Saint Mary’s research into sustainable agriculture and more efficient 3D modeling receives federal funding

The Science Building at Saint Mary’s University.

Research into sustainable agriculture and more data-efficient 3D modeling will benefit from newly announced federal funding through the Canada Foundation for Innovation’s (CFI) John R. Evans Leaders Fund (JELF).

Funding for biology researcher Dr. David Chiasson will allow him to explore sustainable agriculture practices in a project titled “Symbiotic nitrogen fixation in legume plants.”  

Dr. David Chiasson

“A central goal of sustainable agricultural practice is to provide nutritious food and plant products while minimizing the impact on the environment,” says Dr. Chiasson. “Legume plants such as beans, alfalfa, and clover are a key component of sustainable agriculture since they do not require nitrogen fertilizer for growth. This unique group of plants forms a symbiotic relationship with soil bacteria called rhizobia. Rhizobia can convert nitrogen gas from the atmosphere into nitrogen fertilizer for the plant in a process termed nitrogen fixation. This association therefore reduces the need for applied nitrogen fertilizers in agriculture.”

The production of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers consumes vast quantities of fossil fuels, and their application leads to negative environmental outcomes such as greenhouse gas emissions and contaminated water resources. Coupled with the rising price of fertilizers, farmers are increasingly turning to legumes as a sustainable means of adding nitrogen to the soil.  

“The long-term goal of this project is to increase the productivity of legume plants,” explains Dr. Chiasson. “This research will provide the knowledge base for strategies aimed to reduce the environmental impact of the agricultural sector while increasing the productivity of our crops. An improved understanding of the nitrogen-fixation symbiosis is both timely and essential as we move towards a future of more environmentally responsible farming practices in Canada.”

Dr. Jiju Poovvancheri, a researcher in the mathematics and computing science department, received funding for a project titled “Research Infrastructure for Large-scale 3D Geometry Acquisition and Modeling.”  

“The CFI fund will be used to set up the lab and purchase research equipment including an AI server, Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) scanner and high-performance workstations capable of acquiring and processing large-scale three-dimensional data,” says Dr. Poovvancheri.

Dr. Jiju Poovvancheri

Current practices in city modeling include acquiring raw measurements of the physical world using LiDAR sensors and turning the sensor data into three dimensional meshes. Large-scale meshes created in this manner normally contain trillions of triangles, putting a huge burden on rendering, data transfer and storage of applications. Furthermore, most of the reconstructed meshes lack geometric details and therefore do not represent a good choice for 3D navigation, and AR/VR.  

“High fidelity digital representations of cities are essential for modern-day applications such as urban planning, 3D navigation, and augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR),” explains Dr. Poovvancheri. “This project aims at bridging existing gaps in urban modeling pipeline by developing an AI (Artificial Intelligence) driven urban modeling software ecosystem consisting of algorithms, tools, and data for creating lightweight and highly detailed 3D urban models.”

The Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, announced more than $64 million to support 251 research infrastructure projects at 40 universities across Canada.

Social Justice, Diversity, Inclusion, Activism and Entrepreneurship: Introducing Saint Mary’s RBC Talent Hub Team

April Howe EMBA'18, the new RBC Talent Hub Entrepreneur-In-Residence at the Saint Mary's University's Entrepreneurship Centre (SMUEC)

Social justice, diversity, inclusion, activism and entrepreneurship. Powerful words that offer a peek into the hearts of the amazing women joining Saint Mary's University's RBC Talent Hub team.

"I am so proud to return to Saint Mary's University and give back to the next generation of amazing Canadian entrepreneurs," says April Howe EMBA'18, the new RBC Talent Hub Entrepreneur-In-Residence at the Saint Mary's University's Entrepreneurship Centre (SMUEC). "My intent is to provide mentorship, guidance and advice to students that was instrumental to me in my entrepreneurial journey, and I can't wait to start."

