Skip to main content

PhD Excellence Awards

Each year, in spring, Neuro Québec offers doctoral excellence scholarships.

Regular members of Neuro Québec are then invited to submit the application for one of their doctoral students. Note that for a given competition, a regular member ofNeuro Québec can only apply for one of his students.

Recipients are committed to present their research as part of Neuro Québec’s annual Neuroscience Research Day, which provides great visibility to their work as well as a rewarding experience.

***2024 COMPETITION IS CLOSED. PLEASE COME AGAIN NEXT YEAR!***


2024 Scholarship Competition

Deadline (submission of application): Friday, June 7, 2024 at 4PM
Amount: $12,000 (must be completed to a minimum of $21,000 by your director)
Announcement of resultsEnd of June


Recipients of the 2024 Doctoral Excellence Award:

Clinical level:

Margaux Simon (Andréanne K. Blanchette)
William-Girard Journeault (Célyne Bastien)

Fundamental level:

Adeline Collignon (Caroline Ménard)
Emmeraude Tanguay (Vincent Breton-Provencher)
Laila Blanco Arabe (Benoit Labonté)
Laura Menegatti Bevilacqua (Martin Lévesque)


Recipients of the 2023 Doctoral Excellence Award:

Clinical level:

Amira Cherif (Hugo Massé-Alarie)

Fundamental level:

Frédéric Beaupré (Flavie Lavoie-Cardinal)
Sonia Catalina Cerquera-Cleves (Francesca Cicchetti)
Isabelle Bienjonetti (François Gros Louis)
Alice Cadoret (Caroline Ménard)
Marina Ihidoype (Christophe Proulx)


Recipients of the 2022 Doctoral Excellence Award:

Clinical level:

Tania Augière (Catherine Mercier)
Laurent Béchard
(Marie-France Demers)

Fundamental level:

Alexane Thibodeau (François Berthod)
Jose Luis Solano Lopez (Caroline Ménard)
Jesus-David Charry-Sanchez 
(Benoit Labonté)
Zoreh Vaziri
(Christian Éthier)


Recipients of the 2021 Doctoral Excellence Award:

Clinical level:

Olivier Corbeil (Marie-France Demers)
Alric Pappathomas (Annie Vallières)

Fundamental level:

Marc Lebordais (Paul DeKoninck)
Vincent Clement (Francois Gros-Louis)
Alina Marymonchyk (Armen Saghatelyan)
Parisa Iloun (Lisa Topolnik)

It should be noted that Ms. Élizabeth Poulin (Philip Jackson) also distinguished herself for a 2021 doctoral excellence scholarship. However, Ms. Poulin obtained the scholarship from the Lemaire Family Foundation in the meantime, which does not allow her to accept the CTRN scholarship.


Recipients of the 2020 Doctoral Excellence Award:

Clinical level:

Andrea Zangrandi (Supervisor Cyril Schneider)

Title: Brain connectivity and excitability in chronic pain: individualization of neurostimulation treatment

Fundamental level:

Anne-Marie Castonguay (Supervisor Martin Lévesque)

Title: Des mini-anticorps à chaîne unique comme agent thérapeutique pour prévenir la propagation de l’alpha- synucléine dans un modèle murin de la maladie de Parkinson. Fonds «Maladies dégénératives et psychiatriques»

Cedric Happi Mbakam (Supervisor Jacques-P Tremblay)

Title: Insertion de la mutation A673T dans le gène APP par la technologie CRISPR/Cas9 PRIME editing.

Narges Karimi (Supervisor Frédéric Bretzner)

Title: Plasticity of reticulospinal pathways following incomplete spinal cord injury in the mouse.

Muhammad Umair (Supervisor Manu Rangachari)

Title: Role of sex differences in Multiple Sclerosis


Recipients of the 2019 Doctoral Excellence Award:

Clinical level:

Thierry Provencher (Célyne Bastien)

Fundamental level:

Maria Masnata (Francesca Cicchetti)
Katherine Picard (Marie-Eve Tremblay)
Sarah Beausoleil (Martin Parent)

Let’s note that Ms. Lea Rodriguez (Vincent Pernet) also distinguished herself for a scholarship of excellence at the doctorate 2019. However, Mrs. Rodriguez obtained the grant of the foundation of the Lemaire Family in the meantime which does not allow her to accept the CTRN scholarship.

We will be happy to hear the 2019 winners and Ms. Rodriguez present their work at the annual Research Day in November.


Recipients of the 2018 Doctoral Excellence Award:

Here is the list of last year’s recipients and the title of their presentation at CTRN Research Day:

Windsor Ting, Ph.D. student in Neurobiology, CERVO Research Center
Title: Investigation of Spike Timing Dependent Plasticity in the Corticomotor System of Rodents.

Charline Dambreville, doctoral student in experimental medicine, CIRRIS
Title: Changements de l’excitabilité cortico-spinale pendant une tâche locomotrice complexe chez l’humain

Nicolo Ilacqua, doctoral student in neurobiology, CERVO Research Center
Title: Structural and functional participation of the mitochondria-wrapping rough-ER (Wrapper) in Very-Low Density Lipoprotein biogenesis

Marie Roussel, doctoral student in neurobiology, CRCHU de Québec-UL
Title: Contribution des noyaux du mésencéphale à la récupération fonctionnelle de la marche après lésion médullaire

Héléna Denis, doctoral student in neurobiology, CRCHU de Québec-UL
Title: Les vésicules extracellulaires dérivées d’érythrocytes: biomarqueurs potentiels de la maladie de Parkinson