Six students honoured with Albert Lager Prize for their outstanding contributions

This week, the McMaster Alumni Association is celebrating the achievements and contributions of students and alumni over the past year.

Leading up to the Alumni Awards Ceremony on June 2, learn more about the six students who are receiving the 2021 Albert Lager Prize for their involvement in campus life and long-lasting impact in their communities.

CASSIDY BERESKIN ‘21

Honours Political Science Program

When Bereskin was in high school, she started Model City Hall, a free mock city hall conference aimed at improving youth civic engagement. She brought this passion with her to Mac and in her first year, she co-founded the Hamilton division of the non-profit.

The Model City Hall’s Hamilton conference sees students play the role of councillors at Hamilton City Hall, where they debate within their committees and vote on motions to address key municipal concerns.

“Organizing the conference […] has been a deeply rewarding experience for me,” she says. “For instance, many of the students who have attended our conferences were not previously able to access and attend costly Model United Nations and Model Parliament conferences.”

Bereskin has always been apt to participate in discussions around democracy. At Mac, she’s worked with professors to build McMaster’s Digital Democracy Research Hub, which aims to create space for research studying the relationship between democracy and digital technology. Bereskin is excited to grapple with these questions at the Oxford Internet Institute, where she will be starting an MSc and doctoral studies on a full-ride scholarship in the fall.

ALYSSA GRACE BURROWS ‘21

Biology & Pharmacology (BioPharm) Co-op Program

When Burrows was touring universities as a high school student, the McMaster Outdoor Orientation Student Experience (MOOSE) program caught her eye. While Burrows was unable to participate in the outdoor experience in Algonquin Provincial Park as a first-year student, she later joined the team as a leader and then coordinator of the program.

Burrows’ enthusiasm for MOOSE didn’t waver during COVID-19, when she was faced with redesigning the entire program into a virtual format. Burrows, her colleagues, and a team of 40 leaders organized and delivered a successful outdoor-focused program online to more than 300 incoming first-year students.

Her passion for extracurriculars doesn’t stop at the MOOSE program. In 2017, Burrows co-founded the McMaster Food Allergy Club in support of people on campus with dietary restrictions. As a student in the interdisciplinary Biology & Pharmacology (BioPharm) Co-op program, she pursued a variety of opportunities, including work in the AstraZeneca and Ellis labs.

After graduation, Burrows will be starting an MSc in Translational Medicine at Queen’s University in the Ellis lab on an immunology project related to COVID-19.

MICHELLE YAO ‘21

Bachelor of Health Sciences (Hon.)

Yao recognizes that the pandemic has brought a lot of new and unique challenges to students and she struggles with how it has exposed hidden inequalities. She says it feels more important now than ever before to encourage collective care across campus communities.

As a student, Yao was a Resources and Advocacy Co-executive at the MSU Student Health Education Centre, a position that gave her the chance to amplify student voices that were often excluded from mainstream health discourse.

In addition to her advocacy roles, Yao was a contributing writer to the Health Sciences Musical and was the editor-in-chief for her faculty’s Onion-inspired humour publication. She was also a regular writer for Incite—McMaster’s student-funded creative arts magazine.

Yao hopes to continue doing advocacy work and research around the causes she cares about and is especially passionate about environmental justice, disability justice, and promoting cultural awareness in health-related settings.

NURA KHATTAB ‘22

Electrical and Biomedical Engineering Program

Going to McMaster was a natural fit for Khattab because of a strong family connection to the university.

“I come from a really large and wonderfully crazy family. My uncle immigrated to Canada when he was 20 years old to pursue a PhD at McMaster. During his time at Mac, he met my aunt who was studying nursing,” she says. “Fast forward a few years, my father decided to follow in his big brother’s footsteps and move to Canada. Plus, all of my cousins chose to complete postsecondary and graduate degrees at McMaster.”

With sports and medicine being a lifelong passion for Khattab, and with Mac having one of the leading kinesiology programs in Canada, she jumped at the opportunity to continue the family tradition.

While managing a full course load, Khattab also participates in the STEM Fellowship Program; volunteers for the MacStroke Canada Lab; and works at the physical activity centre for excellence (PACE) at McMaster, providing rehabilitative care for clients with multiple sclerosis and degenerative diseases.

During the pandemic, Khattab and her peers founded the pediatric mental health initiative (PMHI) to help support youth struggling with mental illness, much of which has connections to public health measures such as lockdowns.

RISHI BANSAL ‘23

Michael G. Degroote School of Medicine

When COVID-19 hit, everything had abruptly moved online while Bansal was finishing his third year at McMaster. During this time, Bansal says he noticed that the restricted visitation rules in hospitals led to a lot of stress for the people around him. So, along with a group of McMaster physicians, he co-founded Frontline Connect Canada.

“A big group of people got together and figured out that providing tablets was one way that we could assist,” Bansal says. “We were fortunate to get donations from the community, and the hospital administration was very willing to work with us. Because the pandemic affected everybody, people were more than willing to help.”

In April, when many intensive care units (ICU) across the province were at capacity, Bansal and his peers penned an open letter to the provincial government to advocate for paid sick leave on behalf of all medical students across Ontario. The letter reinforced calls for a comprehensive and permanent provincial paid sick leave program. It received more than 600 signatures.

VICTORIA TUCCI ‘22

Bachelor of Health Sciences (Hon.)

Tucci has been curious about space ever since she was in grade school. Now she’s interested in finding solutions to medical care delivery in space because it can have a meaningful impact on healthcare delivery here on Earth.

Tucci is currently active in the field as an aerospace medicine intern at AdvancingX, a global leader in astronaut training and STEM programs. Specifically, she works on developing risk mitigation strategies for extreme environments, in hopes that their findings will translate to health maintenance for astronauts in space.

“Designing astronaut training challenges to measure physiological adaptation and astronaut competencies has taught me a lot about the human health requirements in space,” she says.

Tucci also works as the global project manager and as a career astronaut liaison for AdvancingX, where she connects with like-minded people around the world who want to make the space sector more accessible. Over the summer, she will be a research assistant at McMaster on a project that explores the intersection of healthcare and artificial intelligence.

As she begins to plan her future, she remains committed to participating in community engagement initiatives and research projects involving equity in health care.