The research in the Foulkes Lab is focused on the regulation of circadian rhythms and environmental effects on specific gene products. The project I will be contributing to aims to investigate the role of environment, specifically light, on the evolution of cryptochromes and photolyases. Photolyases are proteins that are involved in repairing DNA, and the […]

The risks related to Tailing Storage Facilities (TSF) failure are increasingly manifesting as financially material and impactful. My goal during this Globalink funded project is to identify the current tools that institutional mining investors are using to evaluate risk exposure associated with TSF. The overarching objective is to identify whether tailings dam safety is considered […]

Treatments generating ablation and coagulation of tissues by applying lasers, microwaves, radiofrequency currents or focused ultrasound have many advantages over scalpel-based and other mechanistic surgical methods. These advantages have consequently motivated the clinical application of the various ablation techniques in a myriad of medical specialities, such as oncology, electrophysiology, and ophthalmology. Despite these advances, most […]

The goal of this research is to map forest structure (height, plant cover) in the rain forest region of Queensland, Australia. This requires the use of RADAR data as it is not weather dependent, i.e., can see through clouds in a region that experiences 1,424 mm of rain annually. This work builds upon my undergraduate […]

Enacting complex behaviours, such as locomotion, involves network-wide integration of information at the level of the nervous system. This understanding highlights the need for appropriate technologies to monitor the global dynamics of neurons in these networks. However, previous studies employing model organisms have been limited to low resolution imaging, few neurons and/or immobilized specimens. In […]

A novel class of DHODH inhibitors called tetrahydroindazoles was recently identified in the group of professor Sonia Lain through screening of a commercially available chemical library for activators of p53. The hit compound HZ00 is able to slow tumor cell growth in culture, an effect which was reversed upon supplementation with uridine, and had little […]

Oxidative stress and inflammation can cause neuron degeneration and lead to mental disorders such as Alzheimer’s Disease. Dementia is debilitating and poses economic burden to the patients, families, and society. Currently, no curative drugs have been developed to treat dementia. This study will be elucidating the mechanism of action and examining the anti-oxidative and therapeutic […]

Counter-streaming plasma has been featured in many experiments due to its prevalence in astronomy around supernova shocks, as well as in other lab plasma applications. These plasmas develop magnetic fields which are interesting due to their ability to accelerate particles as well as their roll in the formation of collisionless shocks. These fields are normally […]

Building a high throughput vacuum chamber for our group’s transient grading spectroscopy (TGS) project, which uses picosecond, ultrasonic laster acoustics to probe the sub-surface, thermo-elastic properties of materials. We are particularly interested to study the thermal diffusivity of material under irradiation, which requires probe depths of single microns conducted in vacuum. Our current chamber is […]

Anthropogenic inputs of phosphorus (P) from agricultural and urban activities, as well as sediment recycling (internal loading), have caused harmful algal blooms (HABs) in surface waters worldwide, including Lake of the Woods, Canada and Lake Taihu, China. HABs remain active in the Lake of the Woods and Lake Taihu even though point sources, such as […]

The goal of the project is to produce sample sets of oxide-dispersion strengthened steels, with varying compositions, using advanced manufacturing equipment and techniques. These ODS steels differ from traditional ferrous alloys as they contain nano-sized oxide particles that are dispersed throughout the body of the steel. These dispersions help strengthen the steel as they are […]