Summer Students Settle In

On Monday, May 7, Grand Challenges Canada and the Sandra Rotman Centre welcomed several new faces, as the 2012 summer students joined the team. Some are returning to Grand Challenges Canada/Sandra Rotman Centre, while many others are new to these organizations.

The four-month summer student position is an incredible opportunity for post-secondary students and recent graduates to get early-career experience, to learn and hone skills needed in global health careers, to connect with inspiring and influential leaders in their chosen field, and to contribute to meaningful work through the initiatives of Grand Challenges Canada and Sandra Rotman Centre.

The students bring a great diversity of qualifications and perspectives to the Grand Challenges Canada and Sandra Rotman Centre teams, holding or progressing toward degrees in Public Health, Global Health, Epidemiology, Political Science, International Development Studies, and more. The students hail from the University of Toronto, McMaster University, McGill University, the University of British Columbia, and the University of Western Ontario, though many have lived and/or worked elsewhere in Canada or abroad.

The student staff looks forward to learning from Grand Challenges Canada’s and Sandra Rotman Centre’s leaders, staff, grantees, and visitors. Each student has been paired with a mentor and is quickly learning the ropes in their program area, from projects –Saving Lives at Birth, Saving Brains, Hypertension, Global Mental Health, and Stars in Global Health – to communications, where they lend their youthful enthusiasm to our social media presence, recently helping to facilitate the #AskPeter TweetChat event.