Howe has been an active voice for diversity and inclusion in Nova Scotia for many years. Her consultancy, Crayon Strategies Inc., works extensively with clients across Canada and the US from various sectors, including pharmacare, health care, finance engineering, tech, not-for-profit, and the start-up sector. Howe is the provincial Deputy Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture. Previously she held senior government roles of Senior Executive Advisor to the Deputy Minister of Justice. Before that, she was the Executive Director of People and Culture at the Public Service Commission and led the provincial Diversity and Inclusion strategy development. April was a Partner with Knightsbridge Robertson Surrette for 16 years leading their Career Transition practice. As a community volunteer, she served on the boards of the United Way, the IWK Foundation, the Halifax Partnership, the Black Business Initiative, and the North End Community Health Center. As a proud descendant, she was a founding board director and went on to be Board Chair of the Africville Heritage Trust.

“The RBC Talent Hub is very fortunate to have April Howe joining as the new Entrepreneur-In-Residence,” says Kellie Sauriol, RBC’s Regional Vice President, Business Financial Services, Atlantic Canada. “It is incredibly rare to have someone with such a rich background in both the private and public sectors available to guide and foster young entrepreneurs. Also, it speaks to the high quality of the Saint Mary’s University Entrepreneurship Centre itself that they continue to successfully bring in accomplished people like April to this role. I know the students will benefit greatly from her leadership.”

"Any time you can have someone with the experience of April join your team and work with students, it is an amazing win for your program," says Michael Sanderson, Director, SMUEC. "We are ecstatic to have April joining us and bring her wealth of experience across a variety of sectors to her work at Saint Mary's."

The Saint Mary's University RBC Talent Hub is an expansive initiative designed to support students on their entrepreneurial journey. Through co-operative education, internship placements, training, Entrepreneurial Mindset Success Certificate, and mentorship, the RBC Talent Hub provides an exceptional opportunity to students for additional hands-on learning opportunities. The skills developed through this program aim to give students an edge in beginning their careers and help them to excel in the workplace post-graduation. The program is made possible with support from RBC Foundation and is entering its fourth year.

"The success of our past Entrepreneurs-in-Residence: Gregg Curwin, Shannon Susko, and Leah Skerry have reinforced how important it is to have experienced individuals available to coach and mentor students as they develop their skills and create a plan for their future," says Sanderson. "To support their work, we brought in other experts to assist students through training and coaching, such as recent alumni, local professionals, and faculty. These additional supports alongside a seasoned entrepreneur proved so successful that we are expanding the RBC Talent Hub to include these new roles on a more permanent basis."  

Kaitlyn Touesnard BComm'13, Alumni-In-Residence at SMUEC.

Joining the RBC Talent Hub team at Saint Mary's in the newly created Alumni-In-Residence roles will be Kaitlyn Touesnard BComm'13 and Sehmat Suri BComm'19. 

Kaitlyn Touesnard has been managing the Atlantic Canadian Chapter of Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO) since Spring of 2020. She works closely with the over 80 entrepreneurs that make up EO's Membership to help them reach their full potential. Previous to her role at EO, she was the President and Founder of Crescendo Events. From a few small events to events with over 1,000 attendees, she grew the business for five years. Kaitlyn was named Planner of the Year for Atlantic Canada in 2019 by Meeting Professionals International. In 2012, Kaitlyn was named HSBC Woman Leader of Tomorrow for Atlantic Canada for her work with the Saint Mary's University Enactus Team.

Sehmat Suri BComm'19, Alumni-In-Residence at SMUEC.

Sehmat Suri BComm'19 is a digital media specialist, model, blogger, actor, and tv host. She moved to Halifax from India in 2014 and pursued a BA in Psychology and a BComm in Marketing at Saint Mary's. She has represented the university at national and international conferences and ran a local business for a year which led her to start modelling and growing her Instagram presence in 2017. She has since worked for companies like Sport Chek, Kent, Tic Tac, Tresemme and Tourism Nova Scotia and is one of the hosts of the travel show "Ocean Playground" on Eastlink. Sehmat currently works at m5 Marketing Communications and is expanding her online presence in the lifestyle, comedy, and social justice fields.

This latest expansion is just the beginning of new support for Saint Mary's University students through SMUEC. Later this year, more new volunteer positions are set to join the RBC Talent Hub. Their focus will be to provide students with more access to professionals such as lawyers, accountants, human resources, bankers and more. SMUEC also plans to increase integration with the world-leading experts amongst Saint Mary's faculty by adding dedicated faculty members to the RBC Talent Hub team.

