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Graduate student
McGill University, School of Human Nutrition, Canada
I am a doctoral candidate in the School of Human Nutrition at McGill University, focusing on food security. I hold B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Human Nutrition from Isfahan University in Iran. I have over a decade of national and international academic research and professional experience in public health nutrition and food security, including five years of research experience in nutrition-sensitive agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. Such experiences have challenged me to think on my feet and act confidently to adapt to situations with limited supervision and support. Further, I have developed project management and leadership skills by supervising and working with research assistants and field staff during my professional experience and by serving as a graduate teaching assistant, course lecturer, and undergraduate mentor. I have also been selected for several competitive academic awards, e.g., the FRQSC doctoral award, where my proposal was ranked first by the evaluation committee. I aim to combine my practical and theoretical experience to work toward equity in food security and provide research-based policy solutions to address food security challenges in Canada sustainably. Gender is at the heart of my work. It is embedded in my current research project that focuses on intersectional gender analysis of women’s empowerment and food security in Uganda. My core values as a researcher involve equitable impact, capacity building, and empowering the community by delivering high-quality applied research. I believe this approach can help direct social change by providing evidence-informed solutions to major public policy challenges of food security in Canada.