Media releases

  • Brock student wins national CEO for One Month contest

    MEDIA RELEASE: 28 May 2018 – R00113

    More than 2,700 applications poured in for the chance to spend a month job shadowing the Canadian CEO of a massive HR company, but it was a Brock University student who stood out from the crowd.

    Olivia Poulin, a fourth-year Business Administration student in the Goodman School of Business, will spend the month of June working alongside Adecco Group Canada President Gilbert Boileau.

    She is one of 47 other CEO for One Month participants appointed across the world, and will have the opportunity to gain mentorship from Boileau and the rest of Adecco Canada’s leadership team, gaining a unique insight into the organization’s operations. After gaining experience in human resources, management, finance, marketing and public speaking, Poulin will then take part in a worldwide selection process to become the global CEO for One Month, working alongside Adecco Group CEO Alain Dehaze later this year.

    Adecco Group’s CEO for One Month is part of the company’s worldwide effort to help talent increase their employability and career prospects.

    “We are exceptionally proud of Olivia,” said Goodman School of Business Dean Andrew Gaudes. “This is an excellent opportunity for additional preparation and development as she positions herself for a life of personal and professional fulfilment.”

    Poulin, who is balancing her academics with running her own pet-care business, said she’s looking forward to the development that will come with a “once in a lifetime experience.”

    “I’m so grateful for this opportunity to learn from and contribute to the amazing team at Adecco,” she said. “I hope to use and demonstrate skills I’ve been honing for years, as well as everything I will learn from Gilbert, to successfully compete for Canada at the Global CEO for One Month competition.”

    This is the second major job-shadowing opportunity Poulin has had this year. In March, she spent the day working alongside Paypal Canada CEO Paul Parisi as part of the CEOx1Day program, which matched up 18 university students with Canadian CEOs.

    “Olivia embodies exactly what we want for our students to do through experiential learning — have engaged hands-on experiences that bridge learning to practice, build skills and use those meaningful experiences to achieve individual aspirations,” said Cara Krezek, Director, Co-op, Career and Experiential Education at Brock University. “Olivia has been involved in experiential opportunities both inside and outside the classroom. She has combined traditional co-op experiences with an innovative approach learned through running her own business, as well as competitions and involvement in clubs and organizations.”

    Boileau said Adecco is happy to offer students the chance to get “hands-on work experience to thrive in their careers and real-world training that cannot be gained in school.”

    “We not only hope to offer Olivia a life-changing experience, but we also hope to gain insight from her perspective, as well,” he said.

    For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:

    * Dan Dakin, Media Relations Officer, Brock University ddakin@brocku.ca, 905-688-5550 x5353 or 905-347-1970

    Brock University Marketing and Communications has a full-service studio where we can provide high definition video and broadcast-quality audio.

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    Categories: Media releases

  • Ride for Dad helps fund Brock prostate cancer research

    MEDIA RELEASE: 25 May 2018 – R00112

    What do motorcycle riders and the herb rosemary have in common? They both have the potential to fight cancer.

    The Telus Motorcycle Ride for Dad, a prostate cancer awareness and fundraising organization, has granted Brock University researcher Evangelia Litsa Tsiani and her team $24,000 to investigate how plant-derived chemicals with strong anticancer effects can be used to prevent and treat prostate cancer.

    “My research will focus on chemicals called polyphenols, derived from the plant rosemary, that have been found to have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects and are proposed to have anticancer activity,” says the associate professor in the Department of Health Sciences.

    Tsiani says she is grateful to Ride for Dad and the Prostate Cancer Fight Foundation (PCFF) for the funding.

    “This grant will enable us to investigate the effects and action of these chemicals in prostate cancer cells. Our cell work will form the basis for more research in animals and humans and eventually will potentially result in the discovery of new effective chemotherapy agents for prostate cancer.”

    Damian Parrent, who is an executive member of Ride for Dad, says he and his colleagues are “really appreciative” of his group’s “wonderful” partnership with Brock.

    “I hope to see positive things coming from the experiments with plant-based components, which has a medical component to it,” he says.

    The executive of the Ride for Dad’s Niagara Chapter presented the cheque to Tsiani’s graduate students Jessy Moore and Alina Jaglanian at an event held May 17.

    In previous research, Tsiani, Moore and others on the team found that polyphenols — chemical compounds that are mostly found in plants people eat — within rosemary extract stopped certain proteins from being activated in lung cancer cells, halting the survival and spread of lung cancer cells.

    In this research round, Tsiani, Moore and Jaglanian will conduct similar research on prostate cancer cells.

    Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in men. Despite many advances in diagnosis and treatment, prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer death among men in North America.

    “Therefore, there is an urgent need to find novel compounds that can be used effectively towards the treatment of prostate cancer patients,” says Tsiani. “Many chemotherapy drugs have been discovered by screening natural products from plants.”

    The Telus Motorcycle Ride for Dad, created in Ottawa in 2000, has raised more than $27 million to the Prostate Cancer Fight Foundation to support prostate cancer research and awareness in the communities where the funds were raised.

    The Niagara chapter will hold its Ride on Saturday, June 16 beginning from Niagara-on-the-Lake. Details are posted on the group’s website.

    In the eight years of the Niagara Chapter’s existence, the group has raised $200,000 for Walker Family Cancer Centre construction, prostate cancer awareness campaigns and research. This is the group’s second major grant in the past two years.

    For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:

    * Dan Dakin, Media Relations Officer, Brock University ddakin@brocku.ca, 905-688-5550 x5353 or 905-347-1970

    Brock University Marketing and Communications has a full-service studio where we can provide high definition video and broadcast-quality audio.

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    Categories: Media releases