Dr. Sara Malton researching hunger and fasting in the Victorian era

Current cultural dialogues about womanhood and agency are popular topics of inquiry in today’s social science research, yet society’s apparent need to contain the female body has been a poignant issue for centuries. Dr. Sara Malton has been researching the representation of women’s bodies – and women’s physical and psychological health – by revisiting understandings of fasting, starvation and selfhood in 19th-century literature and culture.

Dr. Sara Malton

“This research could help us approach with greater care our thinking about women’s relationships with their bodies and questions of agency and help us critically consider the ways that we tend to pathologize everything,” says Dr. Malton, a Professor in the Department of English Language & Literature.

Malton’s current research focuses on representation of the “fasting girl,” which she describes in her research abstract as “a phenomenon which became the focus of much scrutiny in British, European, and Anglo-American medicine and the popular press, as well as nineteenth-century literature. Fasting girls were frequently purported to survive on nothing but the Eucharist and sips of water often for weeks, months, or sometimes even years. On the one hand, such young women evoked a pattern of behavior that recalled that of earlier miraculous saints, such as Saint Catherine of Siena (1347-80), who was renowned for what was then termed anorexia mirabilis. Yet into the latter decades of the nineteenth century, doctors largely discredited the entire notion of anorexia mirabilis.”

Last summer, Malton received a federal SSHRC Insight Development Grant for her project, entitled “Wondrous Hunger: Salvation, Starvation and the Nineteenth-Century 'Fasting Girl.'” Further investigation on the subject has led her to the Welsh girl Sarah Jacob, a figure who has been addressed by authors ranging from Charles Dickens to Emma Donoghue in her recent historical novel, The Wonder [2016]. Cases such as Jacob’s “were at the nexus of this transition from the perception of self-imposed starvation as redemptive sacrifice to a pathologized illness, anorexia nervosa, which was defined in 1873,” says Malton in her abstract.

With “intermittent fasting” becoming popular again as a weight loss strategy, Malton hopes her research will contribute to current discussions on gender, agency and the body, as well as tensions that remain between medical practice and religious belief.  

“There has been a battle of authority between religion and science, and during the Victorian era there was a desire to pathologize and reclassify. Prior to the late 19th century, there was no specific medical pathology for anorexia. So, who controls these women’s stories? After their deaths we have trial records and medical records, but no records from the women,” Malton explains.

“In a time when we are so polarized in our discussions, I think that it is now useful to add nuance to historical issues where religious discourse relates to scientific discourse,” she adds.

In much of her research, Malton explores the intersections of fiction, finance, technology and law, as well as consumer and commodity culture. Her publications include the book, Forgery in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture: Fictions of Finance from Dickens to Wilde (Palgrave-Macmillan 2009).

She is the current Secretary and a past Trustee of The Dickens Society, and hosted the international 20th Annual Dickens Society Symposium at Saint Mary’s in 2015. A few months ago, Chicago's Remy Bumppo Theatre Company invited her to present Between the Lines: The Chimes, a pre-show lecture for its virtual performance of the 1844 Christmas story by Dickens.

Learn more about Malton’s work at saramalton.com and follow her on Twitter at @saramalton.

Saint Mary’s scientists enter into five-year partnership with Atlantic Gold to research remediation of historic gold mine tailings in wetlands

Dr. Linda Campbell and Dr. Emily Chapman in their research lab at Saint Mary’s University.

Saint Mary’s University’s research into environmentally sustainable and cost-effective remediation of historic gold mine sites across Nova Scotia is receiving a boost in the form of a five-year partnership with Atlantic Gold, a wholly owned subsidiary of St Barbara Ltd, based in Australia.

 “St Barbara is a global gold company and is proud to own and operate the Atlantic Gold Operations in Nova Scotia,” says St Barbara Managing Director and CEO, Craig Jetson. “As we operate our business and care for our people, we are guided by our company commitments – including respecting the environment and stronger communities.

“At St Barbara doing the right thing is important to all of us. Saint Mary’s University’s research into environmentally sustainable and cost-effective remediation of historic gold mines across Nova Scotia is aligned with our commitments, including growing sustainably,” says Jetson.  “We believe in learning from the past to secure our future and look forward to seeing this philosophy applied in the important work being done by Saint Mary’s University.”

