Top row (left to right): Shana Alexander, Omri Arbiv, Yami Ommar Arizmendi Cardenas, Ali Barzegar Khanghah, Justin Callahan, Deepa Chaphekar. Second row (left to right): Yu Ying Fan, Mohammadamir Ghasemian Moghaddam, Sumiha Karunagaran, Pranamika Khayargoli, Dongyeob Lee, Ahmed Mohamed. Third row (left to right): Michelle Marie Ranjbar, Koorosh Roohi, Meghan Rothenbroker, Mehdi Sadeghi, Jasmine Sheppard, Nancy Tahmo. Bottom row (left to right): Greaton Tan, Jonathan Tersigni, Celene Titus, Jinny Tsang, David Van Ommen, Joshua Yang
January 13, 2025
By Sunitha Chari
With an investment of over $250,000, the Emerging and Pandemic Infections Consortium (EPIC) is supporting 25 doctoral students this year through our Doctoral Awards program. This is the third annual offering of this program that fosters young researchers involved in innovative infectious disease research.
This year’s awardees come from two University of Toronto campuses- St. George and Scarborough- and four hospital partners, encompassing five faculties and thirteen departments.
The work undertaken by these awardees spans many disciplines, from fundamental research approaches aimed at understanding mechanisms of viral assembly and translational approaches that combine biology and engineering in vaccine and anti-viral therapy development to community-based research studying the transmission of infectious diseases and strategies to minimize their spread.
“A core mandate at EPIC is to empower our young leaders to tackle the health and socioeconomic burden associated with infectious diseases. We are immensely proud of the success of our Doctoral Awards program and look forward to welcoming these new recipients to join the talented group from past years and seeing them become engaged and active members of our EPIC community,” says Scott Gray-Owen, academic director of EPIC and a professor of molecular genetics in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine.
EPIC Doctoral Awards provide $10,000 in support to outstanding students who successfully achieved PhD candidacy in the last two calendar years. The students must be pursuing an infectious disease-focused research project and have a supervisor whose primary affiliation is at one of EPIC’s partner institutions (The Hospital for Sick Children, Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Sunnybrook Research Institute, Unity Health Toronto, University Health Network and University of Toronto).
Learn more about the 2025 Doctoral Awards recipients on our funding results page.