Awards for Queen's Alumnae

Fellowships for Graduates of Queen's: 

The following awards are made annually to women graduates of Queen's University for a year of study and research or to pursue an endeavour that contributes to the advancement of knowledge, contributes to society or allows creative expression.

• Marty Memorial Scholarship 

The scholarship, established in memory of Dr. Aletta Marty, M.A. 1894, LL.D. 1919 and her sister, Sophie Marty, a distinguished graduate of Queen's University is awarded annually by the Queen's University Alumnae Association to a woman graduate of Queen's University, for one year of study and research.

Dr. Marty was a pioneer woman in the field of education, and Canada's first woman public school inspector. Miss Sophie Marty was for many years Head of the Department of Modern Language at Stratford Collegiate Institute.

• Jean Royce Fellowship 

This fellowship, established in memory of Jean I. Royce, B.A. 1930, LL.D. 1968, Registrar, Queen's University, is awarded annually by the Queen's University Alumnae Association to a woman graduate of Queen's University annually for one year of study and research.

• Alfred Bader Fellowship in Memory of Jean Royce 

Established in November 2003 by Alfred Bader, Sc '45, Arts '46, M.Sc. '47, LLD '86, and other friends, in memory of Jean I. Royce, B.A. 1930, LL.D. 1968, Registrar, Queen's University,this fellowship is awarded to a woman graduate of Queen's University for one year of study and research or to pursue an endeavour which contributes to the advancement of knowledge, contributes to society, or allows creative expression. All requirements for a Queen's degree must be completed by the spring convocation in the year of the competition.

Application for Major Fellowships for Graduates of Queen's (Deadline has passed)

 

 

 

2011-2012 Recipients

Jean Royce Fellowship

Allison C. Kelly, Ph.D., C. Psych.

Shame is a painful self-conscious emotion in which individuals see themselves as flawed and imagine that others share this view.  It activates behaviours designed to protect the self from threats, both intrapersonal (e.g., self-disgust) and interpersonal (e.g., others’ judgments). Goss and Gilbert (2002) suggested that the desire to avoid shame maintains behaviours characteristic of eating disorders (EDs).  Indeed, shame is elevated in EDs and correlates with ED symptom severity (Swan & Andrews, 2002). Gilbert (2005) proposed that the antidote to shame is self-compassion, a positive self-attitude characterized by sensitivity and kindness toward one’s own distress.  Gilbert developed “compassionate mind training” (CMT) exercises in which individuals practice generating self–compassionate thoughts, behaviours, and feelings.  Self-compassion training has reduced distress and facilitated behaviour change in other shame-prone populations (Kelly, Zuroff, & Shapira, 2009; Kelly, Zuroff, Foa, & Filbert, 2010) but has yet to be studied in EDs.

In the first six months of my postdoctoral fellowship, I launched a study designed to test the hypothesis that reductions in shame and increases in self-compassion during ED treatment will facilitate complete and sustained ED recovery.  Next, I propose to focus on individuals with binge eating disorder (BED), the most common ED but the one for which treatments are the scarcest.  BED is characterized by recurrent binge episodes in the absence of compensatory behaviours (e.g., vomiting, laxatives) and afflicts up to 7% of North Americans, most of whom are overweight or obese (Grucza et al., 2007).  For individuals with BED to achieve and sustain weight loss, abstinence from binge eating has been found to be critical (Wilson et al., 2010).

OBJECTIVES. Gilbert suggests that binge eating may be a way for people to temporarily escape feelings of shame, but may in fact worsen these feelings long-term; as such, self-compassion may help to mitigate this cycle.  Although this theory is compelling, no study has examined whether levels of shame – and conversely, self-compassion – influence the likelihood of binge eating in BED.  My first proposed study will test the hypothesis that fluctuations in shame and self-compassion, over the course of a day and week, will influence the likelihood of binge episodes among individuals with BED.  My second proposed study will test the impact of self-compassion intervention, adapted from Gilbert’s CMT, on BED recovery.  I hypothesize that: a) a self-compassion intervention will be more successful at eliminating binge eating than a compassion intervention, and b) the self compassion intervention will exert its effects by reducing the shame and increasing self-compassion.

