Sidoné Grange joined the University of Toronto Mississauga's Black Students' Association in her first year, during the COVID-19 pandemic — the beginning of a university career that would braid research and community leadership together.
In the Short Lab, run by biology chair Steven Short, she studied Chrysochromulina parva, a microscopic freshwater alga. Lake Ontario samples show it infected by four viruses, CpV-BQ1 through CpV-BQ4; Grange helped confirm the genome sequence of CpV-BQ3 before examining CpV-BQ4's infectivity. The work earned her two NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Awards.
how much there is to discover at even the smallest scaleSidoné Grange
Research wasn't her only lab. In 2023 she studied the prevalence of pressure injuries as a summer research student at William Osler Health System, work that pointed her toward medicine. As co-president of the UTM Black Students' Association, mentored by Manager of Black Initiatives Martin Kengo and research mentor David Armstrong, she started the Black Student Mentorship Program and helped launch the interim Black Student Space at the Kaneff Centre, which opened in April 2024.
That space now waits for her brother, who recently started at UTM — he will have it from his first day, something Grange did not have when she joined the Black Students' Association in her own first year, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
She has since started a master's in biomedical engineering at Toronto Metropolitan University, with an eye toward a career in medicine — carrying with her, she says, the same wonder that first drew her to the smallest scales of life.
Reported from UTM alum Sidoné Grange reflects on research, leadership and community, by Tina Adamopoulos (U of T Alumni News, January 22, 2026).
More from the original reporting: alumni.utoronto.ca/news/utm-alum-sidone-grange-reflects-research-leadership-and-community