Fourth year B.PAPM student Khadija Ga’al has been selected to present a research paper at the U.S.-based National Conference of Undergraduate Research (NCUR), to be held at Weber State University in Odgen, Utah next month.
Khadija participated in the first African Studies Study Abroad course which took place at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Civil Society in Durban, South Africa in May 2011. Afterwards, she and her colleague Heather McAlister, a Political Science and African Studies student, stayed in Durban and completed an African Studies placement course at UKZN’s Health Economics and HIV/AIDS Research Division (HEARD), which is a UNAIDS collaborating centre. Working with HEARD staff, as their placement project Heather and Khadija carried out research and co-wrote a report titled “An analysis of the media portrayal of an innovative HIV/AIDS prevention strategy.” The report will be published later this year.
Professor Alan Steele, special assistant to the Provost, assisted Khadija and Heather in submitting an abstract for the conference. Theirs was selected from a pool of 3,500 applicants. Carleton’s Office of the Provost is sending the two students to present their research to the NCUR conference.
Khadija and Heather are both excited and proud to be the first students representing Carleton University at this annual conference and hope that other Carleton students will have the opportunity to present their undergraduate research in the future at this and other important venues.