Students gather to share food and conversation at the Holiday Mixer sponsored by TUGSA at the University of Waterloo.
TUGSA purpose
The Tri-University Graduate Student Association (TUGSA) was established in 2007 to help bring together the graduate students from the three universities of the Tri-University Graduate Program in History. Our organization has three primary goals:
- foster student community
- maintain communication among the three departments and their students
- strengthen the connections among the three universities.
We hold a variety of different social and academic events throughout the year that rotate between Waterloo and Guelph, providing every student with an equal opportunity to participate in the growth and success of the Tri-University student community.
In 2023 we began an initiative that highlights student research. This initiative will continue in Winter 2026.
2026-27 TUGSA Co-Presidents
University of Guelph
University of Waterloo
Wilfrid Laurier University
Aidan Hughes is a PhD candidate in his second year. He is interested in the histories of performance-enhancing drugs, body cultures, and masculinities. Aidan’s doctoral work examines the Dubin Inquiry and the ways in which athletes perceived and justified their own anabolic steroid use at a time when the anti-doping movement was gaining considerable moral currency. Aidan spends his free time weightlifting and boxing.
Christine Trivino is a PhD student working with Dr. Andrew Hunt. She is interested in United States history with particular emphasis on cultural developments, gender history, and the role of the celebrity in the 1950s-1970s. Her current research will explore how female celebrities became political figures and how their varying access to public space shaped their contributions to activism. Christine spends her free time reading, hiking, and baking.
Brian Gibb is a Ph.D. candidate and is originally from northern Ontario. His research interests include European expansion in the early-modern period, global history and political economy. He hopes to research resistance to British and French customs and tariffs in the Channel Islands in the mid-eighteenth century. He also works in harm reduction and is an advocate for people who use substances, and helps them do so safely.