SFU Faculty of Health Sciences

08/27/2026

Congratulations to Faculty of Health Sciences professors Kanna Hayashi and Bohdan Nosyk for successfully securing two CIHR Project Grants! 🎉

Dr. Hayashi will be examining how harm reduction services influence health care access and outcomes for people who use drugs in Vancouver amid the ongoing toxic drug crisis.

Dr Nosyk will be evaluating emerging prescribing practices for opioid use disorder (OUD) in response to Canada's increasingly unpredictable toxic unregulated drug supply.

Click through for more on each of these critical public health projects.

Strengthening health systems, improving health outcomes and informing policy are among the areas of impact supported by SFU-led projects receiving more than $4.2 million through the Spring 2026 Canadian Institutes of Health Research Project Grant competition.

The funded projects span a range of health challenges, from understanding early brain development and rare neurological disease to evaluating treatments for opioid use disorder and the role of harm reduction services amid the ongoing toxic drug crisis.

Congratulations to Kanna Hayashi and Bohdan Nosyk from Faculty of Health Sciences and Lisa Julian and David Vocadlo from SFU Science on being named among the successful recipients.

Learn more about the researchers and their work in the comments.

08/05/2026

Congratulations to FHS postdoctoral fellow Anh Khoa Vo, who is one of the inaugural recipients of a Health Research BC Engage Award! 🙌 🎉

Vo and his research co-lead, Claudette Cardinal, will be engaging with people who live with HIV (PWLH) to discuss their lived experiences with chronic pain. The team will be intentionally inclusive of people who may be older, Indigenous, using substances, and/or are facing other barriers to care, as their experiences of pain can be additionally shaped by stigma, trauma, racism, substance use, and fragmented services.

The project will provide critical qualitative data that reflects how pain is experienced in daily life and across care settings by PWLH.

🔗 : https://www.healthresearchbc.ca/award/engaging-with-hiv-and-chronic-pain-centering-lived-experience-to-inform-future-research/

07/28/2026

If you are a Black-identifying FHS graduand crossing the stage this October, you have the option to order a Kente stole for your ceremony. Deadline for ordering is Sept 11 - see details below.

🎓✨ October 2026 grads, your Kente stole awaits!
 
Are you a Black-identifying student graduating this October? Celebrate your achievement and join a tradition that honours Black excellence, community, and accomplishment with a handwoven African Kente stole.
 
Traditionally worn during significant ceremonies, Kente stoles are rich in symbolism, representing strength, resilience, heritage, and accomplishment.
 
Kente stoles must be pre-ordered. Complete the pre-order form by September 11, 2026 to receive your stole for convocation.
 
✨ Wear a symbol of Black excellence as you celebrate this important milestone.
 
🔗 Visit the link in our bio to pre-order.

07/22/2026

Pleased to see that the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) is funding the important research of FHS Professor Jeremy Snyder and Assistant Professor Kimberly Thomson! 👏

Dr. Snyder and his team will be examining how to protect the privacy of Canadians who are unable consent to being included in online crowdfunding campaigns, while Dr. Thomson and her team will be comparing early years policies and child health inequities between British Columbia and Victoria, Australia.

Researchers at Simon Fraser University (SFU) have been awarded a total of more than $6.5 million through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) 2025 Insight Grants and Partnership Development Grants competitions and the 2026 Insight Development Grants competition.

07/20/2026

Faculty of Health Master of Science student, Taelor Lay, received a Canada Graduate Research Scholarship from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research! 🎉 🙌

She will be using her research award to investigate family physicians’ familiarity with social prescribing, their beliefs about its value for structurally marginalized patients, and their understanding of the relational, logistical, and system-level barriers such patients face.

Social prescribing is an early-intervention, non-medical, community resource-based approach to supporting patients who are facing issues that are known to contribute to adverse health outcomes such as isolation, transportation barriers, and food insecurity.

