Since 2016, Christine and David Edwards have sponsored the Christine and David Edwards Travel Award for Graduate Students. As a result, 19 pharmacy graduate students have attended 24 conferences across Canada and the world over the last five years.
Thank you, Edwards family, for being the first line of support for graduate students; the ones who believe in and fund the students before anyone else does. This gift lays the foundation for strong student research profiles at our school for the future.
The Edwards designed the award to support MSc and PhD graduate students to attend conferences both internationally and across Canada. The goal is to enable Waterloo Pharmacy graduate students to showcase their research and promote the dissemination of knowledge across many fields of study. The award provides recognition of student contributions to research within health-care and beyond and helps them afford the costs associated with travel.
“Conferences bring together researchers from all over the world and allow for innovation, deep discussion and networking to occur over just several days,” says Monica Hoang, another PhD candidate and award recipient. “For graduate students, this is an especially beneficial experience as it allows us to connect with other students who are experiencing similar challenges, to scope out collaborations and to bring new ideas back to the lab.”
Monica presenting her research at a conference
With support from the award, graduate students have shared their research at conferences coast-to-coast in Canada, across the United States and in England. Through providing opportunities for research dissemination and networking, Christine and David Edwards help build Waterloo Pharmacy graduate students into the research leaders of tomorrow.
“Because of donors like Christine and David Edwards, students like me can dream to go further in life and try to make this world a better place,” says Yannick Traore, PhD candidate and recipient. “I cannot express my gratitude enough and I hope one day I will be able to help other students as you helped me.”
Thank you to Christine and David Edwards for your ongoing support of this award!
Yannick in the lab