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Governor General’s Gold Medal

Awarded to the two graduate students who achieve the highest academic standing upon graduation from a master’s or doctoral degree program.

Ceremony A
Dr. Aniqa Shahid, PhD, Health Sciences
Faculty of Health Sciences

For her PhD, Dr. Aniqa Shahid studied HIV proviral genetic diversity in blood and lung. She developed new methods to help advance the ongoing research efforts of the scientific community towards an HIV cure. She achieved a 4.33 CGPA and several awards during her PhD, including the Canadian Association for HIV Research’s New Investigator Award for Basic Sciences and funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research for doctoral studies. She is currently pursuing a postdoc at SFU and plans to become more involved in managing and leading independent research projects.

Ceremony I
Dr. Estella Carolye Kuchta, PhD, Education
Faculty of Education

Along with the Governor General’s Gold Medal, Dr. Estella Carolye Kuchta received a Graduate Fellowship (2021, 2022 & 2024), Education Graduation Fellowship (2022), Lis Welch Graduate Scholarship (2023) and a Travel & Research Award (2024). Her research explores how ecological love enables ways of knowing that are otherwise inaccessible. She suggests that human relational wounds are a central cause of environmental destruction and offers teaching practices that work to heal these wounds. She authored the novel Finding the Daydreamer (Elm Books, 2020), coauthored Ecologizing Education (Cornell University, 2024) and is currently writing a book on ecological love.

Dean of Graduate Studies Convocation Medal

Recognizes graduate students from each faculty who achieve the highest level of academic excellence in their graduate program.

Ceremony A
Dr. Amanda Rowlands, PhD, Health Sciences
Faculty of Health Sciences

Dr. Amanda Rowlands' research focuses on improving sexual and reproductive health outcomes among adolescent girls and young women. Her PhD dissertation explored the biological mechanisms linking women’s socio-ecological contexts during early development and their impact on reproductive maturation. She also worked closely with adolescents and women in Guatemala to identify community research priorities and interventions strategies. She achieved a 4.11 CGPA and has received multiple awards, including the prestigious NSERC Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship. She is now pursuing a postdoctoral fellowship that investigates the links between of inflammation and sexual and reproductive health among adolescent girls and young women.

Ceremony A
Dr. Brett Hodinka, PhD, Biological Sciences
Faculty of Science

Dr. Brett Hodinka received his degrees in biology at The University of Alabama (undergraduate) and Western Kentucky University (master’s). He completed his doctoral degree in Dr. Tony Williams' laboratory, where his research has moved the field towards a more complete understanding of costs of reproduction in birds. During his time at SFU, he achieved a 4.33 CGPA and was awarded the Graduate Dean's Entrance Scholarship, the Dr. Eva Voigt Graduate Award in Science for Mentoring Leadership and the Thesis Completion Fellowship. He is currently seeking a post-doctoral fellowship back home in the United States.

Ceremony A
Dr. Matthew Leighton, PhD, Physics
Faculty of Science

Over the course of his PhD, Dr. Matthew Leighton explored the physics of molecular machines—nanoscale protein structures that fulfill key functions within the cells of living organisms. He studied molecular machines through the lens of stochastic thermodynamics to understand what physical limits constrain their performance and, through this work, uncovered design principles to help guide the future engineering of multicomponent synthetic nanomachines. Following his PhD, Matthew moved to the east coast to continue biophysics research as a Mossman Postdoctoral Fellow with the Quantitative Biology Institute at Yale University.

Ceremony C
Christopher Des Rosiers, MSc, Accounting with Cognitive Analytics
Beedie School of Business

For his master's thesis, Chris Des Rosiers studied accounting with cognitive analytics, focusing on how to more broadly and impactfully deploy Generative AI in a professional accounting firm. He achieved a 4.25 GPA for his master's and his project was chosen by a panel as the top master's project amongst his cohort. In collaborating with two peers at his firm, he proposed a visual playbook of tailored prompts to democratize Generative AI for his peers, helping to inform his role as a leader of audit innovation at KPMG Canada.

