The new fellows come from across UM, representing both the Faculty of Science and Faculty of Arts, and include a former Warden and Vice-Chancellor of SJC.

We caught up with them to see what joining the St John’s community means to them. 

Jenna Tichon: Faculty of Science, Department of Statistics

Dr. Jenna Tichon focuses her research on experimental design, where she looks to find optimal split-plot designs for industrial and agricultural experiments. Jenna uses programming and simulation to develop a deeper understanding of statistical concepts, data visualization, and creating accessible research.

Jenna shares her excitement about learning from other academics and making new connections.

“I’m most excited about meeting and working with new people, learning about their research, and contributing to making the University of Manitoba a more vibrant and friendly place to work and learn. Every fellow speaks about what a strong community they felt at the College and how much they learned by sharing experiences with colleagues from all around the university.” 

Aleeza Gerstein: Faculty of Science, Department of Microbiology and Statistics

Before moving back to her hometown of Winnipeg, Aleeza studied in the Zoology Department at the University of British Columbia, where she focused on evolutionary genetics using the budding yeast, and held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Minnesota.

Her research applies evolutionary principles and statistical methods to understand the factors that influence how and why fungal populations evolve.

About joining St John’s, Aleeza says, 

“I greatly welcome the opportunity as a Fellow to form additional relationships with others across the university community. Creating and fostering community is an overarching thread that has driven much of the service I have undertaken as a faculty member.”

Gregg Olsen: Faculty of Arts, Department of Sociology and Criminology

As an esteemed sociologist, Gregg Olsen has spent over three decades researching socio-economic inequality and strategies to eradicate it. A recipient of the Arts Award in Internationalization, he has given public addresses and conducted research in over twenty nations. His cross-national approach has furthered his understanding of why inequality varies dramatically across countries and time.

Murdith McLean: Former Warden and Vice-Chancellor of St John’s College 

Murdith McLean is no stranger to St John’s College, having served as Warden and Vice-Chancellor from 1980 through 1997. He was also an adjunct professor in the UM Department of Philosophy and served in several important roles at the University. He was a Senate appointee to the Board of Governors, and member of the President’s task force on strategic planning. 

The former Warden returns to St John’s College as a retired fellow.

To learn more about St John’s College fellowship, visit our website. 

Dr. Erica Charters, professor of the global history of medicine at the University of Oxford .

can resume? What are the markers of an epidemic’s end, and who has the insight, authority, and credibility to decipher these signs?

Join Dr. Erica Charters Professor of the Global History of Medicine at the University of Oxford for a lecture and discussion on the ends of epidemics. This talk will draw on insights from the multidisciplinary project, How Epidemics End, that she directed at the University of Oxford.

What: How Epidemics End
When: March 20, 2023
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM (CT)

Location: Robert B. Schultz Lecture Theatre
University of Manitoba – Fort Garry Campus
Winnipeg MB

This lecture is funded by the Robin Connor Lectureship in the History and Philosophy of Science. UM is thrilled to be hosting the lecture series on campus for the first time in five years.

This event is free to attend, but we ask that you register in advance. 

Register

How Epidemics End Abstract

What does it mean for an epidemic to end, and who gets to declare that it is over? Although the outset of an epidemic is often marked by official declarations, endings are messy and contentious, often raising issues of competing authority. Who defines the end to an epidemic, and what data and information should be used to measure its end? This talk will discuss the research findings of the University of Oxford’s multidisciplinary project on How Epidemics End, which began in 2020.

The project examines the ways in which various epidemics have ended, comparing and contrasting different diseases, regions, and time periods. It also brings together over 30 researchers from different fields: anthropologists, ecologists, epidemiologists, historians, mathematical modellers, and philosophers, among others. Scholars discussed the ways in which they measure and define an epidemic’s end, sharing insights through workshops, online interviews, and an open-access special journal issue published in 2022.

The project’s early findings caution that, `contrary to popular assumption and idealistic hope, epidemics do not generally end through the abrupt eradication of a disease or the quick administration of a vaccine.’ In the project’s framework article published in January 2021, historians Erica Charters and Kristin Heitman instead point out that most often `an epidemic is declared to have ended once the disease falls to endemic levels, when it becomes an accepted, manageable part of normal life.’ Yet, this raises the issue of what it means for disease to be at ‘acceptable’ levels, and who should decide this. More generally, epidemics end at different times for different groups, both across regions and within one society. As a result, analyzing the process of ending `reveals the nature of epidemics as social and political events, and not simply biological phenomena.’