“This is a significant investment by St Barbara, reflecting the importance we place on finding solutions to actively manage and neutralise the impact of our mining operations, because we care about the environment and the planet,” says Jetson. “We have recently committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 and are pleased to see our Atlantic Gold operations leading to deliver on this promise by 2025.We look forward to updates on the important work being done by the Saint Mary’s University team and thank them for their commitment to this project.”

The funding is part of a new five-year partnership between Saint Mary’s University and Atlantic Gold with the first payment of $200,000 being delivered late in 2020.

Tailings runoff in Montague.

There is a long history of gold mining in Nova Scotia, and methods used 100 years ago are now known to be damaging to the environment. The goal of the Saint Mary’s University research team, led by Dr. Linda Campbell, is to use its proven expertise from previous studies of former mine sites to develop a low-cost remediation strategy. This new strategy is designed to support the natural recovery of wetlands and shallow water environments impacted by 100-year-old contaminated tailings.

“I want to thank Atlantic Gold for their strategic partnership and financial investment in advancing world-leading research that benefits both our local and global communities,” says Saint Mary’s University President Dr. Robert Summerby-Murray. “This partnership is an exemplar of innovation with a community-centred approach. It addresses a challenge with an immediate local connection but with far-reaching national and international implications.”

The scope of the damage to the environment from abandoned gold mines is wide, encompassing 300 abandoned mines across the province in both remote areas and backyards. Contamination from the arsenic and mercury used in historic gold mining can adversely affect human health and present severe environmental contamination risks.

Dr. Linda Campbell

“Saint Mary’s University is proud to be a part of the solution when it comes to remediating the damage done by historic gold mining practices across the province,” says Saint Mary’s University Vice-President, Academic and Research, Dr. Malcolm Butler. “Dr. Linda Campbell and her team are employing innovative research to create remediation techniques that minimize the impact on the environment, wildlife and humans. This research has the potential for significant applications in Nova Scotia, the rest of Canada and the world.”

Mining in Nova Scotia began well before most environmental legislation, and untreated tailings were placed in wetlands and shallow-water areas. Over the subsequent decades, abandoned tailings were left in place, with limited natural recovery taking place. Research at Saint Mary’s completed in 2015-2019 shows that sediment samples from legacy gold-mine tailings in N.S. wetlands remain contaminated and are still severely toxic to aquatic invertebrates.

“We are currently wrangling with the consequences of decisions and actions made a long time ago,” says Dr. Linda Campbell. “Our goal is to ensure legacy arsenic and mercury contaminants will not continue to be a problem for Nova Scotians for another hundred years. We are looking forward to working with Atlantic Gold and our other collaborators to undertake the necessary research and development to help restore ecological vitality of impacted wetlands.”

Dr. Campbell is joined by Senior Project Research Manager Dr. Emily Chapman and a team of researchers that will look at new ways to remediate sites using more effective and less invasive techniques than traditional remediation methods. Those traditional methods can be destructive to the areas that need to be protected. A proof-of-concept study of a new method, which will use a thin layer of a reactive material, is promising in its ability to limit risks of legacy gold mine tailings without compromising wetland function. It is this approach that is being investigated by the research team.

Dr. Emily Chapman

“Wetlands are incredibly important ecosystems, and these sites need help to recover. It is about finding the right blend of ingredients that will reduce the mobility and toxicity of contaminants in the sediment, without adding so much material that wetlands are infilled and destroyed,” says Dr. Chapman. “Having worked on the development of innovative approaches for dealing with these risks for several years, I am pleased to see that this issue is getting some recognition.”

Remediation is a very expensive undertaking, with a 2019 estimate of $48 million to clean up the Crown land portion of two Nova Scotia legacy tailing sites. If proven effective, the new method proposed by Dr. Campbell and her team will have an immediate economic benefit as a more cost-effective, non-intrusive ecological and human health option for impacted wetlands across Nova Scotia and similar sites around the world.

Dr. Campbell is a professor in the School of the Environment at Saint Mary’s. In her research, she uses multi-disciplinary approaches to improve our understanding of anthropogenic and natural impacts in the environment, with a focus on aquatic ecosystems.

Atlantic Gold, a wholly owned subsidiary of St Barbara Ltd, operates the Moose River Gold Mine near Middle Musquodoboit, Nova Scotia, and is permitting three more mines along Nova Scotia’s Eastern Shore. The Company is investing in a research partnership with Saint Mary’s University to explore the remediation of historic gold mine tailings in freshwater ecosystems.

