The first doctoral graduate of an international partnership at York University, Milipaak Japiong, feels his milestone was a shared achievement.
“It was like it was not just a PhD for me,” he says.
The accomplishment, he notes, extends to his family and community in Ghana, but also represents a defining moment for a partnership between York’s School of Nursing in the Faculty of Health and the University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS) in Ho, Ghana. The initiative – Advancing Scholarship and Capacity for Emerging Nursing Doctorates (ASCEND @ York) – aims to strengthen graduate-level nursing education and address critical health challenges.
ASCEND grew from work in the 2010s by Beryl Pilkington, now professor emeritus at York, who developed research collaborations in Ghana’s nursing sector and connected with UHAS. Through her work, Pilkington identified a critical need: Ghana had few universities offering master’s or doctoral nursing programs and not enough PhD-prepared nurse educators. Limited research support and practical barriers, such as funding or time away from work, made advanced study challenging. With a government mandate requiring public university faculty to hold PhDs, ASCEND was created to address these gaps.
“We wanted to support faculty members from UHAS by creating a partnership where we could help develop capacity at the master’s and PhD level,” says Christine Kurtz Landy, associate professor in the School of Nursing who supervised Japiong.
In 2019, York and UHAS formalized the partnership through a memorandum of understanding, admitting two qualified UHAS faculty into York’s PhD Nursing program every year for three years. It would be supported by the Dean of the Faculty of Health's office and the School of Nursing graduate program.
Japiong, a UHAS faculty member since 2016 with an MSc in advanced nursing practice, was among the first to apply. “I felt York was the right environment to gain the knowledge and experience I needed to make an impact,” he says.
Once in Canada, Landy mentored Japiong and recognized his appetite for learning and eagerness to seize every opportunity. She immersed him in mixed-methods research, research ethics, systematic reviews and knowledge mobilization. The goal was to prepare him to train future health services nurses and equip him to take on doctoral research.
Rooted in his interest to improve health care access for patients with chronic illness in low-resource settings, like Ghana, Japiong’s dissertation examined barriers to hemodialysis. In Ghana, kidney transplants are unavailable, peritoneal dialysis is rare and hemodialysis is limited and costly.
Japiong conducted this research in Ghana, drawing on interviews with patients, nurses, physicians and hospital administrators to gain a comprehensive understanding of the barriers and offer actionable solutions. “If you do research, you need to provide a way forward,” he says.
His research aligned with ASCEND’s purpose: to train doctoral-level nurses and equip them to address pressing global health challenges, ideally in their communities. Landy notes, “We were very cognizant that we didn’t want to entice people to stay in Canada once they were done. We wanted them to return to Ghana,” noting Japiong’s commitment to apply his learning back home. Landy sees big potential for impact through Japiong’s work. “He sees a huge need to advocate for government support for dialysis,” she says. “He really wants to see hemodialysis more accessible to the population.”
In September, Japiong shared he had succesfully defended his dissertation through a Facebook post. He began it with a quote from John S. Mbiti, a Kenyan philosopher and theologian: “I am because we are, and since we are, therefore I am.” For Japiong, the words captured how he saw the milestone as a shared achievement made possible through the support of his family, his Ghanian community and the ASCEND partnership that guided him through his doctoral journey.
Japiong says earning his PhD at York is “a dream come true,” and expresses gratitude for the funding and mentorship that made it possible. “This has greatly impacted my life,” he says.
Today, he is paying that impact forward. Japiong is advocating for earlier screening and treatment for chronic conditions and is helping to expand access to dialysis through pilot programs under Ghana’s health insurance system. He is also preparing to teach and mentor the next generation of nurses at UHAS, contributing to ASCEND’s mandate to strengthening graduate nursing education in Ghana.
“He’s a tremendous success story,” Landy says.
And, the program’s impact is growing, strengthening PhD capacity at UHAS and building on international research partnerships. A second student is expected to defend a PhD in 2026, and five more scholars are enrolled, supervised by Catriona Buick, graduate program director for the School of Nursing.
Japiong’s graduation marks a milestone for ASCEND as its first doctoral graduate. His achievement establishes a precedent for future scholars from Ghana and reflects York University’s role in supporting health care education through international collaboration and mentorship.