`How Epidemics End’ therefore examines how different researchers understand, assess, and measure epidemics and their endings. Epidemiologists measure the ending of epidemics differently than international health organizations; likewise, historians and anthropologists measure the ending according to the resumption of normal social and cultural practices, whereas mathematical modellers and epidemiologists chart it by declines in disease rates. In the project’s series of online videos, experts discuss their research into past and current epidemics. The first three videos, for example, compare how different researchers study cholera and its endings, from England in the nineteenth century to the current cholera epidemic in Yemen. These illustrate the different methodologies researchers use to gauge and define the endings of epidemics — even when studying the same disease.

`How Epidemics End’ reveals that health officials, researchers, and the general public understand epidemics differently at the breakout and end stages; and that only by understanding how an epidemic has ended can the origin and course of the outbreak can be fully understood.

A second, academic lecture –“Excess Death: Counting the Costs of Eighteenth-Century War, Disease, and Empire”— will take place at 3:00 p.m. on March 21, in 200 Fletcher Argue Lecture Theatre. In this lecture, Dr. Charters will examine the rise of statistical approaches in assessing modern crises such as wars and epidemics. It will outline how European experiences of colonial war and disease encouraged numeracy and spread early forms of quantitative analyses through army reports, health surveys, slavery records, and population censuses.

Biography.

Dr. Erica Charters, Professor of the Global History of Medicine,
Faculty of History, Academic Lead, Medical Humanities

Dr. Charters’s research examines the history of war, disease, and bodies, particularly in the British and French empires. In the context of COVID-19, Dr. Charters coordinated a multidisciplinary project on How Epidemics End, and co-edited a special issue, ‘Histories of Epidemics in the Time of Covid-19’. Her research focuses on manpower during the eighteenth century, examining the history of bodies as well as the history of methods used to measure and enhance bodies, labour, and population as a whole, including the history of statistics. Since disease was the biggest threat to manpower in the early modern world, she analyses how disease environments — throughout the world —shaped military, commercial, and agricultural power, as well as how overseas experiences shaped European theories of medicine, biology, and race alongside political methodologies such as statistics and censuses. She is co-founded of the multi-disciplinary research group ‘Body Counts: War Losses and Casualties’, which researches the history and methods of identifying casualties and losses in war.

Dr. Charters’s monograph Disease, War, and the Imperial State: The Welfare of British Armed Forces during the Seven Years War, Chicago, 2014) traces how responses to disease shaped military strategy, medical theory, and the nature of British imperial authority (awarded the AAHM 2016 George Rosen Prize and the SAHR 2014 Best First Book). As well as coordinating the Oxford and Empire project  she is on the executive committees of the Navy Records Society and the Society for the History of War. Dr. Charters is also on the editorial boards of the British Journal of Military History, Centaurus (the journal of the European Society for the History of Science), and War Studies.

An X-ray imaging mission has unveiled the magnetic field in the environment of a dead star. The order and symmetry of the field will reshape our understanding of how it accelerates particles to ultra-high energies, says UM astrophysicist Dr. Samar Safi-Harb, Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Extreme Astrophysics, and author.

In the remnant of a supernova, the core of the dead star (a pulsar) emits a particle wind that gyrates within a magnetic field that is typically doughnut-shaped, and accelerates the particles to ultra-high energies, generating a gas cloud called a pulsar wind nebula. The onset of the pulsar wind nebula is known as the termination shock, and the nebula is also subjected to a reverse shock in the opposite direction as it ages. The magnetic field causes particles to emit radiation, and emission with X-ray wavelengths is visible as arcs that can indirectly reveal the shape of the field.

Researchers used X-ray emission data from the Vela pulsar wind nebula to infer the geometry of its magnetic field, which is a symmetrical and surprisingly highly ordered structure. This could help to shed light on why these nebulae are among the most powerful particle accelerators in the Universe.

