Psychology students honoured with Vanier Graduate Scholarships

Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships are opening up a whole new world for two Dalhousie students.

Chelsea Quinlan and Kathryn (Katie) Birnie, both working on their PhDs in the Department of Psychology, have received the distinguished award – worth $50,000 annually for three years.

“I was really surprised and happy and very honoured to receive the scholarship,” says Ms. Quinlan, 24, who is just beginning her doctoral studies.

“It will definitely help me in my research and in my academic studies.”

The Vanier CGS was created to attract and retain world-class doctoral students and to establish Canada as a global centre of excellence in research and higher learning. It’s available to both Canadian and international PhD students studying at Canadian universities.

Intentionally forgetting faces

Ms. Quinlan, originally from Cape Sable Island, Shelburne Co., is studying people’s ability to intentionally forget emotional facial expressions. It’s the culmination of her work on intentional forgetting, first of unwanted information – friends’ old phone numbers, for instance – and then line drawings.

“We asked, ‘Is it more difficult to forget a picture of a car accident than a mug, or a kid, or something happy?’ And it is a lot more difficult to forget more upsetting information, like a car accident or a crime scene,” says Ms. Quinlan.

“So this research will focus on forgetting emotional expressions – whether it’s easier to forget a happy face than an angry face.”

She hopes to get to the bottom of why that’s the case, with the eventual goal of helping people with anxiety and related disorders.

Childhood pain and ethics

Meanwhile, Ms. Birnie – a Calgary native now in her third year of PhD study – is focused on pediatric pain, specifically the use of lab-based techniques like a cold water bath (tubs of cold water into which children submerse their hand to simulate pain).

The 27-year-old, whose work is based partly at the Centre for Pediatric Pain Research at the IWK Health Centre, has conducted several studies on the topic, focusing on influences of parents on their child’s pain experience, as well as ethical issues around inducing pain in the lab.

“I’m beginning a project looking at how parents and children make decisions about how to deal with a child’s pain – how they decide to miss school or a baseball game because of, say, a headache,” she explains.

One of the challenges is the fact children don’t necessarily have the communication tools to adequately describe levels of pain.

“Definitely the ultimate goal of our research is to find better ways to help parents and children deal with pain,” says Ms. Birnie.

While a huge honour for obvious reasons, she says the Vanier CGS is “unique and wonderful” because along with academic pursuits and excellence, it also recognizes leadership in other activities such as the arts, volunteering and foreign study.

“I feel really flattered to receive such a prestigious award,” says Ms. Birnie, a musician who worked at The Banff Centre and studied in India.