By Angela Barrett-Jewers

Third-year women’s soccer goalkeeper Annabel Gravely is making an impact both on and off the pitch at Dalhousie.

Gravely came to Dalhousie because it offered her the opportunity to pursue the sport she loved while striving to reach her academic goals. Currently in her third year of a medical sciences major, she has a passion for both soccer and research – and thanks to Dalhousie’s annual donors, she is able to excel at both.

Donor-supported programming set the tone for achievement

“Athletics and academics seemed to be reflected as competing priorities in high school,” she says. “But I realized in my first year of playing on the soccer team that the two could be very complementary. The Dalhousie Fund emphasizes the point that yes – you are here to learn and excel academically, but that Dalhousie is also invested in my success outside the classroom, which for me is playing soccer. I’m able to take both very seriously without compromising overall performance,” she says.

Dal Fund donors back the Black and Gold Student Success Program, an initiative that helps student-athletes find and maintain a healthy balance between athletics and schoolwork. This can mean everything from helping them cultivate study skills and habits to providing qualified support when they run into challenges.

Well on the way to a future in medicine

Since the summer of 2020, Gravely has been working as a long-term research student remotely at the University Health Network (UNH) working for Toronto General Hospital. She supports a team of residents, fellows and surgeon whose focus is the study of liver transplants due to liver cancer.

This past summer, she received an NSERC grant for a project that focuses on a potential biomarker called Factor V for assessing liver function in liver transplant patients through the Department of Surgery at the University of Toronto.

“I’m grateful for all of the research projects I’ve been able to participate in, but this one is very exciting for me as I am leading it from start to finish,” she says. “I hope to be able to write a paper on it in the coming months.”

A published author with an editorial in Hepatobiliary Surgery and Nutrition, Gravely is also part of a student group in a competitive Multi-Organ Transplant Research Training Program. She recently completed her MCATs and is looking forward to a future in medicine.

“I am incredibly fortunate to have met such great mentors and had such great opportunities here at Dalhousie to inspire me to follow this path.”