Astronomers have been exploring pulsars ever since their discovery 55-years ago. In the past two decades, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has enabled close-up views of their nebulae, but direct imaging of the magnetic fields responsible for their high-energy radiation has not been possible. This is largely because magnetic fields are invisible—to visualize them, astronomers use the properties of light emitted when particles are accelerated, which occurs through a process known as synchrotron emission.

This type of radiation is generated when magnetic fields bend the paths of particles that are relativistic (meaning they are travelling at speeds close to that of light), and it can be emitted with wavelengths ranging from radio waves to X-rays. The electromagnetic field of the photons emitted by synchrotron radiation is expected to vibrate in one direction, which is perpendicular to that of the nebula’s magnetic field. So, measuring the direction of this vibration—the ‘polarization’ of the emission—can reveal which way the magnetic field is pointing.

Read the full Nature News and Views article here.

During the peak of the pandemic, and mid-lockdown, many people reported they felt their days dragged on, inducing fatigue and making some tasks almost unbearable during “COVID time.”

An interdisciplinary team of researchers studied this effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, called Blursday, to understand how our perception of time is malleable and influenced by many factors. Blursday was the altered sense of time and difficulty in determining the day of the week during the lockdown.

Dr. Fuat Balci, a UM biologist and part of the research team, notes: “A new lingo emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic to capture the altered psychological state under the extraordinary conditions imposed by the pandemic such as the lockdown and social isolation, including doomscrolling and Blursday.”

Dr. Fuat Balci

The researchers had volunteers answer a questionnaire and perform 15 behavioural tasks, such as estimating how long they had been logged on to the study’s website. They were also asked to guess if a stated time interval was shorter or longer than they experienced to test how the pandemic affected temporal awareness.

Balci says: “We found that more isolated the participants felt during the pandemic, the slower time seemed to pass, probably mediated by boredom and more attention paid to time. Also, the more isolated the participants felt, the more distant in time past and future events seemed to be.”

A similar effect is experienced while waiting in line at Starbucks, for example.

“Whenever a situation causes you to pay more attention to time, it will have a similar effect,” Balci explains. “This is why magazines are made available in doctors’ waiting rooms. And don’t watch your egg boil because it will seem to take longer.”

The pandemic lockdown created this time effect because sleep patterns, level of physical activity and daily routines changed during the lockdown along with increases in depression and anxiety.

Balci says: “These vast changes were experienced by virtually the entire world population. We were already investigating how these factors affected our sense of time and in a sense the lockdown introduced a natural experiment to address the same research questions that we used to study in the lab.”

He adds: “From earlier research, we know that cognitive, affective and physiological factors influence our sense of time and these factors were largely affected during the lockdown. Time perception is malleable given that it is the pure product of our brain with no objective reference in the external world, unlike vision for which we have a dedicated sensory system that processes external stimuli.”

The research team also found there was an age effect, in that older individuals rated their subjective distances to the future shorter (their future appeared closer to them) but their past subjective distances were similar to younger participants.

Balci says: “The effect of aging on subjective time is a contemporary research topic particularly given the anecdotal evidence that time passes faster as we age. But in the lab setting, we see the effect of age on time perception particularly when the cognitive system is taxed, like making a time judgment when trying to remember a list of words or when the attention is divided between different tasks.”

He concludes: “Slowed sense of time does not feel good; it would be nice if pleasurable events felt longer. Waiting in your apartment for the pandemic/lockdown to end so that you can again enjoy what a normal life used to offer is certainly not one of those activities. When you add the uncertainty and anxiety into this picture, it certainly gets even worse.”

The team of which Balci was part consisted of scientists from disciplines including science, engineering, psychology and medicine, and from countries including France, Japan, India, Argentina, England, and Canada. The results of the truly international and interdisciplinary Blursday study were published in the journal Nature: Human Behavior.

The renowned Apple Bay fossil locality of northern Vancouver Island is helping us reimagine seed plant diversity in the Early Cretaceous, the last of three geologic periods comprising the Mesozoic Era.

Until recently, it was assumed that most major lineages of seed plants had been recognized in the fossil record. Their evolution and relationships to one another are still being debated, but few botanists believed that we might still be missing wide swathes of vascular plant diversity.

