Dr Linda Iheme – PhD Researcher, Sessional Instructor, and International Education Consultant.

Dr Linda Iheme

I am a Dentist with focus on public health. While in dental school, I became very involved with community development work which involved providing free health care services to people in rural communities.

I discovered that most of the persons in the communities are older adults and many of them depend only on charity organisations for health care.

Then I said to myself “perhaps, if I can collect some data during these community-based programs, I can analyse the data, translate the findings and inform policy change that could bring about sustainable healthcare services to these communities”.

It was then I realised that my dental background was more clinical oriented and has not prepared me for a research related career.

Setting Goals

My goal is to become a research expert so that apart from doing ground-breaking research, I can coach younger researchers to enhance their research capacity. I have also developed my online teaching capacity to enable me to teach at any part of the world through the internet.

Why Masters? In pursuit of my goal, I enrolled for Master of Science (MSc) in Public Health and health Systems, at University of waterloo. During my MSc, I prioritised equipping myself with various research methodologies.

Hence, I took courses on statistics, epidemiology, health informatics and qualitative analysis. Eventually, I developed more interest for quantitative research.

I went ahead to write a research paper with quantitative methods, presented it at a pan-Canadian research conference and won the research innovation award for that conference in 2018 summer. My thesis was focused on testing the feasibility and acceptability of a self-report assessment tool for community-dwelling older adults. I worked with 5 organisations in Ontario and Nova Scotia to implement this pilot project.

A PhD Researcher

With masters degree, you can do so many things but you can not lead a research team. I wanted no restriction in my research capacity. I love the idea of being a principal investigator and this is only possible if I have a PhD. So, I needed a PhD.

Though I got PhD offers from University of Toronto and University of Waterloo, I chose Uwaterloo because of the friendly atmosphere and supervision support that graduate students at Uwaterloo enjoy. I didn’t find this level of support system elsewhere.

Uwaterloo offered me admission and full scholarship to study Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Aging, Health and Wellbeing by 2019. In particular, I am involved with international research that has championed the establishment of routine self-report assessments for older adults who reside in the community, to aid early detection of their health decline.

I currently work with older adults from Canada and Nigeria, and we are open to piloting this project in your country too. The data collected during this project will be analyzed and the findings will help inform policies that will benefit older adults in their localities.

In addition, doing the PhD has given me the opportunity to perfect my quantitative research skills through advance courses on quantitative methodology and more practice of my data analysis skills

I have learnt a lot about research and this doctorate degree (PhD) will make me an official expert in aging research. It is worth it.

Research Interest

Self Report Health Assessment
Aging
Oral Health / Dental

Project Interests

Oral Health Awareness Campaign
Self Report Pilot Project Management

The Teaching Career as a Sessional Instructor

I believe in multiplying myself by passing what I already know to university level students. I knew I didnt want to be a professor-as-usual. I wanted to give my students an everlasting good learning experience. I wanted my teaching to be learners centered. Hence I embarked on learning how to teach.

First, I took the Fundamentals of University teaching certificate program from the prestigious University of Waterloo Centre for Teaching Excellence. This program was necessary as it groomed me as an early career instructor.

During the program, I delivered several microteachings and received feedback from both instructors and fellow students.

Then, I went on to participate in the ISW (Instructional Skill Workshop) for University Instructors at University of Waterloo. For uninterupted three days, I spent time with 20 other early career instructors at University of waterloo. We gave feedback to others and recieve feedbacks on our teaching methods.

Since I was specializing in online teaching, I went ahead to take the intensive 6 weeks preceptor (Online Teaching) training from Centre for Extended Learning at University of Waterloo. This and other trainings have equipped me with the necessary skills to effective deliver courses online.

I regularly participate in trainings to update my teaching skills with current best practices.

An International Education Consultant @ Vantage Migration

When I saw how leaving my home country to study in Canada transformed me and quickened the realization of my career goals, I vowed to make the journey easier for other students that would like to follow this path. So, I started a company called Vantage Migration through which we coach both education agents and students on how prepare/submit exceptional application documents in order to gain admission and full scholarship in top Universities abroad.

Our trainings are most helpful to students who are looking to study post-graduate diploma courses, graduate certifcate programs, course based masters, research based masters, and PhD programs in abroad.