The Carol Mitchell and Richard Venn Graduate Fellowship in Women’s Mental Health

The Mitchell and Venn Graduate Student Fellowship in Women’s Mental Health is an Ontario Student Opportunity Trust Fund (OSOTF) Award. OSOTF awards bring together matching funds from the province of Ontario (1/3) with funds from the University of Toronto (1/3) and funds from a private donor (1/3). OSOTF awards are restricted to residents of Ontario who demonstrate financial need, according to the provincial government’s guidelines.

1. As this award is an OSOTF, only full-time graduate students are eligible from any Graduate Department at the University of Toronto.
2. Demonstrated financial need by completing a needs assessment form. If you have already been assessed for the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) or the University of Toronto Advance Planning for Students (UTAPS), you will only need to complete a portion of the Financial Needs Assessment. Please read all of the forms carefully.
3. Supervised by a member of the Faculty of Medicine and affiliated with the Women’s College Research Institute (Note: Dalla Lana School of Public Health is no longer part of the Faculty of Medicine). *Preference will be given to students whose supervisor is a scientist with primary appointment at Women’s College Hospital (WCH) and to those students who are based at WCH, or those who have made significant contributions to research at WCH.

Evaluation criteria include:

• relevance of research to women’s health
• degree of innovation
• academic excellent
• independent contribution
• significance of project
• other potential sources of support

The successful candidate will submit a written report to Women’s College Research Institute at the end of the award year describing the research undertaken during the year and any other such information as the candidate may judge to be of interest. A copy of the report will be made available to the Women’s College Hospital Foundation.

Please ensure that your application includes:

1. Completed Financial Needs Assessment*
2. Completed Application Form for OSOTF Awards*
3. An up-to-date Curriculum Vitae
4. Two letters of support, including one from the candidate’s current supervisor
5. Documentation that supervisor is part of the Faculty of Medicine with graduate appointment at the School of Graduate Studies (Note: Dalla Lana School of Public Health is no longer part of Faculty of Medicine)
6. A 1-2 page description of the candidate’s research, including details of:
7. Specific hypothesis of research on women’s mental health and description of your role on the project
8. An overview of each part of the research plan, specific project aims and the methodology
9. How your work advances knowledge of women’s health
10. How being associated with the Women’s College Research Institute will contribute to their research

*Guidelines for completing these forms are also available.

Please submit applications via email as a PDF attachment. Only electronic submissions will be accepted. All files in the application package should be clearly identified using the applicant’s last name, first name and the name of the document. (ex: Smith, John – CV 2019).

The subject line of the email application must state the name of the award “The Carol Mitchell and Richard Venn Graduate Fellowship in Women’s Mental Health,” and should be sent to Maya Strasser at Maya.Strasser@wchospital.ca by 4 p.m. on July 27, 2022 (Submissions for the 2022 awards are now closed).

1. Fill out the Application Form if any of the contact information has changed since the previous year.
2. Complete the Financial Needs Assessment again
3. Provide an up-to-date curriculum vitae
4. A 1-2 page description of the progress that you have achieved with your research, including details of the relevance of the proposed graduate research work to women’s health research, highlighting the interdisciplinary aspects of the research, if any;
5. Two letters of support, including one from the candidate’s department head and one from the candidate’s primary advisor, both confirming that the candidate’s research is progressing on a timely basis and that the candidate is continuing to demonstrate excellence in pursuing the advancement of knowledge through research in women’s health.

Please submit applications via email as a PDF attachment. Only electronic submissions will be accepted. All files in the application package should be clearly identified using the applicant’s last name, first name and the name of the document. (ex: Smith, John – CV 2019).

The subject line of the email application must state the name of the award and that this is a renewal. “Renewal – The Carol Mitchell and Richard Venn Graduate Fellowship in Women’s Mental Health “ and should be sent to Maya Strasser at Maya.Strasser@wchospital.ca by 4 p.m. on July 2, 2022 (Submissions for the 2022 awards are now closed).

Past Recipients

There was no recipient for this award for 2021-2022.

The 2020-2021 recipient of the Carol Mitchell and Richard Venn Fellowship is Stephanie Lapinsky supervised by Dr. Simone Vigod.

The 2019-2020 recipient of the Carol Mitchell and Richard Venn Fellowship was Danielle Jacobson supervised by Gillian Einstein.

The 2018-2019 recipients of the Carol Mitchell and Richard Venn Fellowship were Danielle Jacobson supervised by Gillian Einstein and Jenna Pirmohamed supervised by Simone Vigod and Noah Ivers.

The 2017-2018 recipients of the Carol Mitchell and Richard Venn Fellowship were Katherine Stewart supervised by Janice Du Mont and Helene Polatajko and Wook Yang supervised by Lori Ross.

The 2016-2017 recipient of the Carol Mitchell and Richard Venn Fellowship was Ms. Katherine Stewart (PhD Student, Rehab Sci) supervised by Janice Du Mont.

The 2015-2016 recipients of the Carol Mitchell and Richard Venn Fellowship were Ms. Victoria Sparrow-Downes (MSc student, IHPME) supervised by Mona Loutfy and Ms. Katherine Stewart (PhD Student, Rehab Sci) supervised by Janice Du Mont.