CHI’s Barret Monchka wins prestigious national scholarship

The Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship is one of Canada’s most competitive awards

Artificial intelligence models trained on incomplete data don’t just make mistakes—they tend to make more mistakes for some groups of people more than others. Having data that doesn’t accurately report on the people who need better access to the health system is a significant risk to public health.

CHI Data Analyst Barret Monchka is working to address that gap

Barret is a a long-time member of CHI’s Data Science team, and a PhD student in the College of Community and Global Health at UM’s Rady Faculty of Health Sciences. His research strengthens the methods public health researchers rely on, and lays the groundwork for building AI models that work more equitably across differing populations.

“The scholarship recognizes the considerable thought and effort I have put into shaping my PhD research. It’s also a vote of confidence in the question I’m seeking to answer: how do we build AI tools that don’t leave people behind because of gaps in data.”

— Barret Monchka, Data Analyst CHI

Dr. Lisa Lix, CHI’s Director of Data Science, says the award reflects work that’s been building for years.

“Barret’s research about methods to link health and non-health data from disparate sources will increase the opportunities for novel insights about the health of populations,” said Dr. Lix. “It’s work like his that’s going to improve the use of health data to support evidence-based decision-making.”

Updates

• July 15, 2026: Barret presented preliminary findings at the International Population Data Linkage Network
• June 16, 2026: Barret presented preliminary findings at the Canadian Society for Epidemiology and Biostatistics where he was awarded with the Best Student Abstract and Presentation in Biostatistics