Her friend and colleague, Amber Jarvinen, approached her about the possibility of using bacteria to clean up oil and chemical spills. Amber had founded a small environmental start-up and was looking for a partner with expertise in environmental biology.

The big launch

The temperature was 46 degrees for almost the entire first two weeks here, and I’m quite sure to have lost ten pounds in that time. Luckily, Hanoi is one of the great street food capitals of the world, where you can get a tasty bowl of Bún chả famous to the city, with freshly grilled meats in it for $1 or $2 and gain back any of that lost summer weight.

It’s been a whirlwind of new experiences since I arrived in Vietnam two months ago. I am here to study seahorses, both underwater and those that are caught by fishing boats. It’s the field portion of my MSc degree, which I am completing at the University of British Columbia Fisheries Centre, co-supervised by Drs. Amanda Vincent and Sarah Foster. My lab, Project Seahorse, conducts research all over the world, with a focus on Southeast Asia. My work is strengthening ties between Canada and Vietnam, and helps work towards greater conservation for seahorses.

More than 400,000 fishers, belonging to specific fisher castes, customarily depend upon the lagoon for their livelihoods. For my research project, which was based on Khirisahi Island, I analysed how they perceive and adapt to environmental changes.

Issues surrounding resources and sustainability, like water in developing countries, often require an interdisciplinary approach. Challenges related to water access are much more severe than in developed countries, due to factors such as rapid population growth, inadequate infrastructure, and lack of robust resource management policies. Compounding these challenges is an absence of appropriate theories and tools for knowledge integration to bridge the gap between resource management and research.

Mitacs thanks the Government of Canada and the Government of Ontario for their support of the Accelerate research internship in this story. Across Canada, the Accelerate program also receives support from Alberta Innovates, the Government of British Columbia, the Government of New Brunswick, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Government of Nova Scotia, the Government of Prince Edward Island, the Government of Quebec, the Government of Saskatchewan  and Research Manitoba.

Mitacs thanks the Government of Canada and the Government of Quebec for their support of the Accelerate research internship in this story. Across Canada, the Accelerate program also receives support from Alberta Innovates, the Government of British Columbia, the Government of New Brunswick, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Government of Nova Scotia, the Government of Ontario, the Government of Prince Edward Island, the Government of Saskatchewan, and Research Manitoba.

KDC is a manufacturer of personal care products with facilities in Ontario, Quebec and the USA. The company connected with Kathryn Battista, Mitacs Accelerate intern and graduate student in Master's in Environment & Sustainability at Western University, for a research project aimed at enhancing KDC’s environmental practices under the supervision of Professor Ian Colquhoun from the Department of Anthropology.

“Kathryn’s internship focused specifically on designing and implementing boundaries around our waste management,” says Sonya D'Cunha, Director of Sustainability at KDC.

As a student from Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Tamaulipas, Mexico, Gerardo is enjoying the research culture in Canada where the standard of excellence is high,  and he receives detailed guidance from the lab team and his professor when he needs it. His project involves testing the heat efficiency of a new type of solar panel to optimize its power generation ability.