Congratulations to Carleton’s 2023 Vanier Award Winners!

By Ellen Tsaprailis
Pictures by Lindsay Ralph

Carleton University PhD pupils Hannah Johnston (Information and facts Know-how) and Evan Wicklund (Sociology) are the recipients of a prestigious 2023 Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship.

Valued at $50,000 for each yr for a few years during a student’s doctoral research, the coveted Vanier scholarships are awarded to Canadian PhD learners who perform remarkable exploration.

“My sincere congratulations to the recipients of the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships throughout Canada, and in particular, to our two Carleton learners who are element of this choose team,” suggests Carleton Interim President and Vice-Chancellor Jerry Tomberlin. “Hannah Johnston and Evan Wicklund exemplify the good quality of analysis becoming carried out at Carleton and we are happy of their achievement.”

Named following Significant-Normal Georges P. Vanier—the 1st francophone Governor Normal of Canada—the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship program allows Canadian institutions catch the attention of remarkably-skilled doctoral students.

“I am pretty happy to see the Vanier plan understand the achievements of our remarkable students who are shaping our potential,” claims Patrice Smith, dean of the College of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs at Carleton.

Hannah Johnston
Hannah Johnston is a PhD college student in Facts Technological innovation and is being supported by means of the Vanier Scholarship to investigation methods to aid human creativity by means of the design of interfaces for Artificial Intelligence (AI) based mostly picture generation methods.

Having concluded her bachelor’s and master’s levels in Details Technology and Data Devices respectively at Carleton, Johnston moved to New York and spent nine many years doing work at Google as a person expertise designer ahead of heading again to Ottawa. Upon returning, she taught classes at Carleton and Algonquin Higher education and, in her spare time, she located a niche curiosity and made a decision to go after a PhD.

“Mid-pandemic, I acquired really interested in textual content-to-graphic generation methods,” states Johnston. “It is where you style in a prompt and it generates an image making use of artificial intelligence. The much more I applied it, I thought there is actually something here. The applications at the time ended up not user-targeted and effortlessly available but certain plenty of, many providers have considering the fact that emerged to convey this to the general public and this spot of investigate brought me to my PhD experiments.”

In this new, rising area of AI-produced photographs, Johnston is most intrigued in figuring out how to assist consumers interacting with this technologies.

“What’s motivating me is a motivation to find out much more,” says Johnston. “One of my advisers, Prof. David Thue qualified prospects a exploration lab targeted on AI. Significantly of my experience with these devices has been on the artwork and conversation facet, so doing work with an individual with complex knowledge was seriously important to me to assist bridge the gap.”

Evan Wicklund is a Carleton University PhD Pupil in Sociology who has gained a 2023 Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship

Evan Wicklund
Evan Wicklund is a PhD student in Sociology who is getting supported by the Vanier Scholarship to exploration the ethics of treatment in disabled bodies.

“My method is to not believe of ethics as some thing that is what we ought to be carrying out, but how we may be interacting with other people today and other technologies and how disabled experiences give us so many alternatives to take a look at people interactions,” says Wicklund.

“Instead of on the lookout at a health-related product, I want a comprehensive being familiar with of how society understands disability. Incapacity encourages us to realize the affirmation of various activities and how we have obligations to other men and women inside of our proximity.”

Wicklund begun his academic occupation by getting a disability and group guidance software at his local school in Winnipeg which properly trained him to operate directly with men and women with generally mental disabilities. His desire in the topic grew, top him to finish an undergraduate honours degree from the College of Winnipeg in Disability Scientific studies. Wicklund then went on to get an MA in Cultural Experiments the place he targeted on theoretical ways to being familiar with social challenges.

In tandem, Wicklund began functioning at the Canadian Centre on Disability Scientific tests (now running as Eviance) wherever he nonetheless is right now. It is a community-dependent analysis firm that focuses on education, local community analysis and improvement.

Even now fascinated in advancing his training, Wicklund chose Carleton’s Sociology PhD system.

“I manufactured the choice to arrive to Carleton simply because of college expertise,” says Wicklund. “There is so substantially abilities about my particular interests and I have been inspired to pursue individuals passions.”

Below the supervision of Prof. Kelly Fritsch and Prof. Carlos Novas, Wicklund will investigate the many means that disability ethics manifest in up to date societies.

“It is challenging for me to articulate how grateful I am to receive this Vanier Scholarship,” claims Wicklund. “This was a verification that I am accomplishing a thing vital. I am really blessed.”

Canadian Authorities Expenditure
This year, the federal governing administration awarded a full of $24.9 million in Vanier awards to support 166 recipients throughout Canada via the Normal Sciences and Engineering Exploration Council of Canada (Johnston), the Social Sciences and Humanities Exploration Council of Canada (Wicklund) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Study.

“Congratulations to these talented recipients from all across the state who are doing the groundbreaking do the job that will contribute not only to Canada’s well being and perfectly-currently being but also to the world’s. By way of this funding, the Governing administration of Canada is investing in the following technology of scientists and inspiring them to carry on to consider outside the house the box and tackle the problems of right now and tomorrow,” mentioned The Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Sector in a push release on August 29, 2023.

Wednesday, September 6, 2023 in 360, Information, Investigate
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