METHODOLOGY.  Both studies will investigate overweight and obese females over 18 who meet DSM-5 criteria for BED.  In study 1, 35 participants will be asked to carry a handheld palm-pilot computer for 14 days and to complete short diaries before and after every eating episode and on three random prompts between daily.  Diaries will assess the nature of all eating episodes (meal, snack, or binge), shame and self-compassion (independent variables), and other measures of mood (control variables).  Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) will analyze participants’ feelings in the day and hours prior to binge episodes to determine whether shame and self-compassion influenced the probability of binge eating.  Study 2 will randomly assign 60 participants to one of two 12-week interventions delivered via the internet.  In the self-compassion intervention, alternating weeks will teach behaviours to help prevent binge eating (e.g., distraction) and alternating weeks will teach self-compassion exercises.  The comparison intervention will present behavioural strategies every week.  Survival analyses will compare the efficacy of the interventions.

IMPLICATIONS. Through findings from my proposed studies, I hope to provide clinicians and researchers with a novel theoretical framework from which to approach binge eating in overweight and obese BED sufferers.  The obesity epidemic calls for new perspectives from which to understand and treat the various behaviours that contribute to weight gain and interfere with weight loss.  My proposed research may shed light on the emotions whose targeting could facilitate sustained recovery from BED and promote prolonged weight loss among a subgroup of obese individuals.

 

Alfred Bader Fellowship in Memory of Jean Royce

Paige Olmsted, M.P.A., Environmental Science and Policy

Imagine a solar powered machine that filters water, moderates air temperature, and regulates the climate.  Some would call it an incredible feat of engineering.  Most people call it a tree.  As resource consumption increases globally, our failure to value – or even notice – the critical services provided by intact ecosystems is undermining the natural life support systems that are necessary for sustainable prosperity in the long term.

“Ecosystem services” (ES) are the benefits humans derive from natural systems such as food and fiber production, flood regulation, pollination, and cultural and recreational services.  In an attempt to illustrate the value of such services, an analysis if Southern Ontario’s greenbelt revealed an estimated provision of $2.3 billion annually in ecosystem services (primarily from improved water quality, agricultural production and avoided costs of flood regulation).  Valuations naturally involve assumptions that can be questioned, but the sheer scale of this estimate is indicative of the currently undervalued role of the environment in our daily life.  If such cost-benefits analyses were more common, and “free” services were incorporated into our markets and economic models, a different – and more sustainable – paradigm of development may emerge.

Calls for ecosystem-based management has brought attention to ecosystem science, but highlighted gaps in integrated ecological knowledge at regional and national scales.   There is currently limited understanding in how to appropriately measure certain ecosystem services, made even more complex by multiple service interactions (e.g., does climate regulation increase when there is higher biodiversity).  Concurrently, payment for ecosystem services (PES, a monetary reward for land use or management practices that protect or increase the provision of select ES, for example, paying a farmer to maintain forest on their property for the carbon sequestration benefit at a higher value then they would gain by cutting it down) projects are expanding rapidly.  Effectiveness of PES schemes in securing ecosystem services, providing consistent economic benefits to landowners, and promoting conservation over the long term may be undermined if they are not based on sound ecology.

Quantitative assessments are necessary if land use decision makers are to consider the role of ecosystem services in development plans.  Current ecosystem models require local and landscape scale studies to refine such tools that support improved environmental decision-making.  Secondarily, these same data and their applied outputs (maps, models, etc.) are required to better plan for PES in a given setting, and potentially support the development of broad ecological guidelines for PES that are currently non-existent.

I propose to 1) quantify and assess key organisms (ecosystem service providers) and ecosystem flows for water quality, erosion control, and flood regulation in the Port-au-Piment watershed in Haiti 2) Using data and analysis of interactions from part one as a case study, contribute to a wider assessment of PES projects that seeks to determine key ecological criteria for PES.  The Port-au-Piment watershed in Haiti is selected as a research site due to a UNEP sponsored $200 million dollar 20 year restoration project beginning in 2011 where data on a variety of ecosystems will be tracked allowing for enhanced capacity to analyze ecological interactions.  Soil, water, and spatial data will be collected, along with community interviews and community mapping exercises.  Together these activities will support the refinement of models and tools that support ecosystem based management, and aid in the development a framework for the evaluation of PES.

My intellectual and moral concern surrounds the conservation of biological diversity and the preservation of critical ecosystem functions, but my motivating force is utilizing and applying science to inform decision-making and multiple scales – from the individual to the household to the nation.  By pursuing research questions related to cumulative impact, tradeoffs and synergies of ecosystem services at the local scale, this research will support livelihood goals while contributing to the field of ecosystem and sustainability science at large.