Dr. Evangelia Tastsoglou recognized for research excellence

The 2020 recipient of the President’s Award for Excellence in Research is Dr. Evie Tastsoglou, Professor of Sociology.

Dr. Evangelia (Evie) Tastsoglou is the recipient of the 2020 President’s Award for Excellence in Research at Saint Mary’s, to be recognized during the virtual Winter Convocation ceremony on February 13.

A highly regarded leader in Sociology research, Dr. Tastsoglou has legal training and expertise spanning other fields such as Women and Gender Studies and International Development Studies. Much of her current research focuses on the urgent issue of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in migration.

Dr. Tastsoglou currently leads as principal investigator the Canadian research team of a major international research program that is analyzing causes and impacts of violence against women migrants and refugees, with a view to shaping effective policy to address it. Working “remotely yet at full speed,” her Canadian team of scholars at four institutions is supported by funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). The program was developed in response to a call from GENDER-NET Plus, a consortium of 16 organizations from 13 countries, aiming to strengthen transnational research while promoting gender equality through institutional change.

With a team of academics in Canada and Greece, Dr. Tastsoglou is also the principal investigator of a SSHRC-funded project, with preliminary results now in review for publication. This research seeks to understand gender-based violence and precarity “in the forced migration journeys of asylum-seeking women toward the EU through what is known as the Eastern Mediterranean route, in the tumultuous, second decade of the 21st century,” she says. “Our findings locate five points in this forced migration journey where precarity interweaves with violence, reinforcing one another, as well as show their gendered forms: border crossing, the asylum determination process, living conditions, services, and state response to GVB.”

Additionally, she is co-investigator in a project on the impacts of the pandemic on Canadians’ mental health, as analyzed through social media. Funded by NSERC Alliance COVID-19, the project includes industry partner Diversio and research teams from Dalhousie’s Faculty of Computer Science and Department of Psychiatry.

“This is a truly rewarding collaboration not only in terms of building substantive knowledge but also in pioneering interdisciplinary methodology that combines, with sociological input, machine learning methods applied to text mining, followed by qualitative analysis. Team members learn how to negotiate a common ‘language’ across very different disciplines,” says Dr. Tastsoglou.

Interdisciplinary approaches have always been vital to her research but the NSERC Alliance COVID-19 project is further expanding those horizons, she says. “My educational background is in law and sociology and although I appreciate the distinct lenses of the two disciplines, I consider them complementary in approaching complex social phenomena. This project takes me one step further in the direction of addressing research questions in the social sciences by using artificial intelligence methodologies to assist in coping with large amounts of text.”

Since arriving at Saint Mary’s in 1993, Professor Tastsoglou has served as a mentor for many undergraduate and graduate students. She was Chair of the former Department of Sociology and Criminology from 2006-2012. Cross-appointed since 2017 to the International Development Studies Program, she serves as its undergraduate coordinator.

“It has been a privilege to have spent most of my academic career working at Saint Mary’s University,” she says, adding she is deeply honoured to receive the research excellence award. “I have learnt and continue to learn a great deal from my colleagues and students. Working out of a smaller university has some unique advantages in terms of having less pressure to produce and more freedom to engage your passions, which can ultimately enrich both your work and life. I am very grateful to the Saint Mary’s community, which I have experienced as personable, caring and supportive throughout my career.”

Currently president of the Canadian Ethnic Studies Association, Dr. Tastsoglou was proclaimed “Sociologist of the Month” by the international Current Sociology journal in July 2018, and received a Fulbright / Niarchos Fellowship in 2017. She was an elected member of the Research Council and Executive of the International Sociological Association (2014-2018), and former President of the ISA’s RC 32 (Research Committee on Women in Society (2006-2014). She is the single author, co-author, editor and co-editor of numerous publications, including 11 peer-reviewed volumes, in national and international venues.

Established in 1989, the annual President’s Award honours outstanding research conducted by a full-time faculty member at Saint Mary’s. Recipients must have a record of continued and exceptional contribution to research and scholarship, as well as national or international recognition as an authority in a major field of knowledge.

