Public scholar and Interdisciplinary Studies PhD student Kaylee Byers has been named one of five 2017 Friedman Scholars in Health. This scholarship will provide recipients between $25,000 to $50,000 to pursue an opportunity to learn from global experts in their field. Byers will use this award to travel to Sri Lanka to work with local experts on a wildlife health surveillance program. This work will complement her research here in BC on disease transmission among rats in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
The Friedman Award for Scholars in Health is the University of British Columbia's largest ever endowed scholarship, thanks to a $6-million donation from the Constance Livingstone Friedman and Sydney Friedman Foundation. The scholarship is open to any UBC graduate student or UBC medical resident trainee working in health-related sciences, broadly defined. The goal of the Friedman Award is to provide funding to graduate students or medical residents so that they can pursue a learning opportunity to further their career or to bring new perspectives to the education they have already received. The award is named after Constance Livingstone-Friedman and Sydney Friedman, the first two faculty members in the UBC Faculty of Medicine.
This donation is in addition to $3 million donated earlier this year by the foundation to establish this scholarship fund. In total, the Friedman family has donated more than $11 million to UBC. This donation was made possible by the sale of the Friedman's historic home, pictures of which are available here.
More information about this extraordinary donation is available from UBC Public Affairs.