The Algoma University Alumni Achievement Award acknowledges the professional, civic, and personal accomplishments of an Algoma U Alumni who has graduated within the last 10 years. The winner of the 2023 Alumni Achievement Award is Dr. Jenna Congdon.
Dr. Congdon completed her Honours Bachelor of Science, Psychology (Cum Laude) in 2013, earning her place on the Dean’s Honour List each of her four years at Algoma University. Dr. Congdon’s time at Algoma University sparked her interest in academics and propelled her to the University of Alberta where she studied songbird communication, and later desert ant navigation. Dr. Congdon defended and earned her Master’s of Science in Psychology in 2015 and Ph.D. in Psychology, specializing in Comparative Cognition & Behaviour in 2019. Most notably, she subsequently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at York University and the Toronto Zoo, training artificial intelligence to monitor the welfare of orangutans.
Dr. Congdon is now an Assistant Professor at Concordia University of Edmonton, has 26 publications, and is known to convey the excitement of scientific discovery to her students, igniting in them a passion for psychology.
Dr. Congdon has earned a number of awards, including, but not limited to:
- Algoma University Award of Excellence (Silver) each of her four years at Algoma
- NSERC Undergraduate Summer Research Award (2013)
- NSERC Canada Graduate Scholarship-Master’s Program (2014)
- President’s Doctoral Prize of Distinction (Three times from 2016-2018)
- University of Alberta’s Department of Psychology Teaching Honor Roll with Distinction (Fall 2017)
- NSERC Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship-Doctoral Program (2016-2019)
- Mitacs Accelerate Industrial Postdoc Fellowship (2021-2022)
- NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship (2021-2022) to continue her work at York University
- Two Internal Grants from Concordia University of Edmonton to initiate her research collaboration with Edmonton Valley Zoo
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