Tracie Afifi [B.Sc./99, M.Sc./03, PhD/09] studies health data to uncover big-picture patterns in populations. But it was imagining the plight of individual children that motivated her to research child maltreatment and find ways to prevent it. While at the master’s level, “I started to think about how some children experience such horrible things, and how…

DR. JILLIAN STOBART’S COMPUTER MONITOR displays what looks like an array of stars: thousands of tiny green lights on a vast field of black, like an entire galaxy pulsing and twinkling. Stobart [B.Sc.(Hons.)/06, PhD/12] sets the scene, explaining that the lights are astrocytes. They’re a type of glial cells – the supporting cells of the…

Joanne Parsons [BMRPT/03, M.Sc./09, PhD/14] has always loved sports. That passion has developed into a career in injury-prevention research for both athletes and non-athletes. Originally from Birtle, Man., a small town near the Saskatchewan border, Parsons became interested in how the body functions as she played volleyball and other sports in high school. While working…

WHEN MARY JANE MCCALLUM [DMD/90] graduated from the U of M in 1990 as Canada’s first female Indigenous dentist, it was a proud achievement. But the trailblazing Cree alumna, now 66 years old and a Canadian senator, isn’t proud of how she practised dentistry for her first dozen or so years. Working in First Nations…