Providing a meaningful and experiential learning experience for students is an important part of the work being done at the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health (DMCBH).
As such, we were happy to learn that Jeff LeDue (NeuroImaging and NeuroComputation Centre Managing Director and Dynamic Brain Circuits Cluster Coordinator) recently received a UBC Science Co-op Supervisor Recognition Award for 2022. He was nominated by his co-op student, Sarah Wang, who is a fourth year Physics student.
“I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to work with Sarah over the past eight months – to help her apply her knowledge and energy to our projects, learn new things together and navigate the shifting priorities of the research environment,” says Jeff. “It means a lot that she felt strongly about my supervision and put me forward for this award.”
Sarah has been an Open Science Specialist at the DMCBH since May and has been helping the Dynamic Brain Circuits Cluster with the DMCBH Open Science Initiative, Data Champions pilot project and all things Databinge related.
“Jeff is an extremely knowledgeable and diligent supervisor who has single-handedly made my first co-op experience an absolute blast. His advice and guidance have not only assisted me in accomplishing my day-to-day tasks, but also really helped me in thinking about my future career paths and educational goals,” says Sarah. “I really appreciate everything Jeff has done for me and wanted to make sure that he was recognized for his immense efforts!”
Even though Sarah has learned a lot of coding and programming theory through various physics and computer sciences courses, it was only through the projects she worked on during her co-op term that she could get hands-on experience and really expand on and reinforce the concepts she had learned.
“As someone who had very little prior experience in programming and computers in general, Jeff was instrumental in teaching foundational concepts as well as introducing completely foreign topics to me,” says Sarah. “I really am impressed by the dedication he shows to both his work and in mentoring me and other students.”
The UBC Science Co-op Supervisor Recognition Award recognizes outstanding mentorship and coaching provided to co-op students by their supervisor. Out of more than 1800 supervisors in the program this year, Jeff was one of 91 supervisors who received this award.
