This summer, we are pleased to welcome three Undergraduate Student Summer Research Fellows (USSRF) to the Faculty of Education! This program provides an experiential learning opportunity for undergraduate students enrolled in a Bachelor’s degree program at Queen’s. It is intended to provide students with meaningful opportunities to engage in discovery-based learning and to develop research and presentation skills.
Seher Mukadam
My name is Seher Mukadam, and I am a Health Sciences student heading into my second year. I am interested in learning more about how health, education, and community-based support systems intersect, especially in ways that can improve access to meaningful resources for young people and families. I am also passionate about working with communities, listening to lived experiences, and understanding how services can be made more responsive to people’s needs.
This summer, I am involved in the Telling Our Stories project with Dr. Patty Douglas, which focuses on co-designing better resources and supports for autistic Indigenous youth in Sault Ste. Marie. A main goal of this work is to collaborate with community members and partners to better understand the needs, experiences, and perspectives of autistic Indigenous youth, and to explore how services can be improved in a more respectful and community-informed way.
I am especially excited to visit Sault Ste. Marie and take part in these conversations directly. I look forward to listening, learning, and being part of discussions about how resources and services can be developed alongside the people they are meant to support.
Keshiha Elamurugan
Keshiha Elamurugan is a final-year teacher candidate at Queen’s University pursuing Intermediate/Senior qualifications in French as a Second Language and History. She is a Queen’s Concurrent Education student with a Bachelor of Arts in French Studies and Sociology, whose research interests lie in the history of education and curriculum studies. She is excited to be working under the supervision of Dr. Theodore Christou for the Queen’s Undergraduate Student Summer Research Fellowship, where they will co-author a piece exploring the relationship between history education and democratic citizenship, and redevelop the open-access website curriculumhistory.ca. She is excited to translate educational theory into accessible resources for practicing teachers and community members. Through this fellowship, Keshiha looks forward to bridging her classroom teaching experiences with meaningful public scholarship, contributing to a more accessible educational system.
Valerie Kniazeve
My name is Valerie Kniazeva, and I am currently a final year I/S Teacher Candidate in the Bachelor of Education program. I am completing the USSRF under the supervision of Dr. Benjamin Kutsyuruba where we are conducting research on wellbeing in teacher education. Building on a national study of Canadian teacher education programs, our research examines a nine-dimension model of wellbeing, which include emotional, social, physical, vocational, and cultural wellbeing, and how they can be integrated better into teacher preparation programs. As long-term retention rates continue to drop and teacher burnouts and shortages increase, understanding how teacher candidates can develop resilience and sustainable wellbeing practices becomes increasingly important and central for pre-service educators. What makes our research unique is that it focuses specifically on pre-service teachers, intentionally seeing how wellbeing can be embedded into the programs to assist educators and build the necessary skills before they officially enter the workforce. Our hope is that this research will help inform policy, leadership, and program design of teacher education programs in Canada to better support and respond to the wellbeing of all educators and students. As a passionate educator and emerging researcher, I am grateful for this opportunity to contribute to meaningful research in this area. I look forward to continue expanding upon these topics further as I prepare to begin my Master of Education with Dr. Kustyuruba here at Queen’s this coming Fall 2026, focusing on teacher education, wellbeing, and peace education.