Vanier scholarships for five UVic students

Five UVic PhD students received Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships this year, the highest number so far. The Government of Canada’s Vanier Scholarship program attracts and retains world-class doctoral students and helps establish Canada as a global centre of excellence in research and higher learning. Each scholarship is worth $50,000 per year for three years.

Richard Tuck, a first-year Gill PhD student in UVic’s Gustavson School of Business, will be using the funds to support his research into alleviating poverty through microfinance. Tuck is doing a study among micro-entrepreneurs in Aboriginal communities in Canada’s North and in Indonesia and Honduras. His work in Nicaragua and Costa Rica has led him to believe the cultural context is not given due consideration. “The [training] materials I’ve seen … may be completely foreign to the individual’s experience. Does it make sense in Indonesia, for example, to use a piggy bank as a symbol for saving money?” he asks. Tuck hopes the outcome of his research will lead to more effective training, improved policy and more efficient use of aid dollars.

Marcelo Luiz Brocardo (electrical and computer engineering) is developing methods to allow the identification of “the author behind a keyboard,” specifically, to extract information regarding the linguistic style that is employed during writing—referred to as stylometry—in order to create a profile of a given user. “With the growth of the internet and its anonymity,” he says, “such technology is essential for the continuous verification of the true identity of a writer as well as the identification of potential hackers.”

Paweena Sukhawathanakul (psychology) is evaluating the role of social responsibility in protecting young children against peer victimization. As part of the WITS® peer victimization prevention program, she hopes to better understand how helping Canadian children develop norms of social responsibility may reinforce positive social contexts that reduce peer victimization. Sukhawathanakul points out that social responsibility “can be fostered through family values, school settings, and community characteristics.”

Saurabh Chitnis (chemistry) is doing research at the frontiers of inorganic chemistry. “Most of our knowledge about chemistry revolves around carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen,” says Chitnis, “and these elements have given us an incredible variety of useful substances such as pharmaceuticals, plastics and fuels. But large tracts of the periodic table remain mysterious and unexplored. Insights gained from preparing rare and unusual compounds from elements such as phosphorus, arsenic, antimony and bismuth can contribute towards the discovery of new substances of industrial and commercial value.”

Stephanie Calce (anthropology) is examining the effects of osteoarthritis. Her research on the effects of joint disease on skeletal age markers examines the relationship between aging and bone health from the perspective of bone biomechanics. She uses a biocultural approach to address inquiries of human adaptation in 20th-century European populations from Italy, Greece and Portugal. She will begin data collection this summer in Italy.

More on Vanier Scholarships: http://www.vanier.gc.ca
UVic-produced video on Tuck: http://youtu.be/2awaNd79de8