Graduate Research at Bishop's: Canada Graduate Scholarships – Master's Awardees

The Canada Graduate Scholarships – Master’s (CGS M) program helps develop research skills and assist in the training of highly qualified personnel by supporting students who demonstrate a high standard of achievement in undergraduate and early graduate studies. This program supports up to 3,000 students annually in all disciplines and is administered jointly by Canada’s three granting agencies: CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC. During the last competition cycle, two Bishop’s students were awarded the CGS M scholarship.

Berenice G. Rodriguez, a second-year student in the Master of Arts in Education, Leadership, Societies and Languages of the School of Education under the supervision of Dr. Dawn Wiseman and Dr. Mitchell McLarnon-Silk, received a CGS M for her master’s project Co-Curricular Experience and Engagement of International Students at a Canadian University. While there is extensive research on student academic engagement, few studies examine student co-curricular engagement and the unique experiences of international students. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore the experiences of undergraduate international students who are engaged in co-curricular activities at Bishop’s University. Additionally, this study seeks to explore the impact of co-curricular engagement on international students’ sense of belonging at BU. The broader purpose of my study is to increase awareness and understanding of the experiences of international students in this area, which could potentially help guide student services professionals to better support them, while also fostering co-curricular engagement and ultimately improve their global experience and outcomes in the Canadian higher education setting, explains Berenice.

Samuel Gagnon-Hartman, a second-year student in the Master of Science in Physics of the Department of Physics and Astronomy under the supervision of Dr. John Ruan, received a CGS M for his master’s project Developing a Method of Non-Biased Inference on the Hubble Constant. The Hubble constant represents the expansion rate of the Universe. In his project, Samuel is working with a new method of measuring the Hubble constant: multi-messenger gravitational cosmology. In this method, the Hubble constant is inferred using observation of binary neutron star mergers through electromagnetic emission and gravitational waves. However, it has been recently realized that this approach is biased by our ignorance of the geometry of neutron star mergers, explains Samuel. To correct for this, I’m working on applying recent advances at the intersection of statistical inference and machine learning to infer the Hubble constant without relying on perfect knowledge of merger geometry.

Berenice G. Rodriguez

Samuel Gagnon-Hartman