School of Graduate Studies

Today we congratulate Colette Steer, a recipient of a Special Recognition Award for Queen’s Staff.  Colette joined the School of Graduate Studies in 2007 and her limitless positive energy, excellent organizational skills, and genuine care for everyone she works with have had a significant impact on Graduate Studies at Queen’s. 

Last week Chemistry PhD student Caitlin Miron was awared the Mitacs PhD Award for Outstanding Innovation for her work in biochemistry. She broke new ground by discovering a DNA binder that can essentially ‘switch off’ cancer cells and prevent them from spreading. Listen to her interview with CJ the DJ on Grad Chat and find out more about her research.

Caitlin Miron is the recipient of the 2017 Mitacs Award for Outstanding Innovation. This award is given to a PhD student who has made a significant achievement in research and development innovation during Mitacs-funded research. Last year, Caitlin received a Mitacs Globalink Research Award which funded a collaboration with Dr. Jean-Louis Mergny at the Institut Européen de Chimie et Biologue in Bordeaux, France. This collaboration was the second of two with Dr. Jean-Louis Mergny, and collectively, these collaborations have not only propelled Caitlin’s PhD thesis forward but also merited the receipt of the Mitacs Outstanding Innovation award. 

It looks like a game. “You come in a class, divide the students into groups, and each group goes up to its whiteboard to write down a theme relevant to the tutorial topic and assigned reading,” tells Michael Murphy, describing a political theory tutorial that he led as a teaching assistant. “When all the groups have written their theme, you ask them to move to the next board. The groups now have to write a question on the theme that the previous group has introduced.”