Congratulations to Dr. Khondokar Kabir [1] who has been awarded Canada’s prestigious Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship [2] in the 2020-21 competition, worth $70,000 a year, for two years. The School of Environmental Design and Rural Development will host its first Banting fellow, and its third SSHRC Banting fellowship that the University of Guelph has hosted in the last ten years.

Dr. Kabir will work with his current adviser Dr. Ataharul Chowdhury [3] during the tenure of the Banting fellowship which was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council [4] (SSHRC). Dr. Kabir’s proposed works focus on analysing how various agri-food stakeholders perceive, adopt and disseminate misinformation about climate change and other contentious agri-food topics like organic farming and genetically modified organisms. This study also aims to provide recommendations for combating misinformation based on the perspectives of a global panel of agri-food experts. To achieve this, Dr. Kabir plans to use a novel strategy, integrating Q-methodology and the Delphi technique, to investigate the research objectives. 

Image:  Dr. Khondokar Kabir

Dr. Kabir was awarded several scholarships for his master's and doctoral programs, including those from the Netherlands Fellowship Program, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and the Japanese Government (MEXT) Scholarship (NFP). In addition, he received an International Climate Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation later in 2020–2021 for his postdoctoral study at the University of Hamburg.

You can read more about the announcement in the UofG news story "Prestigious Vanier and Banting Awards for Two U of G Scholars [5]."