Saint Mary's Engineering Team Victorious at Atlantic Engineering Competition

Saint Mary’s students Amy Kehoe and Andrew Ollerhead

Congratulations to Amy Kehoe and Andrew Ollerhead for winning the Junior Design competition at the Atlantic Engineering Competition, hosted virtually by the University of Prince Edward Island last month. The pair were competing in a field of 11 Atlantic university teams.  

Only knowing in advance that their topic would focus on either Prince Edward Island aquaculture or agriculture in some way, the Atlantic competitors received their instructions and a box of supplies that included cardboard, coat hangers, Styrofoam balls, straws and duct tape. Then, teams had just six hours to build a prototype to solve this agricultural problem facing Island farmers and present it to the judges:

Problem

Due to the lack of natural pollinators, many personal gardens and greenhouses suffer from poor plant health and low crop yield. To fix this, humans have developed artificial pollination methods. A device that can mechanically pollinate a tray of plants is required.

Challenge

Design a device or system that is capable of pollinating the provided tray of plants. The priority is to pollinate the highest number of plants with a sufficient amount of pollen under the designated time limit. 

The pair quickly got to work brainstorming ideas on a white-board, narrowing their ideas down to three before coming up with their strategy.

“Within the first hour, we chose a design and started working out the mechanics of building it,” Kehoe says.

Their project design consisted of a cardboard frame with two poles to allow a set of three hoppers that would slide open or closed depending on the position of a sliding plate with holes that would align.

“Our goal was to cover the bottom of nine Styrofoam cups with salt; the cups were on a three-by-three grid, which is why we chose the shape we did,” Kehoe adds. “We used an elastic to make sure each position was the one we wanted; we had to use string to make anything move on the machine.” 

Contest rules specified that the device had to remain on the table, and only one person could operate the device. The teams could not physically touch the tray of cups, and the pollen had to be dispensed in a controlled manner. 

“Our pollinator can pollinate nine plants, but since a greenhouse doesn’t normally have nine plants, we have to be able to scale it up easily,” the team explains. “We had to think of those things in the design process. That’s why we chose this design. We made ours out of cardboard, but we discussed that we would use plastic in real life, and we looked up costs of materials.”

“The prototype is part of it, but a big part is the presentation,” Kehoe adds. “Talking in front of an audience, and more importantly, coming up with the design and thinking of how to translate this to a real-world application.”  

In preparation for this event, Engineering instructor Luke MacDonald coached the Saint Mary’s teams on creating professional presentations. He ran a practice competition to help the students prepare to work under pressure. 

“These competitions give students the opportunity to use the skills they have learned in various courses on real-world problems,” MacDonald says. “Students work on a design problem in teams to come up with solutions—it’s a good experience for them, and helps build useful skills which they can use in their future careers.”

Both Kehoe and Ollerhead are in their second year of Engineering. Ollerhead plans to finish a Bachelor of Science in Engineering before continuing onto studies in Mechanical Engineering.

As for Kehoe, she plans to take Electrical Engineering after finishing her BSc but first hopes to travel next year to volunteer in her role as a Council Youth Commissioner for Nova Scotia at an international scouting centre if Covid-related travel restrictions are lifted by that time.

The pair will virtually compete at the Canadian Engineering Competition 2021 later this month, which will be hosted by the University of New Brunswick.

Dr. Edna Keeble moderates U.S. - Canada Relations event

Dr. Edna Keeble

It’s a virtual event fitting the times. “Congress to Campus: U.S.-Canada Relations” on January 28 promises to be an engaging discussion directed to those in academia and beyond in Canada.  

The inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States will have an impact on countries all over the world. Just hours after taking office this week, he revoked the permit that would have enabled western Canada’s Keystone XL oil pipeline project to expand into the U.S. On his first day, President Biden also indicated that his administration’s relationship with Canada is a priority – his first phone call to a foreign leader will be with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The Congress to Campus event, which aims to explore many of the questions Canadians might have right now, is part of the outreach program of the United States Association of Former Members of Congress (FMC). It’s timely, as the effects of the recent U.S. election and the attack on the Capitol are still very fresh in the minds of the world. The event also has a connection to the Saint Mary’s community, with Dr. Edna Keeble serving as the discussion’s moderator.  

“It is important not only to discuss the possible directions of Canada-U.S. relations under the new Biden administration, but also to understand the future prospects of bipartisanship from those who have served in the halls of the U.S. Congress,” says Dr. Keeble, a professor in the Department of Political Science.

