Kudos

Brains and brawn

Sarah Ali-Kahn
COURTESY OF McGILL ATHLETICS

Sarah Ali-Khan, McGill's star track and field, and cross-country athlete, has won the Montreal YWCA Woman of Distinction award in the Sports & Wellness category. She is the third McGill athlete to take home this award, which recognizes outstanding contributions by a woman to the field of sports, physical fitness, recreation or general fitness.

Born in Baie d'Urfé, Quebec and raised in New Zealand, Ali-Khan began her post-graduate studies in pharmacology and therapeutics at McGill in 1997. She dominated the Quebec university circuit until 2003 in both cross-country and track and field. She won an unprecedented total of three consecutive Gladys Bean trophies as the McGill Female Athlete of the Year from 1999-00 to 2001-02, the CIS All-Canadian honours five times in track & field and four times in cross-country, as well as several other honours and awards.

Academically, Ali-Khan was a five-time honouree on the McGill Principal's Student-Athlete Honour Roll, accorded to students who earn a cumulative grade-point average over 3.5 on a scale of 4.0. She has earned Academic All-Canadian Honours five times for maintaining an academic average over 80 percent.

Grad students win big

The Canadian Public Health Association (CPHA) gave two McGill students awards for their research in applied population and public health. Doctoral student Chantelle A.M. Richmond, Geography PhD candidate, won the Dr. John Hastings CPHA Student Award, for her abstract "Societal resources and their implications for Aboriginal health in Canada." Masters student Karen Roberts, Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health, was given an award for her abstract "Predictors of Nutritional Risk in Community Dwelling Seniors."

Doctoral student Sarah Hazell won the William E. Taylor Research Award of $5,000, presented each year by the Canadian Museum of Civilization for research in Arctic studies in archaeology, anthropology, history or native studies. Hazell has been involved in long-term archaeological projects in both the Near Eastern Arctic and the Canadian Arctic, including her current project, "Late Dorset and Sadlermiut Occupations at Needle Point, Rowley Island, Nunavut." She is investigating the possible relationship between a local Inuit population and the pre-Inuit occupants of the Eastern Arctic.