Farida Zakariya

2023 McCall MacBain Scholar

McGill Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, MSc, Experimental Medicine

Education:
Ahmadu Bello University (BSc’22)

Kaduna, Nigeria

Farida worked as the specialty research team lead at Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital and graduated from Ahmadu Bello University as the top student in her faculty. She volunteered with a local charity foundation, counselling patients, and initiated a patient identification scheme for free services. Based on this experience, she started a group raising funds for health-related issues. Farida also tutored students in the Muslim Students Society of Nigeria, led a group within a drug policy student society, and coordinated a cohort of 15 student union leaders interested in entrepreneurship. Through the latter, she helped advocate for a startup bill proposal to the Nigerian government. Farida began a master’s degree in experimental medicine, focusing on cancer research, at McGill.

McGill was a top choice while making a decision on where to pursue graduate study because it is ranked highly globally and it has a diverse student population with representation of people from different countries around the world. In addition to that, it is also located in a French-speaking province which provides an opportunity for me to learn another language.

Read more: Q&A with Farida Zakariya