Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Faculty of Medicine

NSERC USRA Fact Sheet

Undergraduate Student Research Awards: fact sheet

Contact person:  copies and information available from
Dr. D.B. Stoltz (7L, Tupper bldg.; dstoltz@dal.ca) or Hanako Hellinga (hanako.hellinga@dal.ca).

Deadlines:   Jan. 26, 2023 (Departmental); Jan 30, 2023 (Faculty of Science)

Eligibility: for an USRA award, you must be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident; all other awards can be held by any student, including non-Canadians.

On or before the Departmental deadline, get the following information to Hanako Hellinga, Undergraduate Secretary (hanako.hellinga@dal.ca):

  • Your name and that of your proposed supervisor, together with contact information: your mailing and email addresses, and a phone number.
  • If you are in any X/Y classes, ask your professor(s) to send Dr. Stoltz an interim grade by email (before Jan. 25).
  • You will also need to supply an unofficial Dal transcript and official transcripts from any other universities you have attended.

Later:  IF your application for an NSERC award is successful, then you will need to fill out Part I of NSERC Form 202 on-line; the Microbiology and Immunology Department coordinator for this is Marsha Scott-Meldrum, who will issue detailed instructions to awardees at a later time. You will also then need to provide her with an official transcript.

Available awards

NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award (USRA): there are about 50 of these per annum. The USRAs are tenable only in NSERC-funded labs which, currently, are run by Drs. Brewer, Cheng, Corcoran, Duncan, Hoskin, S. Lee, Lin, McCormick, Stadnyk, Thomas, and Wang. Second-, third- and fourth-year students only are eligible.

Faye Sobey Award: there are likely to be 5-7 of these; tenable only in NSERC-funded labs. Again, first-year students are ineligible.

Laing Award: 1-2/annum; tenable only in NSERC-funded labs, and not available to either first-year or graduating students.

Warr Award: 1-2/annum; tenable only in NSERC-funded labs, and not available to either first-year or graduating students. Applicants must have been born in Nova Scotia, and currently residing there.

Witherspoon Award: tenable only in NSERC-funded labs.

IMHOTEP Legacy Award:  for Nova Scotia African and Aboriginal students only. These are tenable in any lab in the Faculty of Medicine. Further information is available at the following link:

http://medicine.dal.ca/research-dal-med/programs/ssrp.html      

Note:

  • All these awards are for a 16 week duration.
  • Students may hold a maximum of 3 NSERC USRAs, and only 2 of them in the same lab.
  • Students who have already applied to medical or dental school are ineligible for any of these awards.
  • 4th year students are eligible only if they intend to start a thesisi-based grad program in the fall.

Be aware that these studentships have been, at Dalhousie, traditionally awarded solely on the basis of cumulative GPA, and year in program (e.g., more awards go to third-year students than to those in their second-year); there are no departmental quotas, however, and so there is no advantage in applying through any particular department.           

Choosing a supervisor: you must identify a supervisor, and have that person agree to take you on; this is because the stipends provided through the Faculty of Science (currently, $4500-5000) have to be topped up (by at least $2,500) by the participating lab. Normally, there will be a limit of 2 NSERC-funded students in any one lab.

Other:  you can apply through any department (e.g., a Biology student could apply to work in a Microbiology and Immunology lab), or university, but you would need to make your own contacts in order to do so.  Again, rules may vary, so if in doubt contact Dr. Stoltz.