A familiar face to many on campus, Ryanne Logan (BSc ’23) has taken advantage of everything Brock has to offer.

The dedicated volunteer, researcher and varsity athlete, Logan graduated on Friday, June 16 with a Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience during Brock’s 113th Convocation.

“Altogether, I am amazed at the opportunities that I was presented with at Brock throughout my time as an undergraduate student,” she says.

Logan, who is Lenape and from Delaware Nation near Chatham-Kent, is the first member of her immediate family to graduate from university.

“My mother and brother have been my rock and core support system throughout my academic career,” she says. “My family is incredibly supportive and proud of my accomplishments.”

Logan says she worked closely with the Hadiya’dagénhahs First Nations Métis and Inuit Student Centre, describing the centre as “instrumental in guiding and supporting Indigenous students at Brock.”

Her impressive academic record led to opportunities to work as a research assistant with Department of Educational Studies and the Department of Health Sciences.

“I’d have to say the personal highlight of my degree has been the initial research project I participated in,” she says.

Logan worked with a research team, which included four other Indigenous and non-Indigenous Brock students, between fall 2020 and fall 2021 on a participatory action research project titled, “Decolonization, Transformative Learning Experiences, and Brock University: Challenging Assumptions that ‘this is the way it has to be.’”

In February, the five students led a discussion about decolonization and experiential learning at the Canada-Caribbean Institute’s (CCI) second annual research symposium held at the University of the West Indies (UWI) in Barbados.

More recently, Logan began working on a virtual reality and Indigenous language revitalization project, “Shęh nidwa:gęhs: The potential of virtual reality technology in revitalization and learning of the Cayuga language.”

Cayuga, an Iroquoian language local to Brock, is spoken mainly along the Grand River in southern Ontario. Just 65 people listed Cayuga as their mother tongue in the 2021 census.

The project aims to bring together people from around the world to meet in a virtual environment to learn and support the revitalization of the language.

Outside the classroom, Logan has been an active member of the Brock women’s lacrosse team, serving as varsity co-captain and being named the team’s Most Valuable Badger at the 2022-23 Brock Badgers Awards Gala in April.

“Being on a varsity team definitely contributed to my confidence both in academia and personally, and having the opportunity to be a leader and captain on the team in my second year playing is a feature of my degree that I will never forget,” she said.

Despite her busy academic and athletic schedule, Logan has made it a priority to give back to others by working with the Brock University chapter of Global Medical Brigades, which works with local communities in Panama and Honduras to implement sustainable health-care systems.

Logan will be specializing in community health when she returns to Brock this fall to begin the Master of Arts in Applied Health Sciences program.

Looking back, she says she can’t picture herself anywhere else but Brock.

“I chose Brock back in high school based on the campus and my program, but after five years here, I am excited to continue and expand my studies within this community and to continue to see what opportunities become available to me,” she says. “Had I not been presented with the welcoming, accepting faculty and students that took me under their wing to develop me as a student, person and researcher, I have no clue where I’d be right now as I finish my undergraduate degree.”