The two speakers for the event are former members of the U.S. House of Representatives, from both the Democratic and Republican parties:

• The Honorable Elizabeth Esty, who was the U.S. Representative for Connecticut’s 5th Congressional District covering central and northwest Connecticut from 2013 to 2019.

• The Honorable John J. Faso, who represented the 19th Congressional District in upstate New York from 2017 to 2019.

Dr. Keeble’s current teaching and research interests focus on Canadian foreign policy, re-definitions of security, and linkages between politics, gender and sexuality. She served as Chair of the Political Science department for six years (2003-2004; 2009-2014).

“I was invited to moderate by the U.S. Consulate General in Halifax, which was organizing the event with the Former Members of Congress organization before the horrific January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol,” she says.   

All are welcome to attend Congress to Campus, to be held Thursday, January 28 at 1:00 pm on Zoom. For more details about the speakers, see the SMU Events Calendar and sign up in advance for the webinar link.

Saint Mary's University celebrates African Heritage Month

This February, Saint Mary's University is celebrating African Heritage Month. This year's theme is Black History Matters: Listen, Learn, Share and Act, recognizing the important legacy of people of African descent and the long-standing history in the development of Canada.  

"We are proud to be hosting a series of events that our students and community can attend virtually to celebrate African Heritage Month," says Charisma Grace Walker, the African Nova Scotian/Black student & community liaison at Saint Mary's. "I encourage everyone to join us as we discuss the past, present, and future of our communities."  

The university’s live online African Heritage Month launch event takes place on Monday, Feb. 1, 2021, at 11 a.m. The event will feature greetings and performances from members of the African Nova Scotian and Black community. The university is excited to welcome Candace Thomas BA'86, Deputy Minister, Department of Justice, who will participate and provide the keynote address. The launch event, and several upcoming events celebrating Saint Mary’s African Heritage Month, have been made possible through the generous support of Emera Inc.

A live stream of the launch event can be accessed at smu.ca/blackstudent. This event is open to all, and no sign-up is required. 

"African Heritage Month is an important time for our community to come together and celebrate," says Saint Mary's University President Dr. Robert Summerby-Murray. “Intercultural learning and the diversity of our institution is one of our greatest strengths. Saint Mary’s is committed to ensuring we are a community focused on the importance of equity, representation, and inclusion.”  

For more information on African Heritage Month events at Saint Mary's, including a keynote address-style event with Dr. Angela Davis and a music-infused poetry session, visit smu.ca/blackstudent/events. 

Saint Mary's science researcher part of global soil biodiversity network

Dr. Erin Cameron

Dr. Erin Cameron, Saint Mary’s researcher and professor in the Department of Environmental Science, is a co-author of a just-published paper in Science Magazine titled “Tracking, Targeting, and Conserving Soil Biodiversity.”  

This international project follows a paper Cameron authored in Conservation Biology last year, which determined that there are mismatches between aboveground and soil biodiversity globally, and thus protecting aboveground diversity may not sufficiently reduce threats to soil biodiversity.

“We are working on building a global biodiversity network focusing specifically on soil,” says Cameron. “Tracking the biodiversity of soil is an important part of global environmental conservation work, and this is a long-term project that’s just beginning.” 

“There is still a lot to discover about soil biodiversity and how human activities are impacting it. Organisms that live in the soil are a vital part of a functioning ecosystem.”  

Cameron also had a paper published as the cover story in Science Magazine last year, in which she explained her work studying the global diversity and biogeography of earthworms. 

Saint Mary's University climbs into top tier of Maclean’s rankings

Saint Mary's University now ranks fourth among undergraduate universities in Canada.

According to Maclean’s magazine, the university is ranked fourth among primarily undergraduate universities for 2021. Saint Mary’s has continued to climb in the rankings over the past decade.

Among the highlights in this category, Saint Mary’s ranked:

• 1st in student awards (national awards won by students)

• 5th in medical/science grants for faculty

• 5th in student services (under student support)

• 5th in library acquisitions and expenditures

• 5th in the reputational survey

• 6th in faculty awards (national awards won by faculty members)

In addition to ranking fourth among undergraduate universities, both Saint Mary's and the Sobey School of Business's national prominence continue to rise. Saint Mary's is now ranked 33rd in the country when it comes to the national reputational ranking of all universities. This year, the Sobey School of Business ranks among Canada's top 15 business programs. The university's business program is tied for 14th in the country and has the highest reputation for business research in the Atlantic region.

