Alberta Innovates- Health Solutions - Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research

AHFMR, internationally recognized for establishing and supporting a high-calibre biomedical and health research community in the province, now has a program to introduce bright young people to the world of biomedical and health research.

After all, the high-school students of today are the researchers of tomorrow.

AHFMR President and CEO, Dr. Matthew Spence, developed the idea for the Heritage Youth Researcher Summer (HYRS) Program because, "AHFMR is about investing in people. What better way to ensure Alberta continues to have the highest calibre of home-grown research talent than by giving exceptional high school students from around the province a real experience of research. In many cases, HYRS students will be participating in research endeavours that are so leading edge they aren't described in textbooks!" The new program offers up to 30 bright high school students from around Alberta who love science a six-week-long, paid summer research experience in the laboratories of top-notch, Heritage-funded scientists. HYRS will begin in the summer of 2000. The HYRS Program will give students a first-hand experience of biomedical and health research and introduce them to research career opportunities.

AHFMR has contracted the organization called Women in Scholarship Engineering Science and Technology (WISEST) to run the HYRS Program in Northern Alberta. WISEST has a 15-year track record in running its Summer Research Program at the University of Alberta. WISEST coordinator Grace Ennis is the HYRS Coordinator for Northern Alberta. Judy Aitken, formerly at the Dean of Medicine's office at the University of Calgary, is the HYRS Manager for Southern Alberta in Calgary.

The HYRS Program, totally funded by AHFMR, has the science teachers of Alberta and AHFMR researchers working at the province's universities as its key collaborators. The Science Council of the Alberta Teachers' Association has struck a subcommittee to help champion the program throughout the school system and to adjudicate HYRS applications next April. Grace and Judy will contact Heritage researchers to elicit their participation as student mentors for next summer.

In mid-November, all high school science teachers in the province received a poster and brochure for the HYRS Program.

For more information about the Heritage Youth Researcher Summer (HYRS) Program, please call:
Grace Ennis at (780) 492-1842
Judy Aitken at (403) 228-4911 or (403) 870-5556 (leave messages)
or Kathleen Thurber, AHFMR Communications, at (780) 423-5727.