Dr. Dell - 2024 Award Recipient

The Saskatchewan Health Reseach Foundation (SHRF) Award is presented to one senior researcher currently residing in Saskatchewan, whose exemplary career achievements have inspired others with their drive, leadership, and ingenuity. It recognizes the recipient's work over their career to build capacity, advance knowledge, inform decision-making, and provide health, economic, and social impacts in Saskatchewan. 

Upon receiving this award, Dr. Dell gave the following acceptance speech:

"When SHRF was writing an article about individuals and teams being recognized, I was asked how it makes me feel personally. I initially said 'older' - thinking back on so many different projects and people over the years. 

This question also had me reflect on how, when we devote ourselves to something, it comes a part of who we are. No matter our age. My devotion to doing research seemes to fall upon topics of social injustice - such as criminalization, Indigenous peoples' health, addictions, and One Health. I think about how doing research has become a part of me. In all of these areas. How interviews with people have become a part of me, influence what I do and how I do it. How colleagues, and what they teach me, have become a part of me. How students, and our shared experiences, are a part of me. How the communities I work with, have become a part of me. This includes experiences with many dogs in projects; they too have become a part of me. 

And how steadfast support from the University of Saskatchewan, and funding from SHRF, has enabled and supported these relationships. 

It also makes me think about how family, both biological and those invited in - a few actually stemming from research projects - are a part of me. So I am surely now standing here alone in this SHRF recognition today; I walked my research journey alongside many. As researchers, and this may be a bit more obvious for community and team-vased researchers, we are a product of our experiences. Of the incredible connections we are privileged to make in our research programs. 

The obstacles I encountered while doing community-based (& patient-oriented) research on questions of gender, addictions, criminalization, and Indigenous health are also a part of me. More recent, the challenges I and others faced in exploring the vital role of companion animals, service animals, emotional support animals, and therapy dogs in human health (and our role in animals' lives too), have been instrumental in fueling my devotion. Though it may not have been the intention, these challenges have actually strengthened my devotion, as well as the relationships I have with those I stand alongside doing the research.

With that said, I'm grateful to all - humans, animals, and land alike. But I am grateful most specifically to the teams I have led and the teams I am a part of, and being able to contribute to a wholistic research program in our province and elsewhere."

Read more about Dr. Dell's work in the article published by SHRF - "Dr. Colleen Dell has been blazing new trails her whole career with the help of her dogs".