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Graduate Convocation Medal Award Winners 2023
Congratulations to this year’s Convocation Medal winners! They will receive their awards at each of their convocation ceremonies June 6-9, 2023.
Governor General’s Gold Medals
The Governor General’s Gold Medals are awarded to the two SFU graduate students who achieve the highest academic standing upon graduation from a master’s or doctoral degree program.
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Dr. Hyomin Choi completed his PhD in the School of Engineering Science in the Faculty of Applied Sciences where his pioneering work is being adopted as international standards in the field of AI-based video compression.
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Dr. Natalie Kinloch completed her PhD in the Faculty of Health Sciences where her work in understanding HIV genetic diversity led to improvements for a gold-standard test for measuring HIV in infected individuals.
Dean of Graduate Studies Convocation Medals
The Convocation Medals for graduate studies recognize graduating students from each faculty whose cumulative grade-point averages place them in the top five per cent of their class.
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Dr. Lovedeep Gondara completed his PhD in the School of Computing Science in the Faculty of Applied Sciences working on enhancing machine learning performance while using decentralized data and ensuring that data privacy is intact
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Dr. Xiaolin Sun completed her PhD in the Department of Economics where she explored the mechanisms behind social programs, for instance, investigating the effects of electricity grids on employment and healthcare programs on expenditure to demonstrated the power of econometrics in comprehending intricate systems and informing evidence-based decision-making.
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Tiara Cash completed her master's degree in the Department of Psychology where she researched the relationship between life transitions and everyday acts of kindness as a strategy for boosting well-being in first-year university students.
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Melennia Point completed her master's degree in the Beedie School of Business in the Indigenous Business Leadership Executive MBA program.
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Dr. Suk Kyoung Choi completed her PhD in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology where she used artificial intelligence to examine the displacement of embodiment by technology and the implications of that displacement for the development of human-centered AI.
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Dr. Natalie Frandsen completed her PhD in the Faculty of Education where she researched accessible and inclusive education for post-secondary students with mental-health-related disabilities who are undertaking their studies online.
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Dr. Tanya Behrisch completed her PhD in the Faculty of Education where she focused on how mastery relates to strangeness—that is, anything we encounter as threatening or uncertain.
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Dr. Hilda Fernandez-Alvarez completed her Geography PhD in the Faculty of Environment where her research looked into the challenges of providing trauma services, demonstrating that community practices supporting mental health are limiting the ability to support people’s psychological and social needs.
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Dr. Miranda Louwerse completed her PhD in the Department of Chemistry where her research resulted in her creating a novel theory that provides a quantitative perspective on the concept of the “reaction coordinate” that is central to chemical reaction theory.
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Dr. Dennis Yu Liu completed his PhD in the Department of Chemistry where he developed an assay to study vulnerabilities unique to drug-resistant bacteria and discovered new bioactive compounds that specifically target these bacteria and can act in combination with major antibiotics to suppress the emergence of drug resistance.