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What is EqualityNB?

EqualityNB is a Future GNB research stream focused on advocating for equality for frequently marginalized populations in New Brunswick. Led by the Women’s Equality Branch of GNB, the student team spent Summer 2022 coming up with ways to revitalize the province’s Equality Profile, a tool used to track information on equity in New Brunswick in relation to nine categories: Population, education and training, health, income and poverty, family responsibilities, labour force, positions of influence, justice, and violence.

The Equality Profile is used to support efforts to help New Brunswick’s citizens feel safe and proudly call the province their home. To learn how the EqualityNB team contributed to this mission, you can read more about their summer in their newly released Atlantic Student Research Journal article.

Meet the 2022 EqualityNB Team

Martina Berko – EqualityNB Communications Coordinator

Martina Berko is in her third year at Mount Allison University, where she is pursuing a Bachelor of Humanities with a Major in Religious Studies and a Minor in History. As a young aspiring professional, she credits religious studies with giving her the confidence to trust her intuition in knowing when to speak up for others and how to conduct herself in demanding situations. After graduation, Martina hopes to use these skills in an environment that encourages artistic expression to advocate for the rights of others, whether through a career in law or another related field.

Rafal Gromadzki – EqualityNB Researcher

Rafal Gromadzki is a third-year student at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John studying a variety of subjects including economics, communication, and philosophy. He hopes that a more thorough understanding of these subjects provides him with a deeper insight into the human condition. He enjoys reading aloud to himself in noisy places and spending time with his own thoughts in quiet ones.

Kavitha Jagadeesan – EqualityNB Researcher

Kavitha Jagadeesan graduated from the New Brunswick Community College, where she pursued a post-graduate degree in IT Business Analysis. She majored in Mathematics and Computer Applications and has 14 years of experience in the financial domain – in Organizational Change Management and Continuous Process Improvement. Kavitha hopes to go into the public service and work towards the economic development of the province and wants to be a grant researcher and writer. She is a nature enthusiast who goes hiking to explore trees/plants and mushroom foraging. She is also learning adventure water sports.

What is Pathways to Professions (P2P)?

Each summer, NB-IRDT hosts cohorts of student research teams as part of its Pathways to Professions (P2P) experiential learning program. For 13 weeks, these students work on New Brunswick-relevant projects while attending a full curriculum of professional skills workshops.

In 2022, NB-IRDT launched a new partnership with the Government of New Brunswick's Future GNB / Avenir GNB program to host P2P students working on government research projects - allowing the program to grow in both size and reach. Now that the 2022 program has ended, we are excited to share our students’ projects and their findings in our student spotlight series.