For us June 3, 2020 will be remembered as the day that Sam defended her dissertation and emerged with her PhD.

It took nearly 5 years not including a 1 year break for Sam to reach this milestone.  She began as a full time graduate student including teaching, researching and part time Social Work practise.  She transitioned to a full time career in Social Work finishing her doctorate as a part time student.  Sam felt that her work was sufficiently advanced by the end of the 2019 to take a leave of absence for 3 months; initially she felt this would bring her close to finishing; in fact, she managed to complete the entire dissertation with some time to spare.

The current Covid crisis prevents us from celebrating this achievement with Sam in person, for this reason, Mumtaz and I were invited to attend her dissertation defense by Zoom on Wednesday 3/June/2020.

It is impossible to describe the pride and admiration we felt for Sam as we listened in on the gruelling 3 hour session.  Her dissertation was passed without revision (which is quite rare); she was nominated for the York University dissertation prize. We were listening when she was addressed as Dr. Abel for the first time in her life.