May 6th marked a milestone for Carleton’s new PhD program in Applied Linguistics & Discourse Studies: the successful defence of its first graduating PhD student, Christen Rachul.
Rachul, who completed her MA at Carleton in 2008, began her doctoral studies in 2012, the inaugural year of the program, after three years with the Health Law Institute at the University of Alberta.
Research for her dissertation focused primarily on the publication “Eating Well with Canada’s Food Guide”, examining its relative effectiveness at framing and communicating its message of what constitutes healthy eating.
“My research contributes to our understanding of how information about evidence-based public health policy and health promotion initiatives is conveyed and of how this information may subsequently be understood and used by relevant stakeholders.”
The resulting dissertation involved analysis of the food guide itself, interviews with people involved in revision of the guide, and interviews with Registered Dietitians across Canada.
According to supervisor Dr. Natasha Artemeva, Rachul is already well on her way as an academic.
“In addition to the outstanding PhD thesis that Ms Rachul has produced, she has authored and co-authored 32 papers published in peer-reviewed journals, with two more accepted for publication and one under revision. In other words, Christen already has an outstanding publication and presentation record at a level rare for a young scholar who has just defended a PhD thesis. Her contributions to the theoretical aspects of public document analysis and the recommendations for the development of health promotion and education policies are both unique and timely.”
After completing her defence, Rachul was surprised in the hallway by her brother Michael who had flown in from Alberta to help her celebrate.