Using fossils from this site, my colleagues (paleobotanists Gar Rothwell and Ruth Stockey) and I have been challenging the assumption that the plant fossil record is largely complete. Our recent discovery of a new genus of non-flowering seed plants illustrates that researchers’ understanding of seed plant diversity in the Cretaceous is by no means complete.

Exceptionally detailed fossilization

In Apple Bay, sandstone and siltstone beds tilt gently up, variably exposed with every falling tide, and giving few clues as to their scientific significance. This site is a konservat lagerstätte: a fossil locality with exceptional preservation.

During the Early Cretaceous (about 136 million years ago), seasonal storms and flooding events swept vegetation out into a marine basin. Plant debris rapidly settled and fossilized at a cellular level of detail. This type of fossilization is called permineralization.

Permineralized plants offer a wealth of anatomical information, enabling us to ascertain features of plant development, organography (the arrangement of plant organs) and reproduction — data critical for understanding plant evolution. In the two decades we’ve been studying Apple Bay, it has become apparent that this site contains the most comprehensive record of terrestrial vegetation immediately prior to the evolution and radiation of angiosperms (flowering plants).

Flower power

A mere five to 10 million years after the Apple Bay flora settled into marine sediments, angiosperms were becoming abundant in the fossil record. Through the Late Cretaceous, they came to dominate terrestrial landscapes.

Prevailing narratives in plant biology suggest angiosperms out-competed other seed plants. Perhaps angiosperms were more adaptive to changing climate; used nutrients more effectively; or gymnosperms — non-flowering seed plants — were already in decline by the Early Cretaceous, enabling angiosperms to opportunistically occupy newly available niche space.

Welwitschia mirabilis, a type of non-flowering seed plant, in the Namibian desert. (Shutterstock)

The vast majority of seed plants that have ever lived are now extinct. The gymnosperms that are still alive are themselves relics of a much greater fossil diversity, and many major lineages of seed plants are known only from the fossil record. The permineralized plants of Apple Bay demonstrate that seed plants were even more diverse throughout the Cretaceous than botanists had previously realized.

Gymnosperms are well-represented in the Apple Bay flora. They include conifers and gnetophytes, which still have living exemplars like Welwitschia. They also include bennettitalean and doylealean plants, which represent wholly extinct orders. Indeed, the extinct Doyleales were first described from Apple Bay in 2009, and have subsequently been found in Mongolia as well.

Plant discovery

The new plant, Xadzigacalix quatsinoensis, probably also represents yet another order of extinct plants. The name is a nod to Kwak̓wala-speaking First Nations — the Apple Bay locality occurs within traditional and unceded territory of the Quatsino First Nation. Xadzigacalix derives from xa̱dziga, a Kwak̓wala word for plant resin, and calix, which is Latin for chalice. The name reflects the resinous, fleshy cupule that surrounds and protected the seeds of the Xadzigacalix plant.

The seeds of this plant have complex three-layered seed coats and were produced at the tip of a woody stem. A cupule encloses most of the seed, except for a narrow tube through which the embryo would have been pollinated. This organography, along with anatomical features like vascular tissue that are observable at a cellular level, constitute a novel combination of features not found in any other lineage of plants.

It’s not yet clear which group of seed plants actually gave rise to the angiosperms. Xadzigacalix likely represents a new order of seed plants, perhaps distantly related to gnetophytes or angiosperms. While research in plant molecular systematics (a discipline that uses genetic data to understand plant relatioships) has resolved most evolutionary relationships within flowering plants, their origins and nearest relatives remain mysterious.

A fossilized seed and cupule of Xadzigacalix quatsinoensis. (Az Klymiuk), Author provided

Part of this problem is that the group of seed plants most closely related to angiosperms is almost certainly extinct. Several major groups of cupulate Mesozoic gymnosperms, sometimes called corystosperms or seed ferns, have been suggested as possible relatives of angiosperms. The Xadzigacalix plant is yet another possible contender to the broader “family tree” of flowering plants.

Perplexing origins

Our assessment of the evolutionary context of the Xadzigacalix plant led us to re-evaluate the other groups of plants frequently suggested as angiosperm relatives. Throughout the Mesozoic, many seed plants “experimented” with an array of different seed-enclosing structures.