Ceremony C
Dr. Bright Addae, PhD, Geography 
Faculty of Environment

Dr. Bright Addae completed his PhD in Geography, where he developed a modelling framework for simulating Earth’s complex spatial systems at the global level to address limitations of current models. His work has been published in high-impact journals and presented at international conferences. At SFU, he received multiple awards, including the Esri Canada GIS Scholarship and Michael Geller Graduate Scholarship in Urban Development. He is transitioning his research into practical solutions through a start-up that applies spatial analytics to environmental challenges. He gratefully acknowledges his supervisor Suzana Dragicevic and committee members Kirsten Zickfeld and Peter Hall for their invaluable guidance.

Ceremony D
Dr. Amin Abnavi, PhD, Engineering Science
Faculty of Applied Sciences

Dr. Amin Abnavi completed his PhD in Engineering Science, where he developed innovative optoelectronic devices including artificial optical synapses, flexible thin-film solar cells and self-powered photodetectors. He received several prestigious awards, including the Canadian Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Scholarship, the Kaiser Foundation for Higher Education Graduate Scholarship and the Lang Wong Memorial Endowment Scholarship in Engineering. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Victoria, where he is developing hybrid systems that can harvest energy from both sunlight and raindrops.

Ceremony E
Justine Chambers, MFA, Contemporary Arts
Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology

Justine A. Chambers’ research is a collaboration with her Black matrilineal heritage and attends to individual and collective embodied archives, social choreography and dance as otherwise ways of being in relation. She has received two Graduate Fellowships, the Banff Centre for the Arts’ Fleck Fellowship and funding from the Periculum Foundation, Canada Council for the Arts and the CanDance Commissioning Fund. She is an assistant professor in Dance at SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts and her work is forthcoming in prestigious galleries and theatres, including the National Arts Centre, PuSh Festival, EMPAC and the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art.

Ceremony F
Dr. Daria Gluhareva, PhD, Linguistics
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Dr. Daria (Dasha) Gluhareva completed her PhD in Linguistics with research that introduced a novel, real-time method to study how second language speakers assess their own English speech. This research challenged existing assumptions and revealed that speech assessment is a dynamic process that changes moment to moment. During her time at SFU, she taught a wide range of linguistics courses as a sessional instructor and enjoyed supporting undergraduate learning. She is currently a lecturer and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Kassel in Germany, where she trains future English teachers and continues her research in applied linguistics.

Ceremony F
Sarah Law, MA, Sociology
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Sarah Law studied subjects of the Financial Independence and Retiring Early (FIRE) self-help movement. She developed a theory of hardening to describe how late capitalist life is embodied as an urgent and virtuous drive to steel the self through hard work. She argues that this desire to harden works to maintain colonial, racial and gendered relations of power and conceal cold structures of domination. Sarah achieved a 4.25 CGPA, is a recipient of the Dean’s Convocation Medal, was a SSHRC recipient and received multiple awards in recognition of her dedication to social justice organizing, community engagement and research.

Ceremony I
Dr. Natacha Roudeix, PhD, Education
Faculty of Education

Dr. Natacha Roudeix completed a joint PhD in Languages, Cultures and Literacies at SFU and Inalco (France). Her thesis explores how Inuit in Kuujjuaq, Nunavik live and feel their plurilingualism—especially through Inuktitut—by linking language to land, memory and identity. She received first-place awards for Best Poster at the 2024 Montpellier Conference in France and in 2021 for photography celebrating Indigenous cultures in B.C. She also received the PhD Research Scholarship and the Northern Scientific Training Award. She plans to continue working alongside Indigenous communities to support Reconciliation, language revitalization and culturally grounded approaches to teaching and learning.

Governor General’s Silver Medal

Awarded to the two undergraduate students who achieve the highest scholastic standing upon graduation from a bachelor’s degree program.

Ceremony A
Alistair Bevan, BSc (Hons.), Chemical Physics
Faculty of Science

Alistair Bevan graduates with a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Chemical Physics. As a research assistant, he contributed to the Kaake group's work on conducting and semiconducting polymers and received the Melanie O'Neill Chemistry Undergraduate Research Award. This work resulted in a first-author journal publication. He is an active member of the six-time world champion SFU Pipe Band and has been a volunteer teacher for students in the band's junior organization since high school. He will pursue a PhD in Chemistry at the University of Toronto, where he has been awarded a Faculty of Arts & Science Talent Doctoral Fellowship.

