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MSc and PhD students are required to have a confirmed supervisor prior to application. Please note that MPH applicants are not required to select a supervisor.
A supervisor must be a continuing SFU faculty member at the rank of assistant professor or above. Please note that lecturers cannot supervise students.
In your application, explain how your educational, research, and/or career experiences prepared you for your selected area of research and align with your senior supervisor’s research interests. You are required to describe the general area(s) of research interest, but a full research proposal is not required.
You can find more information about applying for graduate studies, finding a supervisor, and what supervisors look for in their students on the Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies website.
HOW DO I IDENTIFY A POTENTIAL SUPERVISOR?
• Determine research area you would like to investigate
• Identify a faculty member who is conducting research related to your area of interest
• Reach out and see if they are available to supervise you
WHAT DOES A SUPERVISOR LOOK FOR IN A STUDENT?
• Evidence of academic performance
• Research potential
• Evidence of ability to perform at the graduate level
• Leadership skills
HOW DO I APPROACH A POTENTIAL SUPERVISOR?
Select a supervisor you would like to work with and send them an email including:
• A resume or CV
• A brief statement of research intent
• Your academic transcript
Actively recruiting supervisors:
Bohdan Nosyk
The Health Economic Research Unit (HERU) at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, led by Dr. Bohdan Nosyk, is seeking quantitatively-oriented MPH, MSc and PhD students with interests in health services research, health economics, and the analysis of linked health administrative databases. BCCfE-HERU is a multidisciplinary team of health economists, statisticians and public health researchers. Our program of research focuses primarily on statistical and cost-effectiveness analysis related to health service delivery in HIV/AIDS, substance use disorders and viral hepatitis. More information can be found here.
Applicants must meet the minimum requirements for admission to the MSc or PhD program in the Faculty of Health Sciences; have strong quantitative experience, and preferably experience using SAS, R or similar; have a strong academic record; and have excellent oral and written communication skills.
Interested applicants can send an email with CV and transcripts to bohdan_nosyk@sfu.ca
Ralph Pantophlet
The Pantophlet Lab is seeking bright and highly self-motivated students wishing to pursue a graduate degree in vaccine immunology pertaining to SARS coronaviruses, HIV-1, influenza or HCMV. Applicants must meet minimal requirements for admission to the PhD program in the Faculty of Health Sciences, have demonstrable training in microbiology, immunology or a closely related discipline and hands-on research laboratory work experience beyond laboratory courses.
William Hsiao
Dr. Hsiao’s group combines semantic web technologies with genomics technologies to address infectious disease challenges and improve public health practices. His team is currently leading the data harmonization effort for the national SARS-CoV-2 genomic epidemiology initiative to ensure genomic data and relevant contextual information are efficiently managed for public health surveillance and for downstream epidemiological and virology research. They apply text-mining, ontology, and other “knowledge engineering” technics to achieve this goal. His team also applies high-throughput sequencing technologies to study microbes and their environments. His team is always looking for self-motivated and friendly students and postdoctoral fellows to join their diverse team. Students with backgrounds or interest in public health, infectious diseases, bioinformatics, genomics, microbiology, and computer science are encouraged to apply.
Interested applicants can send an email including a cover letter (introduce yourself, your academic background and interests), transcripts, and CV to wwhsiao@sfu.ca.
Kanna Hayashi
Dr. Hayashi is looking for students wishing to pursue an MSc or PhD degree or postdoctoral research in her program of research that primarily focuses on observational research on illicit drug use and seeks to inform public health-oriented and evidence-based approaches to drug policy and programming. Areas of particular interests include harm reduction, decriminalization of drug use, substance use treatment, substance use and social epidemiology, human rights, community-based research, and qualitative research. Applicants must meet minimum requirements for admission to the MSc or PhD program at the Faculty of Health Sciences, have a strong academic record, and have excellent oral and written communication skills.
