This research will focus on using lakes sediments to determine the amount of marine derived nutrients and contaminants that Alewife (Gaspereau) transfer into Gaspereau Lake, Kings County, Nova Scotia. Lake sediment records form an archive that preserves environmental change that has occurred in lakes. In this project lake sediment cores will be collected and analyzed […]

This research will measure the effects of the Cycling Without Age program on participants by observing a variety of indicators. An existing program in a long-term care home will be observed, and 50 residents will be recruited: a biking group (n=25) who will be biked twice a week for 12 weeks and a strolls group […]

Wetlands are important habitats for many plant and animal species, and also provide valuable ecosystem services to society such as improving water quality and releasing groundwater into streams. While wetlands are often protected from development through the land use planning process in Ontario, development and land use change near wetlands can still alter the amount […]

The research’s aim for the first project is to identify early structural characteristics of osteoarthritis in cartilage and the aim for the second project is to test if these characteristics can be used to detect joint-protection effects from injectable polymers. For both projects, I will be using microcomputed tomography, to collect high resolution 3D images […]

Being certified as sustainable through a third-party organization, such as the Sustainable Forestry Initiative and the Forest Stewardship Council, gives forest products companies and organization a way to demonstrate to consumers that their management practices are ecologically sound. To understand the value of certification programs, it is important to be able to quantify the conservation […]

Uveal melanoma (UM) is the most common primary ocular tumor in adults. UM is treated by removing the eye (enucleation) or by local radiation therapy. Despite effective treatments for the ocular tumors, about 50% of patients develop metastasis, which are frequently lethal. Genetic profiling is used to study the molecular changes that occur and is […]

Fabrication of heterojunction solar cells has shown great promise in the past few years, with such solar cells reaching record efficiencies of up to ~26.7%. Hence, research in this field is much necessary to make the dream of accessible solar energy for all, a reality. The research that we propose here, would focus on specifically […]

Current environmental risk assessment approaches rely on animal tests which are tedious, expensive, and of ethical concerns. This is constituting a significant problem for governments and industries as they are mandated to test the tens-of-thousands of chemicals currently used by society globally. This serves as impetus to develop novel alternative approaches that enable high-throughput testing […]

The long term objective of this project is to develop methods of revegetating mine tailings sites (in this case, a very large tailing mound in northern Quebec) using natural vegetation, and without transporting soil long distances. The specific objective of this project over the next year is to (i) conduct field trials to determine the […]

Triathlon races are usually longer than 2 hours, but a new short distance team event has been added to the Olympics. This new event, the mixed relay, requires 2 men and 2 women to complete a short course which takes about 20 minutes each to complete. We want to know how the triathletes perform because […]

A widely recognized pattern in ecology is the latitudinal diversity gradient: increasing biodiversity with decreasing latitude. However, why there are fewer animals at the poles than in the tropics remains poorly understood. The latitude niche-breadth hypothesis (LNB) suggests that stable climates of the tropics allow for increased specialization (smaller niche), which in turn allows for […]

The agricultural sector is currently facing a conundrum, whereas the needs to produce more (food, fiber, bioenergy) are ever increasing, the land and resources needed to produce them are diminishing. Furthermore, consumers and legislators pressure for environmentally friendly products are increasing accordingly, the development of sustainable alternatives such as the use of plant growth-promoting rhyzobacteria […]