University of Western Ontario: Student researchers selected for Global Undergraduate Awards

Tackling a wide range of research subjects, including cancer research, sports performance, efficient battery charging for high-speed transportation and epigenetics in neuromuscular disease, seven Western undergraduate student researchers were named among the best in the world in the 2022 Global Undergraduate Awards.


Joining Western scholars who have been globally recognized for their outstanding research papers are:

Bailey Thompson, BESc’22; Bruce Gillespie, BESc’22; Adam Kidd, BESc’22, and Parth Vachharajani, BESc’22, for their group project which was named the global winner in the engineering category;
Leighton Schreyer, BSc’22, global winner in the medical sciences category;
Rory Gilliland, BSc’22, regional winner in the medical sciences category and
Riley Cousins, fourth-year science student, regional winner in the nursing, midwifery and allied care category.
The Global Undergraduate Awards is a pan-disciplinary competition recognizes excellence in undergraduate coursework. This year, more than 2,800 submissions from 410 institutions in 73 countries were received, according to the organizers.


Leighton Schreyer is global winner in the medical sciences category.

Global winners are recognized for submitting the best paper worldwide in their category. Regional winners are deemed the best papers in their category among submissions from the United States and Canada. This year, 15 Western scholars were ranked highly commended, scoring in the top 10 per cent of their fields.


To be considered for a Global Undergraduate Award, entrants submit their work to one of 25 categories representing global winners, regional winners and highly commended scholars each receive a certificate along with publication of their paper in The Undergraduate Library and access to the Undergraduate Award Network.

They are also invited to share their research and connect with other scholars at the Global Undergraduate Summit taking place Nov. 6 to 9 in Dublin, Ireland, where global winners will also present their research.

“Western is a proud participant in The Global Undergraduate Awards, which offers an incredible opportunity for our students to showcase their outstanding academic research to the world. Each year, we continue to see Western students rising to the challenge to offer meaningful contributions to research in a wide variety of fields and disciplines,” said Lise Laporte, senior director at Western International.

This year’s recipients join more than 200 highly commended scholars, 16 global winners and 19 regional winners from Western since 2014.