Welcome to the New Gradifying Writers!

I’m so excited to say that we’ve got a few new writers joining us on our team – Hannah Darvin, Chloée C. Godin-Jacques and Jiahui Shen! Over the next couple of days you’ll see their profiles go up on our “Profiles of the Writers” page but in the meantime I’ve asked them to introduce themselves here and tell us about one of their most memorable experiences at Queen’s University so far as a graduate student.

– Isabel (Editor)

Introducing: Hannah Darvin

This is a photograph of me handling the Martin Eye Color Scale from the collection of the Norsk Teknisk Museum. The Martin Eye Color Scale was commonly used by physical anthropologists in order to establish precise eye colour.

My name is Hannah Darvin and I am a second year PhD student in Art History. My PhD research is situated at the intersection of art history, history of medicine and the medical humanities and looks at how the rise of modern medicine in late 19th-century Victorian Britain profoundly changed the way death is represented and experienced. 

I first came to Queen’s in 2005 when I did my undergraduate degree in Art History and Political Studies. Throughout my undergraduate degree the professors, students and overall Queen’s community were always welcoming and supportive. When looking for a PhD program, I wanted an environment that was both nurturing and challenging so Queen’s was a natural choice for me. More importantly, returning to Queen’s felt like coming back home. 

The Oslo Opera House was completed by Snøhetta architects. If the building looks familiar it’s because Snøhetta’s first high profile project in North America was the construction of  the Isabel Bader Centre at Queen’s. Seeing it was like having a little piece of Kingston in Norway!

So far, my favourite memory of Queen’s was my recent trip to Oslo, Norway with my supervisor along with three other Art History graduate students where we attended a workshop that she hosted. We had a great time getting to know each other, meeting international art history scholars and curators and experiencing the culture of Norway. As a special treat, we were able to visit the Edvard Munch Museum before it closed it’s doors after 56 years in Tøyen and moves to its new home in Bjørvika in June 2020. This trip summed up why I came back to Queen’s: a close knit community who foster your intellectual development and access to an international network of scholars.

One of the Munch Museum’s final exhibitions was EXIT! which presented the history of the museum. It also displayed a wide range of ephemera related to Munch’s The Scream, one of which was this Pikachu stuffed animal.

Introducing: Chloée C. Godin-Jacques

I recently graduated from King’s University College and hold an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Social Justice and Peace Studies as well as Disability Studies. I am currently pursuing a master’s degree at Queen’s University. My work is intersectional and lies in the realms of academic ableism in the institution, inclusive employment opportunities, as well as the implementation of disability policies. I have a vast array of experience in community work aimed in enhancing engagement opportunities for persons with disabilities. I have collaborated alongside corporations and nonprofit organizations to develop and implement policies and programing pertaining to disability rights. Most recently, I helped to shift engraved ideologies and structural practiced in existing lenses of diversity and inclusion to include struggles faced by persons with disabilities. I have also created workshop content and facilitated crucial discussions pertaining to accessibility and disability.

One of my fondest memory at Queen’s so far is when I first saw my office desk. As a student with disabilities, I often experience difficulties in finding workspace that is large enough to accommodate my service dog and my motorized wheelchair while seeking for the perfect study spot. This office desk is very spacious and my wheelchair fits under it, allowing me the flexibility of being very close to it when I do work. It provides me with a sense of ease knowing there is always a desk available for me to use that fits my needs.

Introducing: Jiahui Shen 

My name is Jiahui Shen and I am currently doing my fourth year Ph. D in the Chemistry department. My project is about using ¹⁷O NMR as a probe to study glucose metabolism in cancer cells.  As we all know, cancer cells consume much more sugar compare to normal cells due to their uncontrollable proliferation, which is the so-called Warburg effect. We want to test this idea that ¹⁷O can be used as a promising complimentary probe to yield more information on molecular structures and the dynamics of these biological activities.

It is pretty tough to narrow it down to just one memory as there are so many great ones from Queen’s. The most recent one would be the trip to strawberry picking event hosted by QUIC this summer where we went to fruition farm and spent a lovely afternoon there. It was a bit cloudy, which makes it perfect for strawberry picking, as you do not need to worry about sunburns. Events where you can embrace the nature always make me excited. The smell of the grass, the freshness in the air, and the sweetness of the berries, all these sensations are such blessings from Mother Earth as it soothes, heals and puts our senses in order.

Thanks to our new writers! Expect to see a lot of new, exciting comment from these three over the upcoming year!