CRINA Trainee Awards
Through generous donations from the community, and funding from our partner organizations, CRINA has proudly provided numerous awards to support the next generation of cancer researchers.
CRINA has established dozens of studentships over the years to offer support at all levels — from undergraduate to graduate students and post-doctoral fellows — and has also partnered with several organizations such as the Alberta Cancer Foundation, Kids with Cancer Society, and the University Hospital Foundation.
Learn about the awards and past recipients below.
The Boytzun Studentship in Colorectal Cancer will be awarded to a graduate student conducting colorectal cancer research.
Recipients
- 2025: Shahad Al-Imarah
- 2024: Sara Abd El-Hafeez and Mckenna Eklund
This award was made possible through the Kenneth and Reta Cote and Joyce Cote Biomedical Research Endowment.
Recipients
- 2025: Blake Roberts
- 2024: Rachel Sherrington
- 2023: Maria Areli Lorenzana Carrillo
These summer studentships, a partnership between CRINA and the Alberta Cancer Foundation (ACF), allows us to provide several undergraduate students with stipend support to conduct cancer research in CRINA members’ laboratories over the summer months.
Recipients
- 2026: Brielle Airey, Dana Arteaga Velez, Ellie Gibb, Joe Hoogland, Caleb Kamenka, Derek Parker, Jana Sharaby
- 2025: Brielle Airey, Tracy Cui, Hannah Dean, Clare Gilmour, David Guo, Cale Kooyman, Alex Kwan, Radha Maradiya
- 2024: Hannah Dean, Saron Gebremariam, Dev Patel, Rahim Valji, Bhoomi Venkatanarayana, Mandy Yip
- 2023: Hannah Dean, Angela Hamie, Khushi Patel, Maria Ren, Ali Simchi, Yifan Wu
- 2022: Alan Kulathanil, Ali Waheed, Jeremy Fung, Judy Ali, Kara Terry, Madihah Khan, Maiah Walters, Mariane Khoury, Melissa Aikema, Yingze Ma
- 2021: Jayden Pannu, Natnael Abate, Rianna Nanad, Angie Chen, Dongyu Shao, Heidi Nwosu, Cassidy Eckstrom, Shreya Ravi, Tony Yu
- 2020: Benjamin Schultz, Kerrylei Jabilona, Sargun Sokhi, Ryan Zhu
- 2019: Sahil Patel, Laura Enekegho, Angie Chen, Jessica Bennett, Anna Jutla
- 2018: Yea Jin Yoon, Pramal Kumar Patel, Asna Latif, Da Eun Choi, Sean Larade
CRINA Graduate Studentships are awarded to graduate students conducting cancer research.
Recipients
- 2025: Myriam Filion & Breanna Magnan
- 2024: Leila Pireyeshfard & Sharon Wu
- 2023: Leila Pirayeshfard, Shayla Mosley & Serena Li
- 2022: Nicholas Ruel & Jaqueline de Lima Munhoz
Darin McDonald believed that it is the team working collaboratively where the greatest results are achieved. With this in mind, his family and friends, in collaboration with CRINA, created the Darin McDonald Team Award in Basic Oncology Research endowment in his memory, to provide an annual award to a multidisciplinary team that demonstrates excellence and collaboration in basic oncology research.
Recipients
- 2025: The team of Blake Roberts, Kasia Dzierlega, Derek Parker, Sue Tsai and Xavier Clemente-Casares for the CRINA Research Day poster presentation titled "IL-1β Signaling through MyD88 Drives Pro-Cachetic Suppressive Neutrophil Infiltration in Skeletal and Cardiac Muscle"
- 2024: The team of Kléouforo-Paul Dembele, Alois Haromy, Jiyuan Piao, Evangelos D. Michelakis, and Gopinath Sutendra for the CRINA Research Day poster presentation titled "Nanotubes mediated mitochondria transfer from normal to cancer cells promotes Mesenchymal-to-Epithelial Transition (MET) required for metastasis in cancer."
- 2023: The team of Saymon Tejay, Maria Areli Lorenzana Carillo, Joseph Nana, Yongsheng Liu, Yongneng Zhang, Alois Haromy, Yuan Zhao, Edith Pituskin, John Ussher, Evangelos Michelakis, and Gopinath Sutendra for the CRINA Research Day poster presentation "Tumor-Secreted Nucleosides Promote RbFox1 Degradation and Dedifferentiation in Cardiomyocytes; A Two-Hit Hypothesis with Implications for Cardiotoxicity."
- 2022: The team of Bryce Nelson, John Wilson, Jan Andersson and Frank Wuest for the CRINA Research Day poster presentation "High yield cyclotron production of 203Pb for diagnostic SPECT imaging alongside 212Pb targeted radionuclide therapy."
- 2021: The team of TIffany Lo, Parnian Alavi, Nadia Jahroudi and Manijeh Pasdar for the CRINA Research Day poster presentation "Differential Effects of Plakoglobin Expression on the Oncogenic Properties of p53 Conformational and Contact Mutants."
This award was created by the Alberta Cancer Foundation to recognize outstanding graduate students conducting high quality cancer research.
Recipients
- 2025: Anastasia Roemer
- 2022: Mona Al-Onazi
- 2018: Amirali Bukhari
Funded by the Kids with Cancer Society, this award recognizes the contributions of Dr. David Eisenstat to the area of pediatric oncology.
Recipients
- 2026: Claudia Lopez Diaz
- 2025: Anannya Prasanna
- 2024: Nishita Shukla
- 2023: Seth Peyton
- 2022: Tracy Lee
The Elaine Essien Graduate Award in Ovarian Cancer Research will be awarded to a graduate student conducting ovarian cancer research.
Recipients
- 2025: Pooja Praveen Kumar
- 2024: Zorica Nakevska
- 2023: Brennan Salte
Recipients
- 2023: Jenilee Woodfield
This scholarship, in memory of Dr. Rachel Mandel, is given to a graduate student pursuing an innovative research project that strives to generate new ideas about the diagnosis, treatment and/or prevention of lymphoma and other blood cancers.
Recipients
- 2025: Elham Zeinali
- 2024: Angela Hamie and Sara Elmahrouk
- 2023: Mohammad Nasrullah
- 2022: Justine Lai
- 2021: Mahmoud Elghiaty and Andrew Locke
- 2020: Nicholas Ruel
Funded through the generosity of supporters of the Tough Enough to Wear Pink Drag Race.
Recipients
- 2026: Aishwarya Burad, Kian Ahmadinejad
- 2025: Sara Haque, Zalak Khatri, Amreen Podruzny, Abigail Samuel
- 2024: Daniel Huang
These studentships are awarded to graduate students conducting cancer research.
Recipients
- 2025: Justin Knechtel, William Li, Norazlin Mohamad, Chahat Suri, Sharon Wu
This award was created by the Alberta Cancer Foundation to recognize outstanding graduate students conducting high quality cancer research.
Recipients
- 2025: Ahmed Abdelfattah
- 2022: Justin Knechtel
- 2019: Marnie Newell
- 2017: Amanda Swan