FAS graduate student earns honours for thesis

Faculty of Arts and Science visiting graduate student and post-doctoral scholar Jean Jesus Santos has earned the CAPES Thesis Award in the Field of Psychology. The annual award, considered the most prestigious graduate award in Brazil, recognizes the best doctoral dissertations defended in Brazilian graduate programs, following specific criteria: originality of the work, relevance to scientific, technological, cultural, social and innovation development, and the added value to the candidate's educational system.  

His research investigates psychological essentialism in the relationship between beliefs regarding sexual orientation and attitudes of sexual prejudice. Dr. Santos completed his doctorate both at the Federal University of Sergipe and included a year-long visiting studentship in the Department of Psychology at Queen's University, where he also returned for a post-doctoral position.

His supervisor at Queen's was Sari van Anders (Department of Psychology), Canada Research Chair in Gender/Sex and Sexual Diversity and his supervisor at UFS was Professor Eder Cerqueira Santos.

"I decided to attend Queen's University as a visiting student because of the excellent work that Dr. Sari van Anders and her team have been doing on gender and sexual diversity at the van Anders Lab," Dr. Santos explains. "I knew that working closely with these researchers would help me understand human sexuality from an anti-essentialist perspective, which could be very useful for my doctoral thesis. Working in this lab with Dr. van Anders would be a great opportunity to learn about essentialism (and, in this case, anti-essentialist ways to conceptualize sexual orientation) by learning how to conduct research with the high level of rigor that is the standard in this lab."

Dr. Santos says that during his time in FAS, Dr. van Anders provided him with significant support in analyzing and interpreting data and in the scientific writing of some of the studies for his doctoral dissertation. As a result, they co-authored two articles that made up part of his dissertation and were published in scientific journals in his field of research.

"Sari was an excellent supervisor and mentor who believed in my capacity to achieve these results and helped and advised me in the best way possible while we worked together."

Dr. van Anders says the award "warms her heart to see his work honoured" and that it is intellectually rewarding to see the work recognized within shared academic communities.

"Research on sexuality and marginalization can still fall outside normative and valued areas of our discipline; as such, seeing students win awards for research in this area - and that I got to have a hand in it - is incredibly exciting and validating," she adds. "It helps the student themselves - and others in the field - see that this work is valued even by traditional power structures. It also is wonderful because of how much time, energy, smarts, and passion students put into their research - and Jean was a phenomenal example of this, putting his heart and soul - and brilliance - into his dissertation research and other projects."

In addition to a medal, the award includes a 12-month postdoctoral fellowship at a Brazilian institution. The award ceremony takes place Thursday, November 12 at the Joaquim Nabuco Foundation headquarters in Recife.