Download Melissa Bailey, the University of Manitoba’s 93

Melissa Bailey, the University of Manitoba’s 93rd Rhodes Scholar, has received another
award: the Canadian Association of Co-operative Education (CAFCE) student of the year.
CAFCE chooses one Canadian university student each year to receive this award. Since 1994
this award has recognized a wide variety of achievements -- job performance, academic
performance and responsibility, and particular contributions to their co-op employer, to cooperative education, and the community.
A co-operative education program is one that alternates periods of academic study with
periods of work experience in appropriate fields of business, industry, government, or academic
research. Bailey, a genetics honour student, is a co-op student in the Faculty of Science. With
over 100 co-op placements annually, the Science Co-op Program is celebrating 10 years of
excellence in co-op.
In the summer of 2010, Bailey worked in the laboratory of Mark Fry, a University of Manitoba
biological scientist. She isolated mouse neurons, helping Fry’s research team investigate the
neurobiology of obesity.
Prior to this she worked in a federal laboratory doing work on prion disease; she was also one
of 10 international students chosen for a summer studentship at the Max Planck Institute for
Immunobiology in Freiburg, Germany.
My experience in the Co-op Program has been very positive, Bailey says. Co-op has helped me
realize the full potential of my science undergraduate degree, and I have learned not just the
skills I need to succeed, but how to apply these skills.
For more information contact Sean Moore, public affairs, University of Manitoba, 204-4747963 ([email protected]).