We examined whether these cupulate structures are developmentally derived from leaf or shoot tissues. Across all Mesozoic seed plants, cupules appear to be a case of evolutionary convergence, where different seed plants independently evolved similar features. It’s by no means clear if the cupules of any group are genuinely similar to the carpels — the female organs — of flowering plants.

I believe the reason angiosperm origins remain perplexing is that we still stand to discover the entirety of Mesozoic plant diversity. Our discovery of Xadzigacalix hints at how much there is is left to learn.

Az (Ashley A.) Klymiuk, Assistant professor, Biological Sciences, University of Manitoba

Dr. Mark Belmonte, Biological Sciences. Photo credit: Kira Koop.

Mark Belmonte, Professor, Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Manitoba, has been appointed as a member of the Expert Panel on Gene-edited Organisms for Pest Control at the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA), which has been tasked by the federal government and Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency.

As CCA reports:

What are the scientific, bioethical, and regulatory challenges regarding the use of gene-edited organisms and technologies (e.g., CRISPR/Cas9) for pest control?

“Understanding the challenges and potential outcomes of these technologies for pest control is critical to informing debate and discussion about their use and I can’t think of a better group of people to take on this question,” said Eric M. Meslin, PhD, FRSC, FCAHS, President and CEO of the CCA. 

​The Belmonte Lab at the University of Manitoba studies the cellular and molecular functions of plant development and plant pathogenesis. Through innovative research we strive to find new sustainable technologies to improve and protect some of Canada’s most important crops.

Learn more about research in the Belmonte lab. 

Research at the University of Manitoba is partially supported by funding from the Government of Canada Research Support Fund.

Extreme astrophysics is a field of study that examines the extremes of temperatures, gravity, and magnetism in our galaxy and beyond. Safi-Harb focuses on high-energy, extreme phenomena associated with the death of stars witnessed in dramatic explosions called supernovae, and the birth of some of the most magnetic and compact stars in the universe. These massive star explosions make supernova remnants: beautiful nebulae that can linger in space for nearly 100,000 years. Supernovae are responsible for creating a lot of the heavy elements responsible for life on earth. They also generate cosmic rays, some of the highest energy particles we know of in the universe.

Remnants of supernovae tell us how stars die and evolve, and how cosmic rays get accelerated to extremely high energies. Following the supernova explosion of a massive star, the compressed (compact) core of the original star makes a neutron star. These neutron stars can have surfaces that are hotter than millions of degrees Celsius, and magnetic fields that are more than a trillion times stronger than the sun. They are more massive than our sun and are packed in a volume comparable to the city of Winnipeg; as such, they can spin extremely fast – faster than a home blender. When two such objects collide, they generate a firework of light but also gravitational waves which are ripples of spacetime first predicted by Einstein over a century ago and discovered only recently in 2017 thanks to the development of powerful and extremely sensitive laser interferometers.

The Crab Nebula and Pulsar Image. Composed by Jayanne English (U. Manitoba) using a full-field of view image created by David Malin (copyrighted by Malin/Pasacoff/Caltech), a Hubble Space Telescope image by the Hubble Heritage Team (NASA/STScI/AURA), and a Chandra X-ray Observatory image (NASA/CXC/SAO).

This quest for discovery has taken Safi-Harb on an incredible career journey. She grew up in Lebanon during the civil war, then traveled to the U.S. to pursue graduate studies in physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She pursued High-Energy Astrophysics at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center before moving to Canada to help develop the astronomy program at the University of Manitoba – a program that has made many strides in recent years.

“What I keep hearing is how surprised Manitobans are to find out that scientists at UM are exploring the mysteries of the universe and working on key collaborations with NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, and many other national and international projects,” explains Safi-Harb. “We are really working on some cool stuff.”

NASA, Japan, Europe, and beyond

While at UM, Safi-Harb is part of numerous international projects. She was one of three Canadian astronomers behind the science on the Hitomi (ASTRO-H) satellite which was a collaboration between the Japanese Space Agency, NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency. This x-ray telescope launched in February 2016 to study the extreme environments of the universe and has given us a glimpse at the power of high-resolution x-ray spectroscopy in space.

Extreme phenomena associated with the aftermath of star death can be invisible to even the most powerful optical telescopes. X-ray telescopes probe these exotic phenomena from thousands and even millions to billions of light-years away. Since x-rays do not penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere, telescopes in space are the only way to detect x-ray light.

