It is with great pleasure that we announce that Dr. Jalees Nasir has been awarded the 2025 McMaster Health Sciences Graduate Student Association (HSGSA) Impact Award based on his scholarship, contributions, and service during his PhD studies!
HSGSA would like to recognize and award at least four Health Sciences graduate students who demonstrate having a significant impact on the academic or professional community given their excellence in research, scholarly work or practicum contributions. Contributions recognized may include but are not limited to original published work, key research contributions deemed inventive in nature, or an innovative approach to completing their practicum placement that significantly impacts or has the potential to impact the larger community.
With the emergence of COVID-19, Dr. Nasir rapidly designed a novel method to capture SARS-CoV-2 RNA, collaborated to confirm the 1st culture of the live virus in Canada, and designed the SIGNAL informatics platform for large-scale variant surveillance. In the first year of the pandemic, 20% of Canada’s internationally shared variant data were produced by SIGNAL, it helped identify Hamilton as a Delta variant hotspot, and it now supports global variant surveillance efforts.
Congratulations Jalees!
