Dr. Kate Shannon, a researcher in the Division of AIDS and a member of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, has been awarded the prestigious Peter Lougheed/CIHR New Investigator Canada’s Premier Young Researcher Award in the September 2011 CIHR competition.
Her project, titled “The social and structural contexts of HIV/STIs among women and youth working in the sex industry in Canada”, aims to continue Dr. Shannon’s groundbreaking work on targeting the reduction of harms in the sex industry. The project will follow up to 1000 women and youths working in the sex industry and evaluate the health and social risk environment with the goal of informing public health interventions for this marginalized population.
The Peter Lougheed/CIHR New Investigator Canada’s Premier Young Researcher Award is awarded annually to the top applicant in the year’s New Investigator program. It aims to support Canada’s brightest researchers at the beginning of their career, to encourage them to continue their research in Canada. The award is named after Mr. Peter Lougheed, a member of the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame and lifelong supporter of medical research who served as Premier of Alberta from 1971 to 1985.