Safi-Harb’s next big project collaboration is Colibrì, Canada’s flagship x-ray mission proposed to the Canadian Space Agency for launch in the 2030s and designed to unveil the mysteries of neutron stars and black holes.

Safi-Harb’s team has also launched the world’s first public online database of high-energy (X-ray and Gamma- ray) observations: the Supernova Remnants High-Energy Catalogue (SNRcat). The catalogue has already impacted a number of studies and is proving to be a very useful tool for fellow scientists.

“It’s an exciting time to be in astrophysics, with the launch of many telescopes on the horizon, including the successor to Hitomi planned to launch in 2023, and the recent successful launch of projects like NASA’s x-ray polarimetry mission (IXPE) and the James Webb Space Telescope,” says Safi-Harb. “All of these will unveil mysteries and likely lead to more questions about the nature of our universe and our place in it. Space missions take decades to develop and are driven by science. Fundamental science is so important as it drives new technology and innovation.”

Artist’s impression of merging neutron stars. Photo credit: University of Warwick/Mark Garlick. Creative Commons.

Students curious about space should explore astrophysics

For students interested in astrophysics, Safi-Harb says the University of Manitoba provides many opportunities and she is especially passionate about developing opportunities for women and overall promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) disciplines.

“Astrophysics affords students numerous opportunities to achieve those dreams,” says Safi-Harb. “Students cannot go wrong by trying out astrophysics, even if they aren’t sure what they want to do, because astrophysics crosses over into so many different fields of study. Astronomy is the study of our origins and the mysteries of our Universe. It provides an excellent introduction to science and is undoubtedly a gateway into STEM.”

“What I love the most about astrophysics is solving puzzles about our universe, discovering the unknown, unveiling our place in the universe, and collaborating with colleagues in many different fields and from around the world. It is also a humbling experience that helps us connect with the younger generation and public to convey our love for, and the importance of, fundamental science.”

Safi Harb also points out that students studying astronomy develop a wealth of transferable skill sets, such as computation, visualization, problem-solving, creativity, and the ability to analyze vast amounts of complex data, skills that can be applied anywhere.

“Our department is also incredibly proud of our UM physics graduates, two of whom have been part of two recent Nobel prize-winning discoveries.” In 2019, Dr. James Peebles [BSc (Hons)/58, DSc/89], won the Nobel Prize in Physics, for theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology, and in 2017, Dr. Michael Landry [PhD/00] was part of the team at LIGO, responsible for the first direct detection of gravitational waves from colliding black holes.

“It’s a very exciting time to be in astrophysics at the UM”, declares Safi-Harb.

Links

Listen to the interview with Samar Safi-Harb – Jan. 22,  2022 – CBC Radio’s Weekend Morning Show

What: 2022 Turtle Island Indigenous Science Conference
When: June 14 – 16, 2022
Where: University of Manitoba, Fort Garry Campus – the conference will be held in person (pending public health restrictions) 

Many North Americans, including Indigenous peoples, aren’t aware of the rich Indigenous scientific legacy and the value of the application of two-eyed seeing to modern science today.

Through interactive sessions with world-renowned speakers, cross-pollination of ideas, and approaches, the conference aims to raise the profile of Indigenous STEM science. Indigenous scientific accomplishments that rivaled those of the rest of the world will be explored among other topics.

Official Conference Website

Please visit the conference website for more details. 

Register

Online registration begins on February 1, 2022, via Eventbrite.

Registration costs:
Professor/Scientist/Business Professionals/Members of Government – $300.00
Students & Post Doctoral Fellows – $100.00.

Sponsored by

With generous support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Leah Pengelly // Photo: Weston Family Foundation

Master’s student Leah Pengelly in the department of biological sciences is studying the underwater soundscape ecology of the Tallurutiup Imanga National Marine Conservation Area and evaluating the seasonal changes in noise levels from marine mammals, ship traffic and activity, and other environmental components.

Pengelly’s project allows her to foster partnerships with Inuit communities and facilitate knowledge exchange, both key in assessing the health of the Tallurutiup Imanga ecosystem and in bridging the gaps between western and traditional science.

