Jennifer Williams and Melissa Furtado will each receive $35,000 plus a $2,000 research allowance for their ground-breaking work into women’s health. Photo credit: Facebook/McMaster Faculty of Science
On Monday, the Council of Ontario Universities announced its annual Women’s Health Scholars Award recipients for 2022, with two graduate researchers from McMaster University making up a full quarter of this year’s list of eight winners.
Doctoral candidate Jennifer Williams, who works out of the kinesiology department’s Vascular Dynamics Lab, has been recognized for her research investigating the connection between oral contraception pills and women’s cardiovascular health.
According to a synopsis of Williams’ research, oral contraception pills are the most common prescription for women in Canada between the ages of 15 and 44, with approximately 1.3 million Canadian women currently prescribed the drug. Yet, minimal research exists exploring the short- and long-term effects of hormonal oral contraception pills on measures of cardiovascular health.
Williams’ work investigates these under-studied effects using artery response to a series of stimuli, alongside other indicators, such as the stiffness of arteries and markers found in blood, observed using ultrasound technology.
Melissa Furtado, a doctoral student in the Research and Clinical Training stream in McMaster’s Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, has received a renewal on her 2021 Ontario Women’s Health Scholars Award for her research on mitigating anxiety during and after pregnancy.
Furtado’s upcoming research will examine the use of a new Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) program for intolerance of uncertainty to be completed during pregnancy, and will investigate how effective this low-risk, focused treatment can be in this population.
Per a summary of her ground-breaking work provided by the university, if successful, Furtado’s study will be “the first to determine if a low-risk, focused treatment during pregnancy could prevent the development of postpartum anxiety.”
As 2022 award winners at the doctoral level, both Williams and Furtado will receive $35,000 plus a $2,000 research allowance.
Funded by Ontario’s Ministry of Health, the Women’s Health Scholars Awards were “established to ensure that Ontario attracts and retains pre-eminent women’s health scholars.”
The Council of Ontario Universities, which administers the annual awards, provides a forum for Ontario’s universities to collaborate and advocate in support of their shared mission to the benefit and prosperity of students, communities and the province of Ontario.