🔗 to learn more : https://www.sfu.ca/fhs/news-events/news/2026/fhs-graduate-students-secure-cihr-funding-for-research.html

07/17/2026

FHS PhD candidate Judy Wu was interviewed by SFU's Community-Engaged Research Initiative (CERi) about her work actioning a community-led heat resilience initiative in Vancouver's Downtown East Side.

Wu, who serves as the Downtown Eastside (DTES) Climate Resiliency Research & Advocacy Coordinator, is helping implement some of the recommendations from the 2025 report, "Climate Resilience Roadmap for Non-Profits: From Crisis to Collective Power in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside."

"I think the community-engaged research process adopted throughout the Roadmap has been critical in moving from discussion to action," says Wu.

"This role has also made me realize that research is not an end goal, but a useful tool, and we can use research to strengthen community organizing. When we have high quality research, we are better able to advocate for funding and better positioned to influence policy."

🔗 : https://www.sfu.ca/ceri/blog/2026/q-and-a-with-Judy-Wu.html

07/15/2026

Three FHS graduate students - Tahani (Soleil) Shraida, Taylor Atwater, and Amanda Yonkman - successfully secured Canada Graduate Research Scholarships from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Please join us in celebrating their amazing accomplishments! 🎉 🙌

These scholarships are awarded to Master and Doctoral students who show great promise to innovate and lead in Canada's research ecosystem.

Learn more about their graduate research programs here: https://www.sfu.ca/fhs/news-events/news/2026/fhs-graduate-students-secure-cihr-funding-for-research.html

07/08/2026

Please join us in celebrating Dr. Naomi Maldonado-Rodriguez and Dr. Amanda Rowlands, two Faculty of Health researchers who each secured a Postdoctoral Fellowship award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)! 🙌 🎉

The Postdoctoral Fellowship award fosters the development and training of highly qualified personnel by supporting outstanding graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. Through this program, CIHR aims to recognize and empower the next generation of outstanding research trainees and innovators, knowledge workers, creative thinkers and researchers.

Learn about their respective research programs:
https://www.sfu.ca/fhs/news-events/news/2026/fhs-researchers-awarded-cihr-postdoctoral-fellowships.html

06/29/2026

FHS postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Callista Ottoni, secured a CIHR Health Systems Impact fellowship which is allowing her to embed with Vancouver Coastal Health's Healthy Environments and Climate Change (VCH HECC) team, under the dual supervision of Michael Schwandt and FHS professor Meghan Winters.

Ottoni will be supporting the team in developing research projects that use novel participatory methods to learn directly from older adults’ lived experiences. VCH HECC is interested in learning how they can strategize and resources supports and tools to better serve the needs of this priority population.

Says Ottoni: "I can learn in real time about their priorities, how they frame and communicate seasonal readiness, how they incorporate research evidence into their work, and best practices for researchers when working with health system partners."

Full article: https://www.sfu.ca/fhs/news-events/news/2026/fhs-researcher-supports-vch-climate-health-team-effortsto-improve-health-for-older-adults.html

FHS Postdoctoral Fellow Callista Ottoni Health Systems Impact (HSI) fellowship is enabling her to support Vancouver Coastal Health's Healthy Environments and Climate Change (VCH HECC) team in their efforts to improve climate change-related health outcomes for older adults.

06/26/2026

Marie-Françoise Malo, is a PhD candidate in bioethics in a joint program between Université de Montréal and SFU Health Sciences

She is working on the Bridge2AI Voice project, developing ethical assessments and frameworks that help guide investigators collecting and sharing vast voice datasets for the purposes of medical research.

“Our voice changes depending on our state of health. Whether it is speech rate in someone developing Alzheimer’s disease, tonal variations associated with certain pathologies, or the characteristics of a cough linked to COVID-19, the voice holds immense potential.”

Learn more about her research, her time competing as a finalist in Ma thèse en 180 secondes (Francophone equivalent of Three Minute Thesis), and her plans for the future!

https://www.sfu.ca/fhs/news-events/news/2026/fhs-phd-candidate-wins-ma-these-en-180-secondes.html

Marie-Françoise Malo, a PhD candidate in bioethics in a joint program between Simon Fraser University and Université de Montréal.