“It’s an amazing achievement and I feel honoured to be a Weston Scholar,” says Pengelly. “This project has been a long time coming. I spent years living in the North thinking about this project, and to finally make it a reality and get the recognition feels incredible.”

Tommy Pontbriand // Photo: Weston Family Foundation

Also a student in the department of biological sciences, Tommy Pontbriand is focusing his master’s thesis on the diet and foraging behaviour of bowhead whales in the eastern Canadian Arctic, studying changes in population dynamics in response to changes in prey availability and accessibility over time.

After the species barely survived the population crash from the whaling industry, its slow recovery is now threatened by the effects of climate change.

Bowhead whales also play a key role in Inuit subsistence and cultural preservation. Certain communities that rely on this resource in the region are at risk of losing access to it. “Understanding the bowhead whale’s foraging ecology would allow us to inform these communities and allow them to adapt in anticipation of changes to come,” Pontbriand adds.

Enooyaq Sudlovenick // Photo: Weston Family Foundation

PhD candidate Enooyaq Sudlovenick from UM’s department of environment and geography is not new to being a Weston Scholar. After completing her Master of Science in veterinary medicine focusing on ringed seal health, also supported by the Weston Family Foundation, she is now embarking on her next project studying Arctic marine mammal health, specializing in beluga whales, through the lens of contaminants, pathological studies, and Inuit knowledge.

All three students are representing the University of Manitoba at the forefront of Canadian research, leading us into the next generation of protecting and preserving the North.

“This recognition is a testament to the amazing work these graduate students are doing at the University of Manitoba,” says Kelley Main, acting dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies.

To be considered as a Weston Scholar in 2022, visit the Weston Family Awards in Northern Research website for more information including eligibility criteria and application deadlines.

UM also received support from the Tri-Agency Scholarships and Fellowships, which is seeing over $260 million awarded to more than 5,300 tri-agency scholarship and fellowship, and Canada Graduate Scholarship recipients.

“Congratulations to these chair holders on their success in being appointed to the prestigious Canada Research Chairs. They are now recognized as being among Canada’s best in their respective fields,” said Digvir Jayas, vice-president (research and international) and Distinguished Professor at the U of M. “Their research excellence will greatly benefit the learning experience of all the students they work with, and greatly enhance our collective efforts to drive discovery.”

The new chairs are:

Rotimi Aluko, Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences, Food and Human Nutritional Sciences, Canada Research Chair in Bioactive Peptides, Tier 1

Food proteins are not only nutritious, but they can also play a role in the body’s physiological functioning. In this latter context, they become known as “bioactive peptides” and what they do in the body depends on how their amino acids are arranged. However, this critical information is missing and therefore, the proposed research program will elucidate how the chain arrangement of amino acids affect potency of peptides against proteins that play critical roles in maintaining normal body functions. The outcome of the research will provide new peptide tools for improved human nutrition.

John Ataguba, Director of the Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town, coming to University of Manitoba’s Rady Faculty of Health Sciences as Canada Research Chair in Health Economics, Tier 2

Universal health coverage and social protection are relevant considerations, especially in low- and middle-income countries where inequality and poverty are prominent. The research objectives are to: 1) develop and apply a framework and metrics for assessing progress towards universal health coverage; 2) examine how critical social sectors drive inequalities in health and influence the attainment of universal health coverage; and 3) explore the drivers of inequality in ageing in Africa. This research agenda builds on existing work and focuses on low- and middle-income countries, especially Africa, to design social protection systems to achieve sustainable development goals.

Samar Safi-Harb, Faculty of Science, Physics and Astronomy, Canada Research Chair in Extreme Astrophysics, Tier 1

Formerly the Canada Research Chair in Supernova Remnants Astrophysics, the long-term goal of Safi-Harb’s program is to answer fundamental questions about the behaviour of matter in extreme environments unattainable on Earth, and the origin of the heavy elements and of high-energy cosmic rays driving the chemical and dynamical evolution of galaxies. Through her new CRC program, she will address these questions through high-resolution imaging, spectroscopic and multi-messenger observations, and modelling of high-energy astrophysical phenomena associated with stellar explosions. This program drives innovation in technology and provides unique opportunities for interdisciplinary collaborations and training personnel to tackle the large datasets that industry and government use today.