Meet 2022 ISSP Mentor Melissa Anderson

Melissa Anderson returned as the Graduate Student Mentor for The University of Winnipeg’s Indigenous Summer Scholars Program (ISSP) in 2022. Melissa, an Ininew woman and mother of four from Fox Lake Cree Nation, and an ISSP alumna herself, has been part of projects promoting undergraduate research since 2016.

That summer she received an NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award (USRA) to study with Dr. Jeff Martin and Dr. Russell Mammei on a project titled “Self-Shielded Homogeneous Magnetic Coils”. URSAs are intended to nurture student interest in and potential for research careers in the natural sciences and engineering. In Melissa’s case, it was a great success.

“It was my first-time doing research and I was really nervous”, Melissa said, “but the professors were happy to teach me and introduce me to it”. Previously considering a degree in civil engineering, she switched majors to physics to continue her research. She received her BSc, with honours, in 2020. Now a graduate student in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Manitoba, Melissa is finishing her Master’s thesis this summer.

It is important to Melissa that other Indigenous students recognize graduate studies and research-based careers as possibilities for them too. “It’s getting to know that there's a community of Indigenous people that are in higher education as well, and you can support each other, and that you don't think you're the only one. Sometimes you're the only Indigenous person in the class, in a lot of my classes I was the only Indigenous person and as well as the only woman.”

To that extent, Melissa co-founded The University of Winnipeg’s .caISES chapter in 2019. .caISES (The Canadian Indigenous Science and Engineering Society) is a nonprofit organization focused on increasing the representation of Indigenous people in STEM fields. She also taught in The University of Winnipeg’s Pathways to Graduate Studies (P2GS) program in 2019, 2020, and 2021.

The second time she taught in P2GS Melissa was an ISSP summer scholar training as part of Dr. Melanie Martin’s research project Measuring Axon Diameters in the Mouse Brain. The third time she taught, in 2021, she was also the ISSP Graduate Student Mentor.

Melissa remembers the way her mentor communicated with her and the other scholars, and carries it with her in her own approach to mentoring. She enjoys the ISSP beading sessions as a way to connect with the scholars. “I like to talk with them and share my experiences with them,” Melissa said, “I like communicating with them and letting them know I've been there too. I've been learning how to do research before too”.

However, learning to do research is only part of the program. “It’s an Indigenous program for Indigenous students,” Melissa said. “From a scholar’s point of view, the cultural teachings are as important as the research. I hope the scholars take away the possibility to do research in the future and attend grad school, since this program is a stepping stone for that. But also, all the information from the workshops and the cultural teachings that we get to share with them. Because I know some people haven't been as exposed to it as others.”

When asked what advice she would give her children about going to grad school Melissa’s answer is as inspirational as it is practical: “Take the first step, stay focused and make a schedule. That's been very important to me. I started making a schedule of everything since I was in my second or third year of undergraduate university and I found that to be very important.”

The Indigenous Summer Scholars Program (ISSP) is hosted by The University of Winnipeg Faculty of Graduate Studies. It invites senior undergraduates and recent graduates who identify as Indigenous Peoples of Canada to explore the possibility of graduate studies.