In Focus: Gautham Krishnaraj
Gautham Krishnaraj is a MSc Candidate (Global Health), 2016 RBC Students Leading Change Scholar, Canadian Red Cross Youth Advisor and the newest trainee of the Humanitarian Health Care Ethics Research Group at McMaster University.
During his undergraduate studies at McGill University (BSc. Microbiology & Immunology), he held various federal student research assistantships in Analytical Chemistry, Microbiology, and Plant Genetics, as well as contributing to research in the Department of Chemical Engineering at McGill. Seeking to expand his perspective beyond the bench top, he was also passionately engaged with the Young Diplomats of Canada (YDC) and the International Relations Students Association of McGill University (IRSAM Inc). Within these organizations he served as Head Delegate to the OECD in Paris, and the United Nations in New York respectively, and notably co-facilitated and addressed a Civil Society Briefing Session at the 54th Commission for Social Development.
For the past three years, Gautham has worked closely with the McGill Humanitarian Studies Initiative and Montreal-based HumanitarianU. This engagement led to him actively assisting in the production of training protocols for field staff as part of the International Medical Corps’ Multi-Agency Training Collaboration to Support the Ebola Response in West Africa in 2014. Gautham continues to provide logistical support for Field-Based Humanitarian Disaster Simulations (SimEx) with HumanitarianU.
He is also an accomplished spoken word poet, and co-founded the national non-profit organization Raise Your Voice Canada in 2012, which sought to engage youth in public discourse through debate and spoken word poetry. Gautham currently serves as a Youth Advisor to the Canadian Red Cross and continues to believe in the power, and necessity, of engaging youth in civic discourse and humanitarian action.
Humanitarian Health Ethics 