UVic celebrates four new Vanier scholars and Banting postdoctoral fellow

The University of Victoria is celebrating four outstanding researchers recently announced as 2024 Vanier Canada Graduate Scholars and one prestigious Banting Postdoctoral Fellow.

The five UVic recipients conduct research on an array of relevant and timely issues, including marine habitat protection, Cree language revitalization, 2SLGBTQIA+ Metis-specific culture, variable tissue characteristics in people, and the safe supply of illicit drugs.

The Government of Canada announced 166 recipients of the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships and 70 recipients of the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships on May 29, 2024.

These federal scholarship programs aim to develop world-class research capacity by attracting top-tier postdoctoral research with competitive international funding. Vanier Scholarships are valued at $50,000 per year for three years during doctoral studies. The Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships program provides $70,000 over two years.

This announcement supports UVic’s aspirations in creating and investing in an environment of excellence for graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and early career researchers to further their research goals, and to build the capacity for the next generation of impactful researchers.

2024 Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship recipients

Nancy Henderson (Nursing)

Henderson’s research focuses on the facilitators, barriers and outcomes of non-prescribed safer supply in a large urban centre.

Aren Beagley (Mechanical Engineering)

Beagley aims to develop an extensible statistical and computational modelling framework to study the biomechanical effects of variable tissue properties in healthy and disease affected subjects.

Andrea Custer (Education)

Custer’s research centers on the Cree-English language shift among Cree-speaking parents and implications for language revitalization. 

Lydia Toorenburgh (Anthropology)

Toorenburgh’s research focuses on Métis 2SLGBTQIA+ resurgence and building a cultural bundle with audio-visual methodologies.

2024 Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship recipient

Audrey Looby (Biology)

Audrey Looby, a PhD student from the University of Florida, will join UVic Biology Professor Francis Juanes, Liber Ero Chair for Fisheries Research, and his research team in September 2024 to study marine habitats and mitigation of human-made noise pollution.