Spotlight on Western MPH Practicum Students at PASSERELLE

This summer, PASSERELLE was proud to host two Master of Public Health (MPH) students from Western University’s Interfaculty MPH Program for their practicum placements: Simran Parmar and Yiqin Tang.

The Western MPH Program is a one-year intensive degree that blends case-based learning with a strong focus on real-world application. After eight months of coursework, students complete a 12-week practicum placement with a public health organization. The placement gives them the opportunity to integrate classroom knowledge, tackle real-world challenges, and develop professional skills. PASSERELLE was fortunate to benefit from this partnership and from the incredible work of Simran and Yiqin.

Building Skills in Team Science and Knowledge Translation

Simran Parmar contributed to a scoping review of team science tools and co-developed knowledge translation resources, including a worksheet and a flashcard toolkit, to make these tools more accessible to diverse research teams. These resources were piloted at an interactive workshop in Montréal and continue to be refined.

Reflecting on his experience, Simran shared:

“My time at PASSERELLE was incredibly rewarding. I appreciated the collaborative and empowering environment. I was challenged to grow and contribute meaningfully to work rooted in equity, knowledge translation and real-world impact.”

Advancing Training Resources Across the SPOR Network

Yiqin Tang focused on strengthening research training opportunities across Canada. She contributed to an environmental scan of patient-oriented research training resources, collected and verified metadata from multiple SPOR Entities, and supported a review project using DistillerSR. She also assisted in preparing practicum deliverables.

As Yiqin reflected:

“My internship with PASSERELLE was a valuable opportunity to develop my research and organizational skills while contributing to meaningful projects in patient-oriented research. I particularly enjoyed collaborating with the team on updating and organizing training resources across the SPOR network, which deepened my understanding of knowledge translation and health research capacity building.”

Celebrating Our Team

To close the summer, PASSERELLE was honoured to receive the MPH Excellence in Preceptorship Award from Western University. This award recognizes outstanding support and mentorship of practicum students. It reflects our commitment, led by Annie LeBlanc (Scientific Director) and the PASSERELLE team, to providing an empowering, collaborative, and skill-building environment for the next generation of public health leaders.

We thank both Simran and Yiqin for their remarkable contributions and wish them continued success as they carry their experiences at PASSERELLE into their future careers.