Interested applicants can send an email including a cover letter (including a brief introduction of yourself, your academic background and relevant experiences, and research topics of your interest), transcripts, and CV to: kanna_hayashi@sfu.ca
Graeme Koelwyn
The Koelwyn lab is looking for motivated and enthusiastic graduate students with an interest in translational research in exercise and disease pathogenesis. Our lab specifically studies how exercise induces adaptations across the metabolic and inflammatory-immune axis to improve outcomes in individuals at risk for, or diagnosed with, cardiopulmonary disease and cancer. We utilize a variety of experimental tools from molecular to systems biology, across mouse models and patients, to determine the mechanisms through which exercise protects from these diseases. See here for a list of publications to date.
The lab is uniquely positioned across the Centre for Heart Lung Innovation (HLI) and SFU to maximize translational impact. HLI, where our lab is located, is situated within Providence Health Care’s St. Paul’s Hospital, a UBC teaching hospital in downtown Vancouver. HLI is a world-leading research centre that connects basic science and clinical research across heart, lung and critical care disease. The lab also has access to SFU and UBC’s research and educational infrastructure, enabling cutting-edge approaches, specialized coursework, and diverse collaborative opportunities for trainees.
Applicants should demonstrate strong critical thinking ability and communication skills. Special consideration will be given to applicants with previous experience in immunology, preclinical model systems, exercise physiology and/or computational biology.
Interested applicants can send an email including a brief introduction of yourself, academic background and research topics of interest, as well as transcripts and CV to: gkoelwyn@sfu.ca
Elizabeth King
Dr. King is an Infectious Diseases physician and Assistant Professor with the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University. She is looking for motivated and enthusiastic graduate students with an interest in quantitative research in women’s health outcomes. Dr. King’s research program seeks to understand and diminish health inequities experienced by women living with HIV with a specific focus on aging. Areas of particular interest include menopausal care for women with HIV, including use of hormone therapy, pharmacotherapy of antiretrovirals and impact of aging, and aging-related comorbidities. Applicants must meet minimum requirements for admission to the MSc or PhD program at the Faculty of Health Sciences, have a strong academic record, and have excellent oral and written communication skills.
Interested applicants can send an email including cover letter (include introduction of yourself, your academic background, relevant experiences and research interests), transcripts, and CV to: elizabeth_king@sfu.ca.
Hasina Samji
Dr. Hasina Samji is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University and a Senior Scientist at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control. She is an infectious disease epidemiologist trained at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health with expertise in the design and implementation of observational cohort studies and analysis of large administrative health databases. Dr. Samji’s main research interest is how synergistic epidemics, or “syndemics,” of illnesses like HIV, HCV, and mental illness and substance use disorder interact with contextual factors like poverty and early life trauma to create mutually reinforcing clusters of epidemics among populations, resulting in poorer access to healthcare and outcomes across the life course.
Dr. Samji leads the Capturing Health and Resilience Trajectories Lab (CHART Lab) which implements the Youth Development Instrument (YDI), an interdisciplinary study measuring predictors of positive youth well-being, mental health, and development in high school students in collaboration with the Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP-UBC), community, clinical and policy partners, and youth themselves. The YDI elucidates upstream skill-development and structural supports for mental illness prevention and positive trajectories for young people. She is also the co-Principal Investigator of the Personal Impacts of COVID-19 Survey (PICS) study in partnership with Anxiety Canada and BC Children’s Hospital to measure the population-level mental health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. Samji is accepting applications from masters and doctoral students with a background in epidemiology, psychology, and/or adolescent development with a focus on mental health promotion, prevention, and social determinants of mental health. Dr. Samji welcomes students who thrive in a collaborative and interdisciplinary work environment. Students must possess excellent written and spoken communication skills, a strong academic track record, and work well in a team. Experience working with quantitative data is preferred. To apply, please send a cover letter, your academic CV, and university transcripts to ydi@sfu.ca.
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