Dr. Steffanie Strathdee
was recently named one of the

"100 Canadians to Watch"

by Maclean's Magazine
in their 1997 Canada Day issue

Tacked onto a bulletin board above her computer are the photographs: a respected colleague, a PhD supervisor, a close friend. All are dead - all from AIDS. "They are what drive me to do what I do," says Strathdee, an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia. "This is not a job. It is a mission." As one of the project managers of the Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS Research, the 31-year-old Scarborough, Ont., native runs two major studies into how the disease is spreading among injection drug users and young gay men in Vancouver, which has Canada's highest known incidence of HIV infection. To reach those groups, Strathdee has combined her scientific expertise with a streetwise sensibility. Drug users and gay men sit on her team's two community advisory boards. And a recruitment campaign with the slogan "Take pride, take care, take part" has convinced 600 gay men under the age of 30 to chronicle their attitudes and sexual practices for Strathdee and her colleagues. Such efforts helped to earn her The Young Investigators Award in Epidemiology at last year's International AIDS Conference in Vancouver. "My most important work," says Strathdee, "is convincing people at risk that their lives are worth saving."