SFU Beedie graduand kickstarts career at Deloitte - Simon Fraser University

School of Computing Science News & Events News 2026 CS graduand Brandon Lee takes computing science beyond the code into health research As Brandon Jarrett Lee crosses the convocation stage this October, he is preparing to continue his work at The Digital Democracies Institute (DDI) at SFU, where he uses computing science to support research on vaccine hesitancy and health communications in Canada.

Shubh Athwal came into the Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) Bachelor of Science program with a mapped out plan: with her set interests in health and knowledge mobilization, she would confidently pursue a traditional, textbook science-based graduate program after completing her undergraduate degree. That plan changed dramatically not only due to discovering a love for epidemiology and an increased curiosity in why disease spread, but from the loss of a family member in the beginning of her undergraduate career. "Amidst exploring a love for epidemiology, I was also navigating the loss of my grandfather, Baba Ji, Zorawar Singh Athwal, to whom I was very close. I felt lost and torn between keeping up with my responsibilities at school and giving myself the space I needed to grieve. What ultimately carried me through this period were the everyday lessons Baba Ji had instilled in me as a young child,” she explains. “He would always tell me, ‘slow and steady wins the race.’ During one of the darkest periods of my life, I came to understand that moving forward did not mean forcing myself to push through my grief.

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