waasaunda qwe (Susan Bell Chiblow)
Environmental studies

Chiblow’s research examines humanity’s relationship to water and efforts on improvement for humans, animals, and the waters themselves.

“My work is directly related to environmental justice for Anishinaabek peoples and to the revitalization of Anishinaabek law,” she said.

Chiblow’s research project N’be Kendaaswin (Water Knowledge) focuses on four sub-themes:

1. Water governance and gender – How does Anishinaabek law construct the role of women in decision making about water?
2. Water memory – How does Anishinaabek law understand the relationship between water and memory?
3. Indigenous laws – What responsibilities do humans have under Naaknigewin (law/Anishinaabek legal traditions)?
4. Reconciliation and relationships with water – Can the broader discourse in Canada about reconciliation assist with improving relationships to water?

In addition to offering thanks to family, friends, elders and York University, Chiblow said “a special miigwetch (thank you) to Deborah McGregor for being a friend, a colleague for several years and now my supervisor guiding and encouraging me in this journey. I have come to understand from ceremony and teachings, that the giikendaaswin (knowledge) I have and pursue is not new, what is new is how I implement and live giikendaaswin, so miigwetch to my ancestors for giikendaaswin and miigwetch to the whisper of future generations inspiring me to be a good ancestor.”

Leigha Comer 
Sociology

Comer’s proposed thesis “The Social Organization of Opioid Use for Chronic Pain in Canada” examines the day-to-day lives of individuals using opioids to manage their chronic pain.

“In light of the significant increase of opioid-related deaths and harms in North America – the ‘opioid crisis’ – there has been a series of policy decisions intended to curb opioid use,” said Comer. “The problem with these policies is that they target the use of opioids for chronic pain as a ‘primary pathway’ through which opioids are misused and diverted, and so they criminalize people who need opioids for pain relief without recognizing the complex ways in which they come to use opioids in the first place.”

Comer notes that current policies attribute these individuals as criminals as opposed to vulnerable members of society who have a right to pain relief.

“My goal is to give a voice to people with chronic pain, and to recognize them as key stakeholders in policy decisions targeted at curbing the ‘opioid epidemic.’ I’d like to bring more attention to how people with chronic pain actually come to use opioids for their pain,” she said.

In addition to thanking Department of Sociology faculty and staff members Harris Ali, Pat Armstrong and Audrey Tokiwa, Comer noted her supervisor, Eric Mykhalovskiy, as a steadfast supporter throughout the application process.

“My methodology and my theoretical framework are very much inspired by his work, and in particular his emphasis on producing knowledge for people that will have real impacts on their lives,” she said.

Rivka Green
Psychology

Green’s proposed study “The Tooth Biomatrix: Validation of a Novel Biomarker for Early-Life Fluoride Exposure” will build on her master’s thesis that evaluated the link between prenatal exposure to fluoride and childhood cognitive outcomes.

“I hope to expand on this dataset of about 600 mother-child Canadian pairs for my dissertation research to examine the specific susceptibility of various developmental windows to neurotoxic influences,” she said.

The hope is these results will provide a better understanding of water fluoridation’s safety and contribute to the debate of environmental health more broadly, especially for youth and babies.

“Our research has major implications as the results will inform public health policy and guide decision making regarding prenatal health habits,” she said. “Since our results are pertinent to various groups, including women and their babies, obstetricians, midwives, public health nurses, and policy stakeholders, our group is currently working on a Knowledge Translation project where we are developing effective feedback channels in order to provide Canadians with the capacity to make informed decisions.”

Green is a member of the Till Lab with Professor Christine Till, that applies clinical, epidemiologic, and neuroimaging approaches to understand how cognition and behaviour are impacted in children as a result of insult to the developing brain. She is also affiliated with the LaMarsh Centre for Child & Youth Research and part of The Lillian Meighen and Don Wright Foundation for maternal-child health research, in addition to conducting clinical work at the York University Psychology Clinic.

Natasha Henry
History

Henry’s research assesses the scale and nature of slavery in Upper Canada (early Ontario, 1750-1834) for people of African descent.

“To date, we know very little about Black enslavement in colonial Ontario and the ways the institution linked with the broader transatlantic slave trade,” she said. “What’s more, many prevailing narratives persist which have contributed to the stagnation of the scholarship on slavery and have worked to silence it from our history.”

Henry challenges the accounts that slavery did not take place in Canada, that it was benign, and that it had an inconsequential impact on Canadian history.

“The goal of my research seeks to challenge and transform the dominant sentiments of slavery in early Ontario and to make a significant contribution to the scholarship on slavery in Canada by conducting a quantitative analysis of enslaved Blacks in Upper Canada in conjunction with composing biographically-focused narratives to shed light on the humanity of the enslaved,” she said.

The hope is to create an innovative educational database to better exhibit Canada’s role in the slave trade and the continued aftereffects Canadians of African descent experience in society today.

Henry is the current president of the Ontario Black History Society, an organization dedicated to the study, preservation and promotion of Black history and heritage, and she is affiliated with The Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on Africa and Its Diasporas along with her supervisor Michele Johnson.

Courtesy of YFile.