Graduate Q&A: Yamen Shahwan

Where are you from? If you’re not from Edmonton, when did you move here?

I was born in Gaza and moved to Canada at 14. I grew up on the East Coast and moved to Edmonton in 2023 to begin my Masters.

Why did you choose to attend the U of A?

After finishing my Bachelor of Science, I wanted to move from studying disease at the molecular level to understanding it at the population level. The School of Public Health had the epidemiology and biostatistics training I was looking for, and the opportunity to do computational research with Dr. Irina Dinu made the decision easy.

What is your first U of A memory?

Playing pickup soccer at Foote Field. It was one of the first times Edmonton felt like home rather than somewhere I'd just moved to.

What is your favourite spot on campus?

The Dianne and Irving Kipnes Health Research institute building. It's where most of my time as a public health student and employee was spent, and it has the rare combination of being both functional and a genuinely nice place to think.

What will you miss most about the U of A?

Campus in the summer. The trees, the landscaping, the open green space — there's a stretch of the year when the U of A grounds are honestly beautiful, and it's hard to imagine not having that as part of my routine.

What are you looking forward to now that you’ve graduated?

Bringing my research training closer to the people it's ultimately meant to serve. My work has focused on understanding disease at the population level, and I'm looking forward to applying that in more direct, applied settings.

What are the next steps in your education or career path?

Continuing to build toward a career that connects research and patient care. My MSc thesis used gene-expression data to identify molecular drivers of gastric cancer progression, and that clinical motivation is the thread I want to keep pulling on.

What would be your advice to new or prospective U of A students?

Don't wait until you feel ready to start doing real work. The biggest jumps in my training came from saying yes to projects I wasn't sure I could handle yet and then figuring it out. Grad school rewards people who learn by doing, not by waiting.