Ceremony A
Kye Emond, BSc (Hons.), Mathematical Physics
Faculty of Science

Kye Emond graduates with a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Mathematical Physics and is grateful to everyone who supported him throughout his degree. At SFU, he worked on research in a variety of fields, including gravitational wave analysis, particle physics, partial differential equation analysis, artificial intelligence and autoformalization of mathematics. He has the distinction of achieving a perfect 4.33 CGPA with more units (144) than any other student in SFU's history. He also co-founded the SFU Tabletop Club and was an executive for the Game Developers Club and the Physics Student Association. A recipient of the Canadian Mathematical Society President's Award and the Faculty and Departmental Outreach Awards, he begins graduate studies this fall at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. 

Lieutenant Governor’s Medal for Inclusion, Democracy and Reconciliation

Awarded to an outstanding undergraduate student in any faculty who has completed the requirements for a Bachelor’s degree and/or a Certificate or a Post-Baccalaureate Diploma and has demonstrated academic excellence and outstanding contributions in support/promotion of one or more of the following areas: (1) inclusion, (2) democracy and/or (3) reconciliation, on campus or in their communities.

Ceremony F
Kaitlyn Cunningham, BA, Linguistics and Indigenous Languages
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Kaitlyn Cunningham graduates with a Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics and Indigenous Languages. As program navigator for the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ Indigenous Languages Program cohort at SFU, she strives to support safe spaces for fellow Indigenous students. She also works with the xʷəlməxʷqən Cultural Society to preserve and promote the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ language. She owes her academic achievements and success to all those who continue to support her on her journey—her sisters, nieces, parents, partner and daughter, friends, classmates, instructors and especially her Mentors, Elders and Matriarchs. She is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Indigenous Languages and Linguistics at SFU.

Gordon M. Shrum Undergraduate Medal

SFU’s most prestigious undergraduate medal is bestowed on the graduating student whose high scholastic standing and extracurricular activities demonstrate outstanding qualities of character and unselfish devotion to the university.

Ceremony C
Gabrielle Wong, BA (Hons.), Human Geography
Faculty of Environment

Gabrielle Wong graduates with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Human Geography, minor in Social Data Analytics and certificate in Urban Studies. She enriched her studies through three co-op placements, four research assistant positions and an honours project about endangered species recovery. Gabrielle also co-chaired the Geography Student Union and led the first two iterations of the union's student conference while supporting other students as a welcome leader, mentor, tutor and peer educator. She received the 2021 and 2023 Warren Gill Memorial Awards, among others. This fall, Gabrielle begins graduate studies in geography at the University of Toronto.

Dean's Convocation Medal

Recognize undergraduate students in each faculty whose cumulative grade point average places them in the top five per cent of their class.

Ceremony A
Ida Niksirat, BSc (Hons.), Health Sciences
Faculty of Health Sciences

Ida Niksirat graduates with a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Life Sciences. Her honours thesis provided recommendations to policy makers, allied health professionals and patients on the use of artificial intelligence in paediatric healthcare spaces. At SFU, she received the Joanne Tattle Award in Health Sciences and the Mike McIntosh Undergraduate Award for her academic excellence and community equity work. During her degree, she founded the Allies In Health Network, an organisation that addresses health-related community issues through grassroots efforts. She plans to pursue her passion for health equity and visual neuroscience research in the Sensorimotor Neuroscience Lab at SFU.  

Ceremony A
Oscar Lautsch, BSc, Mathematics
Faculty of Science

Oscar Lautsch excelled academically during his time at SFU, achieving a 4.31 GPA while taking numerous graduate courses. He was deeply involved in the Mathematics Student Union, where he was First Year representative and then Equity, Diversity and Inclusion representative. Additionally, Oscar completed three NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award projects, where he researched the fields of algebraic geometry and quantum computing. This work resulted in two co-authored papers and several conference talks, including presentations at seminars in Oxford and Cambridge. In September, Oscar will begin his master’s in Mathematics at Waterloo, where he will continue to study quantum computing.

