2020 Recipients

2020 Recipients

B.E.S.T. Project Fund

Funding was awarded to 17 students in 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on many of the recipients’ projects. Though some were unfortunately cancelled, the students below were able to participate in virtual B.E.S.T. projects or revised projects that did not involve travel.

Dorcas Adebogun

Dorcas Adebogun, from Lagos, Nigeria, is a student in Biology with a Health Sciences concentration. She participated in the Paediatric Newborn Medicine Summer research program through the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Read Dorcas’ story: Coming Soon!

Cécilia Alain

Cécilia Alain, from Sherbrooke, is a student in English with a concentration in Film and Media. She participated in a virtual intensive screenwriting workshop with the Vancouver Film School.

Read Cécilia’s story: Coming Soon!

Nikolaus Kaeser-Reiss

Nikolaus Kaeser-Reiss, from Georgeville, Quebec, is pursuing Double Honours in Music History and Jazz Performance (guitar). He participated in a series of virtual intensive jazz performance workshops through a New York-based music school.

Read Nikolaus’ story: Coming Soon!


Shelby Page

Shelby Page is an International Studies student from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan who created a project to make a video documentary about Taiwan’s democratic process and its history.

Read Shelby’s story: Coming Soon!

Veronica Mongiardo

Veronica Mongiardo, from Montreal, is pursuing a Double Major in Secondary Education and English. Deferring her project by a year, she travelled to Northern Quebec to work with an Inuk woman to gather stories from Inuit women and men. The stories will be collected into a book and presented in both Inuktitut and English.

Read Veronica’s story: Coming Soon!

Aislinn Fisher

Aislinn Fisher is an Arts and Education student from Milton, Ontario. She participated in online professional development courses in drama, poetry, visual arts and more, offered through Winnipeg Holistic Expressive Arts Therapy Institute (WHEAT).

Read Aislinn’s story: Coming Soon!


Lokender Sarna

Lokender Sarna, from Faridabad, India, a Master’s student in Computer Science, attended the virtual Spark AI Summit, the world’s largest data and machine learning conference. Lokender took part in online workshops and developed a project for real-world use during the course of the five-day event.

Read Lokender’s story: Coming Soon!