Harrison Oakes was recently awarded the Governor General's Gold Medal for Highest Standing in a Doctoral Program. Our newly minted Dr. Oakes' thesis was entitled Closets breed suspicion: Environments that stigmatize concealable identities raise doubts about claims to contrasting non-stigmatized identities. You can read more about Harrison's research and path to his achievement on the Waterloo Stories page.
Dr. Oakes shared his thoughts on the award:
Awards like this are not achieved on the merit of one person's work alone. Harrison would like to express his deep gratitude and indebtedness to the many people who supported him on his unorthodox journey through his PhD. In particular, he would like to thank his supervisor, Richard Eibach, for the privilege of working with him and for the incredible mentorship, inspiration, and support he provided Harrison; Hilary Bergsieker for her world-class training, mentorship, and support; and Abby Scholer for reaching out to show him a world of opportunity in crafting his identity as a scholar. He would also like to deeply thank Corey Johnson and Lisbeth Berbary for investing so much of themselves in nurturing his academic knowledge and training outside psychology