$180,000 Each to Tackle Today's Critical Social Issues

MONTREAL - The careers of fifteen young PhD students got a turbo-charge today, thanks to $2.7 million worth of scholarships bestowed upon them by the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. The Trudeau Scholarships, worth up to $180,000 each, will help the students advance research on crucial topics such as affordable housing, gambling addiction, water supply management, assistance to refugees, and health worker migration. The Scholars are all actively engaged in their fields and expected to become leading national and international authorities on issues that affect local and global societies.

The 2009 Trudeau Scholars are:

- Martine August (Planning, University of Toronto) researches gentrification, affordable shelter, and other implications of recent approaches to replace public housing in Toronto.

- Jonas-Sébastien Beaudry (Law, Harvard University) is examining social exclusion in Latin America with a view to promote equality and better integration of various social groups.

- Magaly Brodeur (Public Policy Analysis and Management, Ecole nationale d'administration publique) studies the social responsibility of the Quebec lottery board and other stakeholders in the prevention of pathological gambling for the elderly.

- Kathryn Chan (Law, McGill University) is looking into ways to modernize the law to better support or regulate voluntary and not-for-profit organizations in Canada.

- Isabelle Chouinard (Health Services Research, University of Calgary) is consulting with various healthcare professionals to develop a framework for a more ethical care.

- Simon Collard-Wexler (Political Science, Columbia University) is focusing on arms control agreements and violations, and on how Canada can help develop more effective policies.

- Christopher Cox (Linguistics, University of Alberta) is working on an approach to document endangered languages, especially Plautdietsch, the traditional language of the Mennonites, which is still spoken in some communities in Canada.

- Tamil Kendall (Interdisciplinary, University of British Columbia) is exploring how to improve mother-to-child HIV prevention in Mexico.

- Jean-Michel Landry (Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley) is studying Christian fundamentalism in the United States, and especially how some forms of exclusion and intolerance take root in religious experience.

- Laura Madokoro (History, University of British Columbia) is exploring the shifting conceptions and politics that govern aid and assistance to refugees in Canada and abroad.

- Lindsey Richardson (Sociology, University of Oxford) is studying the impact of employment on injection drug users' well-being, social inclusion and health.

- Mark Lawrence Santiago (Human Geography, University of British Columbia) aims to contribute to improved policies towards an ethical and sustainable recruitment of Filipino health workers in Canada.

- Jeremy Schmidt (Geography, University of Western Ontario) is focused on the ethical values of water users to inform an updated water policy in Alberta, in a context of potential water crisis.

- Lisa Szabo (English and Film Studies, University of Alberta) wants to use Canadian poetry to cultivate and sustain affiliation and care for the local environment.

- David Theodore (Architecture and Urban Planning, Harvard University) is studying the architecture of healthcare buildings as a form of medical technology influencing health care.

"Trudeau Scholarships not only accelerate the careers of those who receive them, but also enable recipients to make a significant contribution to Canada and to Canadians. We reward excellence and provide young doctorate students with the best conditions to ground their work in the real world," said Foundation President P.G. Forest.

The annual $60,000 bursaries, for up to four years, subsidize tuition fees and living expenses and allow the Scholars to travel for research and scholarly networking and knowledge dissemination. The Trudeau Scholarships are the most generous awards of their kind in Canada.

In addition to receiving financial support, Trudeau Scholars benefit from the expertise and knowledge of Trudeau Fellows and Mentors, highly accomplished individuals in the Trudeau Foundation community who lead in both academic and non-academic settings. Interaction with non-academic milieus, including public policy networks and the public at large, is a key component of the Trudeau Scholarship program.

The Foundation's Summer Institute, held May 18-22 this year in Gananoque in the heart of the Thousand Islands, will be the new Scholars' first introduction to the Trudeau Community.