In celebrating the start of another academic year, our annual Welcome for the new graduate students is always exciting as everyone gets together and catches up on their summer activities, while meeting our new recruits and filling them in on life in the department. Our event this year on September 22 was particularly special, for two reasons. While six of our newly admitted graduate students are settling into their laboratories, Dr. Lili-Naz Hazrati, our new Chair, has also arrived in the Department of Pathology. In addition, this year the Pathology Graduate and Postdoctoral Program together with the Pathology Student Society (PSS) combined the usual welcome event with poster presentations on some of the current research being conducted by our students. The afternoon began with a short series of talks – the Graduate Program Director, Dr. Edith Zorychta, introduced our new Chair to the students and encouraged them to get to know her. She then welcomed our new graduate students, our current students, and gave a brief overview of the remarkable accomplishments of Maude Abbott, our departmental model for strength, intelligence and perseverance in achieving her education and conducting her groundbreaking research, even when situations were challenging. Then Leah Dolgoy, Wellness Advisor for the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, gave a presentation on the services and resources available for students in case of personal or other difficulties. Prisca Bustamante, PhD, an award-winning graduate from our own department, returned in her new role as a MITACS Advisor to provide important help and advice on sources of awards to support graduate students and their research.
The brief talks were followed by the major event of the afternoon – the presentation of 20 posters by our graduate students – the abstracts were previously available in the Program for the day’s event, so everyone had a chance to review the projects in advance and come prepared to discuss results, ideas and techniques, plus plans for subsequent experiments. The hallway was filled with animated discussions and happy people.
The afternoon ended with a move to room A5, where a cosmopolitan banquet awaited – with food prepared by the graduate students, Hua Ling and Dr. Zorychta. This is always a wonderful chance to relax and enjoy friendships, and make new ones, while sampling delicious cooking. This year the graduate students also had a fun contest and gave out three prizes for the best entries related to the amusing and unexpected (and sometimes frustrating but comical) aspects of research.
Best wishes for the coming year to all of our 35 graduate students and their research supervisors – may your research, health and friendships all flourish in 2023-24.