Lisa-Monique Edward is a born and raised St. Lucian currently living in Toronto, Canada. She is currently a Bioinformatician in a Cancer Genomics laboratory at the SickKids Hospital where she primarily works as part of the lab’s Precision Medicine program. With a unique background in Computer Science and Biochemistry, her research involves developing and utilizing computational methods to characterize the genetic makeup of pediatric cancer patients and their tumors. The goal of her work, and of her lab by extension, is to identify the underlying genetic cause of each child’s cancer in order to also identify potential targeted treatment options for those patients.

Lisa-Monique earned her Honors Bachelor of Medical Sciences degree in Computational Biochemistry from the University of Western Ontario in 2019. Despite still being in the early stages of her academic career, she has established a track-record of being recognized for her work, both in St. Lucia and in Canada. In 2016, she was 1 of only 3 recipients of her university’s International President’s Scholarship, the first St. Lucian to receive this award out of applicants from around the world. In 2018, she was 1 of 15 recipients of Google’s Generation Scholarship and 1 of 8 recipients of the OAS Undergraduate Scholarship. Upon graduating in 2019, she was presented with the Rossiter Award for Research Excellence by her department for her undergraduate thesis work and in 2020 she was named as a co-author on a manuscript published in the prominent, peer-reviewed scientific journal, Nature Genetics. Outside of her academic pursuits, Lisa-Monique often serves as an advocate for women and minority groups in STEM and she hopes to continue that advocacy to nurture new STEM enthusiasts in the Caribbean region.