Jolie Gan, a second-year member of Trinity College, has been awarded a prestigious 2023 Cansbridge Fellowship.
The fellowship has been described as a “launchpad for audacious Canadian undergraduate leaders with a global point of view.” Each year, it allows a select cohort of students to spend a week in Silicon Valley, where they participate in company visits, fireside chats and a pitch competition. They are also granted a $10,000 scholarship which enables them to self-organize a summer internship in Asia. Beyond the summer, they remain life members of a supportive network of industry leaders.
Out of a pool of some 700 applicants, Gan is one of only 27 students chosen for this year’s award. Now majoring in political science and global health, she was motivated as a teenager to get involved in health care advocacy and policy while her mother was recovering from a brain aneurysm.
She has since led an exemplary career in the field, working variously as a researcher and advisor for such organizations as the United Nations, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Alberta Children’s Hospital, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and Results Canada. She is also currently conducting research on the social determinants of health at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.
As founding member of Youth Leaders in Law, a non-profit that seeks to diversify the law profession and help youth kickstart legal careers, Gan also helped connect 1,000 students in 11 countries with a wealth of mentorship opportunities and information. And in 2021, she was one of only 10 Canadian winners of the Diana Award, which recognizes people aged nine to 25 for their extraordinary social action and humanitarian work.
Being able to cultivate food and make typically non-sustainable foods sustainable is so fascinating to me, and an immediate goal of mine is to use scientific solutions to help millions of people who are starving and can’t access basic nutrition.
In her capacity as a Cansbridge Fellow, Gan is looking forward to joining the network of support fostered by the program. “I think the biggest thing I’ve taken away from this fellowship so far is the fact that, even though the recipients haven’t met in person, this whole community really treats each other like a family. It means finding my people, finding my niche and being able to bond with people with whom I can foster genuine relationships.”
Gan plans to choose an internship in Asia that will reflect her current strong interest in food science. Her recent work in policy and risk management with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has inspired her to concentrate on remediating huge problems in this field.
“Issues such as food scarcity and food waste are growing,” she says. “And there haven’t been enough large-scale tangible solutions. Being able to cultivate food and make typically non-sustainable foods sustainable is so fascinating to me, and an immediate goal of mine is to use scientific solutions to help millions of people who are starving and can’t access basic nutrition.”