News in Brief for the week of May 21, 2012

MSc student Stéphanie Sabbagh receives a scholarship that will help her continue her research at the doctoral level, focusing on how stakeholders in Belize challenge shark conservation outcomes on the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef; Neuroscience PhD student David Maillet is one of the first three winners of the Étudiants-Chercheurs Étoiles award, a competition spearheaded by the Fonds de recherche du Quebec; and Desautels alum Chris Lannon is named Managing Director of the McGill World Platform for Health and Economic Convergence.

Funding with some bite

Stéphanie Sabbagh, an MSc student in Natural Resource Sciences, was recently awarded a maximum length FQRSC PhD scholarship (of the Quebec Fonds de Recherche Société et Culture). With this funding, Sabbagh will continue her MSc research at the doctoral level, focusing on how stakeholders in Belize challenge shark conservation outcomes on the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef.

Sabbagh was featured in the Reporter in a January article about the “Would you Fund it?” workshops that provide graduate students the opportunity to sit down with a McGill professor for individual consultations on their applications for prestigious Tri-Council Graduate Fellowships.

Thanks for the memory

David Maillet, a PhD student in Neuroscience, is one of the first three winners of the Étudiants-Chercheurs Étoiles award, a competition spearheaded by the Fonds de recherche du Quebec. Maillet’s research is aimed at better understanding why memory declines with age in order to develop strategies to reduce or counteract this phenomenon, improving the quality of life for seniors in our society. His award-winning article was published in Brain Research, an international journal devoted to fundamental research in the brain sciences.

Lannon named Managing Director of MWP

Chris Lannon has been named Managing Director of the McGill World Platform for Health and Economic Convergence (MWP). Led by Prof. Laurette Dubé of the Desautels Faculty of Management, the MWP unites leading researchers from a range of disciplines, including management, medicine, agriculture and environmental sciences, in the pursuit of innovative solutions to pressing global problems. The MWP’s mandate is to generate health-promoting social and business changes. As Managing Director, Lannon will play a key role in setting the MWP’s strategic direction.

Lannon has extensive experience in technology commercialization, having worked as a biotech industry consultant and as a scientist developing products for a stem cell and biological sciences company. Prior to joining the MWP, he worked as an associate director in a boutique investment bank in Montreal.

Lannon holds a PhD in cancer biology from the University of British Columbia, and an MBA (Finance) from Desautels.