The Canadian Association for Graduate Studies (CAGS) is pleased to announce that Dr. Marina (Nina) von Keyserlingk, Professor of Animal Welfare and a former NSERC Industrial Research Chair in Animal Welfare, has been selected as the winner of the 2024 Dr. Suning Wang Award for Outstanding Graduate Mentorship.
A global leader in animal welfare science, Dr. von Keyserlingk is a professor in the Applied Animal Biology Program at The University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Land and Food Systems. She has published more than 350 peer-reviewed articles that collectively have been cited in excess of 33,000 times — approximately 85 per cent of her publications include a graduate student or postdoc as a co-author. She is ranked second globally among women scientists in the field of animal and veterinary science. Among her many accolades, Dr. von Keyserlingk has been awarded all three Killam Prizes for research, teaching and mentorship.
A Customized Approach to Supervisory Excellence
Dr. von Keyserlingk has developed a reputation for genuinely caring for the well-being and success of her students, respecting them both as individual human beings as well as emerging experts in their fields of research. She recognizes that each student experiences graduate school differently and faces unique challenges throughout the course of their studies. As such, she employs a holistic approach to mentorship that seeks to identify student strengths and weaknesses early, create the necessary scaffolding to support student success and adapt in response to the evolving needs of the student as they navigate their program of study.
