Marielle Lesperance of Ottawa, ON and Sara Klapstein of Antigonish, NS, both StFX BSc honours students in Physics and Environmental Sciences, will be among the 12 Environmental Sciences Research Centre (ESRC) researchers, graduate and undergraduate students from StFX presenting their research at the annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting in San Francisco from Dec. 14-18.
The AGU, a preeminent scientific society, is dedicated to the furtherance of research in the earth and space sciences by providing forums for scientific meetings and publications.
“It is very unusual for undergraduate students to have the opportunity to present their work at an AGU meeting,” says Dr. Hugo Beltrami, ESRC researcher and Marielle’s research and honours advisor.
“Generally, presenters at the AGU are top professional scientists and students at graduate or post-doctoral levels and that is why this is a special honour for these two undergraduates. This is becoming a regular occurrence for undergraduates in our centre as we have sent several undergraduates to international conferences during the past three years.”
Dr. Beltrami says both Marielle and Sara have worked very hard and dedicated a lot of time to their research and to furthering the research goals of himself, Earth Sciences professor Dr. Dave Risk and the ESRC. “Although I know they are nervous about presenting at the AGU, I also know that they are also excited about the networking possibilities that may result from this trip.”
Marielle was awarded a NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award (URSA) to support her climate research with Dr. Beltrami during the summer of 2009. She examined how borehole paleoclimatology methods can be applied to infer past ground surface temperature changes and to estimate the heat storage of the subsurface. Marielle used output from the simulations of the last 1,000 years of the Earth’s climate from the general circulation model ECHO-G at the GKSS in Hamburg, and she examined air and soil temperature data to assess how long-term trends in surface air temperature propagate and are recorded in the subsurface.
“I was really thrilled when I learned that I was awarded an NSERC URSA that would support my thesis research work with Dr. Hugo Beltrami during the summer of 2009,” she says. “It’s just a big bonus that Sara and I will get a trip to San Francisco where we might meet some of the scientists whose work we’ve read.
“I’m excited to be able to see the work of all the top scientists in this field, and the various options available for graduate studies. It is not an opportunity that is presented to most undergraduates, so I feel very privileged that I am able to go.”
Sara concurs.
“Attending AGU is a wonderful opportunity and is a huge accomplishment as an undergrad. I am excited to meet with potential graduate studies supervisors and see first hand the work of many scientists whose papers are integral to my current research!”
Sara held a University Council for Research (UCR) Award that partially supported her summer 2009 work with Dr. Dave Risk. She conducted paired lab-field experiments to explore the effect of changes in the physical environment and respiration of subsoil organic matter (SOM) in mineral soil. Her goal was to better understand how physical factors both affect labile and recalcitrant carbon because this is important for predicting future changes in the soil carbon pool, a pool that contains twice the amount of carbon than that of the atmosphere.
Dr. Robert van den Hoogen, StFX’s interim Dean of Science, who is partially supporting the students’ trip to this conference, is keen to spread the word about these types of opportunities for undergraduate students to participate in and share their research. “Since StFX works hard to offer students a high quality undergraduate education we are excited to be able to point to the hard work of Marielle and Sara and their AGU presentation opportunity as a demonstration of the ‘perks’ available to undergrads,” said the Dean.
“Once again the university is proud to help sponsor undergraduate students in attaining experience in doing and presenting innovative research. Acceptance of papers and posters at a very large international conference such as the AGU is a tremendous achievement and underscores the fact that undergraduate students do play a significant and valuable role within the research program of their supervisors. Having undergraduate students involved in research programs and working closely with faculty is all part of the Xperience,” he says.
Both undergraduate students were able to conduct their research, and are able to travel to the AGU meeting, because of strong research programs existing in the ESRC and Earth Sciences. “The ESRC faculty work hard to develop world-class research programs, and it is through these efforts that we are able to offer opportunities to deserving undergraduate students such as Marielle and Sara. It is fantastic to see the direct results these opportunities have upon the academic quality of the undergraduate student programs,” says Dr. Lisa Kellman, ESRC director.
Funding awarded to faculty members from the ESRC and Earth Sciences comes from the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences (CFCAS), the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the Atlantic Innovation Fund (AIF), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA).
Also participating at this conference are StFX MSc students Adam Jones, Gordon MacArthur, Chance Creelman, and Andrew MacDougall (SFU, BSc 2008 StFX), PhD students Bruce Stevens, Nick Nickerson, and researchers Drs. Gurpreet Matharoo, Hugo Beltrami, Dave Risk and Grant Ferguson.
Students interested in learning more about this, and related types of research at StFX should consult the following: http://esrc.stfx.ca/ and http://earthsciences.stfx.ca/