PhD Candidate Linda Mussell Awarded the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholarship

PhD Candidate Linda Mussell Awarded the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholarship

Professor Margaret Moore

The department offers congratulations to Doctoral Candidate Linda Mussell on being the recipient of the prestigious Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholarship for 2019-2021. This scholarship program seeks to provide emerging scholars with unconventional experiences beyond the halls of academia. These are individuals eager to play a leadership role within their communities and help inspire positive change. According to the Foundation, “this year’s recipients were chosen based on their compelling research that contributes to one or more of the Foundation’s four themes. They will embark on a three-year journey that will foster their development as leaders and offer critical reflection on the subject of Power & Knowledge.” Linda is one of 20 outstanding scholars to be named as recipients of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation’s unique and bold doctoral scholarship in the social sciences and humanities.

 “I am immensely honoured that the Trudeau Foundation is acknowledging my work on transformative policy research and the impacts of incarceration on generations of Indigenous families and communities. As a first generation post-secondary student I never dreamed that I could receive this achievement, and it now feels like anything is possible. I am very inspired to move forward representing these issues and encouraging more attention and family/community empowerment in this area over the course of this award and beyond,” says Linda. 

Linda studies Canadian Politics and Gender and Politics with an emphasis on justice and corrections policy, taking an intersectional policy analysis approach. Linda’s dissertation is entitled “Handing Over The Keys: Intergenerational Legacies of Incarceration Policy in Canada, Australia, and Aotearoa/New Zealand.” She is passionate about prison justice and decolonizing research. Her work is focused on breaking cycles of intergenerational incarceration in countries grappling with colonial legacies, specifically Canada, Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand. She is active in community efforts inside and outside prisons including Canadian Families in Corrections Network, Frontier College, Prison for Women (P4W) Memorial Collective, Letters for the Inside and the new Canadian Coalition for Children of Incarcerated Parents. Before joining Queen’s, Linda obtained her MA in Public Policy and BA in Political Science from Simon Fraser University.

Read the announcement here.