David Sobey Centre for Innovation in Retailing and Services celebrates Retail Month

Dr. David Sobey, CM at the National Retail Innovation Awards.

The David Sobey Centre for Innovation in Retailing and Services at Saint Mary's University is hosting a series of online events and discussions on the retail industry this October as part of Retail Month.

Retail Month, hosted by the David Sobey Centre, celebrates the retail industry and leads discussions to uncover the latest trends, practices and future predictions in retail.

"We have hosted several well-received Retail Weeks over the past several years, and one of the main comments we kept receiving was why only a week," says Dr. Ramesh Venkat, the director of the David Sobey Centre. "Retail Month offers industry leaders, and members of the retail sector increased opportunities to discuss trends and innovations they see in the sector. The pandemic has created unusual challenges and opportunities for the retail sector, making this year's Retail Month even more valuable."

Retail Month reach extends beyond the business community to students. There are many opportunities for university students and graduates in the retail sector.  With many companies promoting employees from within, recent graduates have extensive growth opportunities when joining the industry.

Speakers for Retail Month events include senior executives from national retail companies such as Sobeys Inc., Hudson's Bay Company, Staples, IKEA, and Dillard's. Representatives from these companies, and more, will be sharing their experience in various panel discussions. The topics are e-commerce and the future of retailing, women in retail, and sustainable retailing.

As part of Retail Month, the 4th annual National Retail Innovation Awards will occur on Thursday, Oct. 29. The National Retail Innovation Awards celebrates Canadian retailers' achievements and retailers who have demonstrated innovation and excellence in the industry. This year the award categories are retail business model innovation, retail technology innovation, and community service innovation. The award categories reflect the areas where retailers had to successfully adapt their business practices during the global pandemic.

The Sustainability Case Competition is also taking place during Retail Month. Students will participate in a case competition to support a local, sustainable retailer. This competition is in partnership with the 2nd Annual Sobey School of Business Responsibility Conference hosted by the Sobey School of Business.

For more information on Retail Month and the speaker series, visit: https://www.bigmarker.com/series/retail-month-20201/series_summit.

SMU researcher to look at impact of COVID-19 pandemic on student-athletes

Dr. Cheryl MacDonald

Atlantic University Sport (AUS) student-athletes have found themselves in an unusual predicament since the cancellation of national championships last season and the current sporting season being on hold as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many classes have moved online and there are no current decisions regarding the status of AUS schedules in 2021.

After having conducted previous research with this demographic, Dr. Cheryl MacDonald of the Centre for the Study of Sport & Health at Saint Mary’s University has shifted her focus to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the everyday lives of AUS student-athletes. Participants between their second and fifth year of sport eligibility will be asked to complete an online survey and photo sharing exercise aimed at examining how their activities, relationships, and mental health may have been affected since March of this year.

“From both an academic and administrative perspective, it’s important to hear from the student-athletes themselves about how they are doing with the changes they have experienced,” said Dr. MacDonald. “We have an opportunity here to document their experiences and perhaps use that information to determine how to better support them right now, in the transition back to sport participation, and maybe beyond that.”

Dr. MacDonald is a sport sociologist who is best known for her research on masculinity and ice hockey, but university-level athletes have been participants in her studies since 2009. Her work has been published in the Sociology of Sport Journal, she has a forthcoming anthology on social issues in ice hockey, and she has twice been a media panellist for the Hockey is for Everyone initiative on behalf of the National Hockey League’s Edmonton Oilers. When the COVID-19 pandemic halted her most recent study on gender and sexuality education in ice hockey, she used the pause as an opportunity to change directions and find a way to serve the athletes with whom she was already working.

This survey and photo sharing project on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on AUS student-athletes’ lives will require between 30 and 90 minutes to complete because it involves some short answer questions and will thus depend on how participants respond. We have removed the collection of IP addresses in an attempt to anonymize responses and participants are cautioned to not include any names of people or places, to block out any university or team logos using emojis or other digital shapes, and to avoid sharing any criminal content (obscenity, illegal substances, etc.).

Click here to take the survey in either English or French.