Natalie Andrews - 2010 Synapse Mentorship Award Recipient - Graduate Student/Postdoctoral Fellow

For the past three years, Natalie Andrews, a master’s student in biochemistry at the University of Ottawa, has been devoted to science outreach for youth through Let’s Talk Science-Parlons Science ( LTS - PS ). She has served as a volunteer, advisor and mentor for LTS - PS by presenting a variety of interactive activities to high school students that show how health research, in fields as diverse as cancer, reproductive technologies, HIV /AIDS, and epidemiology, can be valuable to a person’s wellbeing. Ms. Andrews has also been part of Science Travels for two years, and has visited remote Canadian communities (including North Bay, New Liskeard, Hearst, Kapuskasing, Longlac, Moosonee and Moose Factory) in an effort to teach high school students who wouldn’t have access to these educational possibilities the merits of science as a whole. She has created a tour of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute Cancer Centre, where Canadian high school students can learn essentials about cancer and the important research that is conducted at the centre to treat the disease, through interactive, hands-on activities including the exploration of DNA , cancer cells and oncolytic viruses.