Ceremony B
Emily Su, BBA (Hons.), Management Information Systems, Marketing and Operations Management
Beedie School of Business

Emily Su graduates with a Bachelor of Business Administration, First Class Honours with Distinction in Management Information Systems, Marketing and Operations. A consistent Honour Roll student, she received the Accenture Award in Business Administration and Boivie Family Award, among others. Dedicated to community impact, she served as student representative on the Beedie Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, vice-president of marketing at Enactus SFU and chair of the PIVOT Case Competition. She also represented SFU at national and international business competitions, earning top-two finishes at JDC West and CoMIS. This fall, she looks forward to beginning her career in business technology management.

Ceremony C
Helena Debus, BEnv, Resource and Environmental Management
Faculty of Applied Sciences

Helena Debus graduates with a Bachelor of Environment in Resource and Environmental Management (CGPA 4.22/4.33) and a Certificate in Sustainable Community Development (GPA 4.33/4.33). Her academic excellence earned her numerous awards, including the McElhanney Women in STEM Scholarship, the Flight 302 Legacy Award, the SFU Alumni Scholarship and the Dueck Auto Group President’s Scholarship. While still an undergraduate, she was awarded an NSERC Canada Graduate Scholarship and is now pursuing research in ocean resource economics through SFU's Master’s of Resource Management program. Helena balances her studies with raising her son, who was nine months old when she began studying at SFU.

Ceremony D
Prashant Kumar, BASc, Mechatronics Systems Engineering
Faculty of Applied Sciences

Prashant earned dual bachelor’s degrees (BASc, BBA) majoring in Mechatronic Systems Engineering and Finance. He received the Undergraduate Scholars Entrance Scholarship with Distinction and secured placement on the President’s Honour Roll every semester. His accolades include receiving the Triple A Award in Mechatronics (twice), the Beedie Study Abroad Award, the Global Learning Award, the Lisa Pinto Memorial Achievement Award and the MSE Academic Excellence Award. Prashant also demonstrated strong engagement through the Undergraduate Scholars Committee, TD Community Engagement Centre, Peer Education Program and as a Senior Welcome Leader. Prashant works at Orbis Investments, aspiring to leverage business insight in a future engineering career. 

Ceremony E
Trisha Wong, BA, Interactive Arts and Technology
Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology

Trisha Wong graduates with a Bachelor of Arts in Interactive Arts and Technology. At SFU, she won the Cody Sawatsky Memorial Award in Gaming, several scholarships and achieved both the Dean's and President's Honour Roll multiple times during her degree. She is recognized for her work as the creative director of StudioSIAT, SFU's experiential learning motion capture studio, and the successful launch of the world's first university-driven Virtual Ambassador Program, as well as an AI-integrated motion capture iVizLab research project featured on CBC News. After graduation, she aspires to enter the technical art side of animation and video games. 

Ceremony G
Mayuko Arai, BA (Hons.), Psychology 
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

During her degree, Mayuko Arai examined the effects of an antidepressant on sleep as a potential intervention for Alzheimer's disease under the mentorship of Dr. Brianne Kent. She also received the Undergraduate Student Research Award, Psychology Alumni Honours Award and the CPA’s Certificate of Academic Excellence, and delivered a symposium talk at the Canadian Neuroscience Meeting. Her work has been published in Sleep Advances and SFU’s Undergraduate Journal of Psychology. Currently pursuing a neuroscience PhD in California, she hopes to one day return to SFU and give back to the community.

Ceremony H
Taylor Ivan, BA (Hons.), Philosophy
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Taylor Ivan graduates with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Philosophy. At SFU, she became a FASS Dean's Undergraduate Fellow, received six scholarships and was an executive member of the Philosophy Student Union. Her honours thesis focused on the disappearance of alchemy leading up to the eighteenth century. She presented her research at the Philosophy of Science Association conference in 2024 and the FASS Undergraduate Research Symposium in 2025. She looks forward to starting her PhD in Philosophy at Yale this September.  

Ceremony I
Justin Low, BGS, Education
Faculty of Education

Justin Low graduates with a Bachelor of General Studies in Education. A consistent recipient of the President's Honour Roll and Undergraduate Open Scholarship with a 4.1 GPA, he also received several scholarships including the Ethel Barbara Tuck Scholarship in Education, Health Sciences Association Scholarship and SFU Alumni Scholarship. While at SFU, he completed four minors in the areas of Education and Psychology, was part of the fencing team and worked with SFU's Friends of Simon as an office assistant and tutor. He plans to pursue work as an elementary teacher after completing his Bachelor of Education at UBC.